Controversial, PC-only shooter The Day Earlier than is formally useless, barely a month and a half after its launch. Steam’s much-hyped zombie recreation, which noticed developer Fntastic shutter its doorways virtually instantly after launch, is now completely unplayable. For a number of weeks following its disastrous debut, it existed in a state of limbo, however on January 22, The Day Earlier than’s servers had been switched off and numerous different points linked to the sport, equivalent to its official web site, now not perform. RIP.
Learn Extra: Dev Behind Controversial Shooter The Day Earlier than Shuts Down Days After Large Steam Launch [Update]
The Day Earlier than was one in every of Steam’s most wishlisted titles of 2023, whereas courting controversy amongst players and business members. The dev workforce incentivized volunteers to work on the challenge by providing “free codes” and “participation certificates” and in January of 2023, the sport was pulled from Valve’s recreation distribution platform over supposed trademark points that resulted in a nine-month delay. To place it bluntly, Fntastic’s zombie survival MMO has confronted a litany of issues on the highway to—and after—its early entry launch on December 7, 2023. It was a dramatic saga that led to flames as The Day Earlier than had ceased operations mere days after its large launch on Steam.
Now, as reported by IGN, the sport’s servers are formally useless and buried. We already knew that The Day Earlier than’s servers would shut down as we speak; Fntastic said as much on X/Twitter on December 22. Effectively, the time has come. Pour one out for The Day Earlier than, y’all.
The newly useless servers aren’t the one indication that the sport, and the workforce behind it, are fading away like The Avengers after the snap. Fntastic hasn’t tweeted since that December 22 announcement, The Day Earlier than’s web site license has expired, and Fntastic’s web site is now only a JPEG asserting the studio’s closure as of December 12. That’s a useless recreation if I’ve ever seen one.
Across the time that The Day Earlier than was burning down, writer Mytona promised that refunds would get issued mechanically to any participant who requested one. Curiously, for those who test Mytona’s web site now, The Day Earlier than will not be listed anyplace. It appears we’re again to the day earlier than The Day Earlier than got here out. Shit occurs, amirite?
Kotaku has reached out to Mytona for remark.
Learn Extra: The Day Earlier than Dev Says ‘Shit Occurs’ As It Deletes All the things
The Day Earlier than wasn’t a very good recreation. It had game-breaking bugs that blocked progress, glitches that noticed environments disappear, flaws that triggered characters to get caught on the planet, and many extra issues. Perhaps it’s higher that the sport received taken out to pasture, however with 2023 seeing 60 video games die and this 12 months seeing greater than 3,400 business layoffs in simply its first few weeks, it’s nonetheless a bummer when any recreation will get killed off because the business slowly consolidates and retracts.