Fntastic’s post-apoc shooter The Day Before has been a swirl of scandals and irregularities all through 2023. First announced in 2021, the game was supposed to drop gameplay footage last January ahead of a March launch, but right before the scheduled date, the game vanished from Steam and the devs said they were being targeted by the South Korean man who actually owned the trademark for the game’s name. Days later, the studio admitted it wasn’t just a trademark dispute that’d delayed the game to November; it was also the fact that the game needed a lot more work.
Well, Fntastic has resurfaced today with a glossy five-article spread in what it bizarrely characterizes as “Australia’s top gaming website,” a gaming website that appears to be significantly smaller than the highly niche MMORPG blog you’re reading right now.
- One piece is a single-question/answer article about Woodberry Survival Colony, which apparently is the social hub of the game where players can “seek employment” in jobs “from manual labor as a loader to showcasing artistic talent as a musician.” There are no hard details at all, but there is a rehash of the sauna video from earlier in the year.
- There’s a new car-chase trailer, which we’ll tuck down below. Devs don’t provide much detail here either, save to say players will be “purchasing houses and vehicles.” The houses are personalizable and “serve as a gathering point for friends within the game.” The studio apparently didn’t answer a question about microtransaction cosmetics, nor is it willing to discuss how many people will exist on a server.
- Don’t get too excited about sandbox elements, however, as a third article clarifies that the “game predominantly leans towards player-versus-player engagements” rather than zombie encounters with occasional “quests [centered] around the restoration of society.”
- Apparently, the November date won’t hold, at least for consoles. The fourth article promises console release dates after the PC launch on November 10th.
- Finally, the fifth article actually addresses the trademark dispute, but only briefly and in vague terms. Fntastic insists it was the “first to start using this name related to the video game,” suggests it’s pursuing “legal proceedings,” promises the “Steam page will be reinstated soon,” acknowledges it’s making use of more than 300 “unpaid external volunteers” (“We propose various tasks and invite interested volunteers to undertake them”), and slams “soulless corporations.”
Source: Discord, Well-Played
