New Report Says Day Before Devs Were ‘Fined’ for Bad Work

Highlights

• The Day Before’s development was chaotic, with regular changes in direction and incorporation of elements from other games.
• Employees at Fntastic were fined for turning in bad work, and some were terminated without warning. The studio founders, the Gotovtsev brothers, have since disappeared.
• The Day Before’s poor reception and disastrous launch resulted in its removal from Steam.

A new documentary has revealed how chaotic The Day Before‘s development really was, which included fines being issued to underperforming employees. The Day Before‘s controversial release angered many gamers, and it seems that its developers may have been just as frustrated.

On January 22, The Day Before officially shut down its servers after a short-lived and troublesome lifespan. The game had only just been released in December following multiple delays and a legal dispute. Despite the worrying signs, some fans still remained hopeful that The Day Before would live up to its promises. However, those hopes were quickly dashed once the game launched, which revealed its unfinished and broken state. The Day Before was in such poor condition that it’s no longer purchasable on Steam and sits at an Overwhelmingly Negative approval rating of 15%. While some details regarding its development have already been released, a new documentary has shined additional light on the game’s hectic production.

PC Gamer reported that a documentary produced by German gaming sites Game Two and GameStar interviewed 16 former Fntastic employees, which was the studio behind The Day Before. The ex-employees explained that the game’s development was a total mess and at the whims of the two brothers who founded the studio. Apparently, the Gotovtsev brothers would regularly change the direction of the game’s development to incorporate elements from new games they had played, such as Hogwarts Legacy, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Spider-Man 2. These changes affected core aspects of the game like its setting and character creator, and likely played a major role in its development spiraling out of control. One developer claimed that they didn’t even know The Day Before had become an MMO until they saw its trailer, which itself turned out to be a false advertisement. And unfortunately, the documentary’s new revelations only get worse.

New Details Regarding The Day Before’s Development

• Studio founders would regularly shift direction of development
• Employees fined for turning in bad work
• One developer didn’t know the game had become an MMO until they saw its trailer

Several sources claimed that Fntastic employees were fined for turning in bad work, with one voice actor made to pay $1,930 to the studio. The company would also terminate employees without warning, like when one of its testers was fired after one of the Gotovtsev brothers found a bug. Recently, Fntastic released a statement that blamed misinformation and a smear campaign for The Day Before‘s poor reception, but clearly, those don’t seem to be the true culprits behind the game’s disastrous launch.

The Gotovtsev brothers have since disappeared from the public eye, and no one, including Fntastic’s former employees, seems to know where they are. The game’s now infamous history and its removal from the Steam store have led The Day Before copies to be scalped for as high as $200, and its notorious release will likely go down as one of the worst and most memorable gaming moments in recent years.