The Day Before - A Scam To Remember

Summary

The video recounts how The Day Before went from a highly wishlisted zombie-survival game to a delisted release and the closure of its developer, Fntastic, in only a few days.

How the controversy unfolded

• Fntastic’s early trailers showed a polished, wintry post-apocalyptic city, vehicles, combat, base building, crafting, and PvP. The game was presented as an ambitious open-world survival MMO and became Steam’s most wishlisted game.
• The narrator says the studio’s previous projects—including Wild Eight, Dead Dozen, and Propnight—gave little reason to expect it could deliver what the trailers promised.
• A month before the original June 2022 release date, Fntastic delayed the game and announced a move from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5. The narrator and developers he consulted considered the timing suspicious.
• Reporting by WellPlayed raised questions about Fntastic’s “volunteers”: the studio described some as unpaid while calling paid workers “full-time volunteers.” Fntastic also promoted a collaboration app called Continent, leading the narrator to suspect the game might be drawing attention to a separate product.
• In January 2023, Steam removed the game after a Korean calendar-app owner raised a trademark claim over the name. Fntastic cited the dispute as a reason for delaying the game and withholding promised gameplay, though it later told IGN it had already planned a delay.
• When Fntastic eventually showed gameplay, the narrator highlighted similarities to The Division and alleged copied shots or ideas from other games and media. The footage itself looked far less polished than the original trailers.
• The game was delayed again, relisted, and changed from a planned full release to Early Access. Just before launch, Fntastic deleted its old promotional videos. The game launched on December 7, 2023.

What the released game was like

Rather than the open-world survival MMO advertised, the narrator found a thin, unfinished extraction shooter:

• Players took missions to collect items, entered a separate city map, looted, and tried to return to base. Dying meant losing carried gear.
• The base and its NPCs offered little story or purpose. Base building was largely cosmetic, with no meaningful gameplay utility.
• Movement and looting felt clumsy: players could not mantle ordinary ledges, and interacting with containers was finicky.
• The city felt empty, with few zombies and little enemy variety. Zombies posed little threat, while PvP could quickly strip a player of their equipment.
• The game launched without melee combat. Players who lost their weapons could be left searching for a long time to find another.
• Server problems, delayed shooting, bugs, and character soft-locks further undermined the experience. The narrator says he stopped playing after a few hours because the game felt bare and boring.

Fallout and takeaways

• The game launched with roughly 38,000 concurrent Steam players, but its player count fell rapidly as players encountered problems and sought refunds. The video cites an unconfirmed report of about 200,000 sales, with around 91,000 refunds.
• Steam reviews turned overwhelmingly negative. Players also investigated the game’s files and questioned Fntastic’s claim that it had spent five years developing it, pointing to possible use of store-bought assets. The video stresses that using assets is not inherently wrong; the concern was the gap between the promises and the released game.
• Four days after launch, Fntastic announced it was closing, saying the game had failed financially and it lacked funds to continue. The narrator contrasts that statement with reported company filings and launch revenue, while noting that the figures do not establish exactly what happened to the money.
• Valve delisted the game, and Fntastic removed its social accounts and videos. Publisher Mytona offered refunds, but the narrator argues that players who did not follow the controversy might not know to request one.
• The video’s broader warning is that impressive trailers and hype can still persuade large numbers of players, even when doubts are public. It presents The Day Before as an especially brazen bait-and-switch and a cautionary episode in gaming history.

Gamers and sources mentioned

• Skill Up — The channel and video; the metadata credits Ralph P as writer and narrator and Austin B as editor.
• IGN — Hosted the early trailers, interviewed Fntastic, and reviewed the game.
• WellPlayed.com.au — Reported on Fntastic’s volunteer arrangements.
• Philip Gregoire, lead game designer at Eidos-Montréal — Cited in discussion of the Unreal Engine transition.
• Developers from Massive Entertainment — The narrator says they contacted him about the early trailer’s similarities to The Division.
• Steam/Valve, Reddit users, and Game Dev Twitter — Cited in the video’s discussion of the game, development claims, refunds, and assets.
• Aloysius Low — Visited Fntastic’s listed Singapore addresses and examined company filings.
• Randomly, a YouTuber — Credited with a compilation comparing trailer material.
• An unnamed journalist friend and an unnamed Fntastic Discord moderator are also discussed.
• Other games and works referenced include The Division, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, I Am Legend, DayZ, and Icarus.