The Day Before report claims devs were fined for 'low quality' work by bosses

Some horrifying details surrounding last year’s failed survival horror extraction shooter The Day Before have just emerged thanks to a report by two German game outlets.

Although 2023 was the year of incredible game releases such as Alan Wake 2, Resident Evil 4, Baldur’s Gate 3 and more, it was also the year Fntastic’s The Day Before was released and if you were not aware, it had less than a positive outcome.

Take a look at The Day Before trailer below!

It was such a disaster that Fntastic soon shut its doors and the game was taken offline with the developers claiming The Day Before had “failed financially” and that they “lacked the funds to continue”.

Fast forward a few months later and things have gone from bad to worse courtesy of a report released by GameStar and Game Two which included interviews from 16 of Fntastic’s former employees, one volunteer and seven employees from publisher Mytona. In order to get to the bottom of what really went on behind closed doors, the German game outlets went in search of some answers and what they found is less than pretty.

According to the report, The Day Before originally started off with a 10-person team whose aim it was to create a small-scale survival game set in the winter and with cartoon-style graphics. However, it wasn’t long before the project snowballed, the team grew and alterations were demanded. Things were changed so much that there were three different versions of the game at one time.

With the development team “disappointed” with the changes, management at Fntastic soon started ramping up the pressure in order to stay up with industry trends. Developers were told to mimic features from huge properties such as Grand Theft Auto and Baldur’s Gate 3 and these unrealistic deadlines, the high pressure, and even threats seemingly came from brothers and Fntastic founders Eduard and Aisen Gotovtsev.

Despite claiming the team was “one big family,” the pair often reportedly threatened its employees with spontaneous firings with the brothers claiming this was a way to “motivate” the team. Furthermore, they would also rely on fines, with two developers receiving a $1,930 fine for handing in “low quality” voice recordings. Add that to a ridiculous crunch which reportedly saw developers working every weekend and it equalled a horrifyingly toxic workplace.