Something strange is going on with Fntastic and their upcoming MMO The Day Before, that seems set to delay the game by another nine months.
A few hours ago The Day Before was delisted on Steam. Fntastic claimed at the time that this was only due to a bug related to Steam maintenance, but our source confirmed that the listing remained missing after the maintenance period had ended.
Sometime after that Fntastic themselves shared this statement:
Dear fans!
Right before the release, Steam blocked our game page at the request of a private individual, because of the name The Day Before.
As you know, our game was announced in January 2021. At the time of the announcement, The Day Before game trademark was available.
After the announcement of the game, the above mentioned individual filled out an application before us to register the game trademark The Day Before in the United States:
https://uspto.report/TM/79314174
What’s next?
Previously, we were not aware of the existence of claims. We found out about this only on January 23, 2023, when we received a complaint from him and a request to contact him,
Now we find out all the circumstances of the incident and we will definitely solve everything.
We previously planned to post a lengthy gameplay video later this month, but we’ll have to sort this issue out first. We will post a video asap.
As a result, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the launch to November 10, 2023. We understand this may disappoint many of our fans, however we want to ensure we release the best possible game.
Our 100 % focus remains on the game itself and how to deliver you the best game possible.
Thank you and we hope for your support.
Sincerely,
MYTONA and FNTASTIC”
As Fntastic had stated, The Day Before legitimately held a long record of being one of the most anticipated games on Steam, seemingly based on the strength of their teaser trailers. Fntastic describes themselves as a company made entirely of volunteers, and aside from The Day Before, has made only one other game, Propnight. Propnight is a four versus one horror game in the same mold as Dead by Daylight. Aside from this, they made a remote work productivity app called Continent.
Our coverage of The Day Before has been quite extensive, though it is notable that we hadn’t learned much about the game through the years, as compared to other releases from more well known video game companies. Months after the initial reveal, Fntastic shared a trailer with a projected release date of June 21, 2022, for PC only. A year later, they revealed they had moved to Unreal Engine 5, and that the game was now projected to release on March 1, 2023.
Their latest trailer, released earlier this month, reiterated that projected release date. Just last week, finally, they promised to share new gameplay footage soon. As we now know, even that preview is now going to be delayed.
In spite of the hype, we don’t quite know what to expect from The Day Before. The company describes it as an MMO survival game, in a zombie ridden America. We also received some technological previews of how the game looks with RTX, but no story or character previews, gameplay open betas, Early Access period, or other things that would help spread the word about the game, and also give players an opportunity to be part of its development.
It is still entirely possible that we will be getting a great game from Fntastic in the end, but if the company will be dealing with copyright trolling in the near future, we unfortunately will be waiting a bit longer than necessary to find out.
