SINGAPORE: Singapore-based video game studio Fntastic announced its closure on Tuesday (Dec 12), just five days after the launch of its highly-anticipated game The Day Before flopped.

“Today, we announce the closure of Fntastic studio,” the company, which was created in Russia and headquartered in Singapore, said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Unfortunately, The Day Before has failed financially, and we lack the funds to continue. All income received is being used to pay off debts to our partners.

“We apologise if we didn’t meet your expectations. We did everything within our power, but unfortunately, we miscalculated our capabilities.” 

An open-world post-apocalyptic survival massively multiplayer online game (MMO), The Day Before was originally set to release in June 2022 before being delayed.

It was still among digital distribution service Steam’s most wishlisted games – several trailers served to build up the hype – only to receive overwhelmingly negative reviews on launch day, with users reporting of game-breaking bugs, crashes, poor performance and multiplayer server issues. 

According to Steam’s most played statistics, the game had over 38,000 concurrent players on Dec 7, but that figure dwindled to just over 3,000 across four days, becoming one of the 10 worst-reviewed games of all time on the platform.

Gamers who had paid the early-access price of US$39 were left angered, with many users demanding a refund after the game failed to live up to its promises. A tweet by Fntastic, calling The Day Before “our first big experience” and that “shit happens” only stoked further criticism. 

“Unbelievable that you guys hyped this game up so much and this is the end result,” a user on X said. “You guys are an absolute disgrace to the video game industry.” 

xQc, who is one of the most popular streamers on gaming site Twitch with over 10 million followers, lambasted the game as “flat-out deceiving”, saying on a recent Twitch stream that The Day Before is “not an MMO, not an open world”. 

Users on Reddit also labelled the game as an “abomination” and called for a boycott. 

In response to the criticism, Fntastic said that it is “important to note” that we did not take any money from the public during the development of The Day Before and that its team had “worked tirelessly for five years, pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into the game”. 

The Day Before’s publisher Mytona posted a statement on X on Tuesday, saying that it was “sorry for the fact that the game didn’t meet the expectations of the majority of the players”.

“Today we will work with Steam to open up refunds for any players who choose to make a refund.”

Fntastic has since shut down its website and several of its social media accounts, including its YouTube channel and LinkedIn page.

The game is still listed on Steam, but is no longer purchasable.