Some time in the 14th century, an English anchoress named Julian of Norwich beheld a series of visions of Christ's passion while mortally ill, after which she miraculously recovered. Eventually, she would write her visions up into the Revelations of Divine Love, a groundbreaking work of mystical theology that would come to be regarded as a classic.
Anyway, it's got a sequel now, in the form of "Revelations from Fntastic," an incredibly odd PR statement in a long line of incredibly odd PR statements from the studio behind The Day Before, the zombie survival MMO (and Steam's second most-wishlisted game) that had go into deep freeze after it drew the ire of a calendar app.
Although the game's survival (and even existence) has looked questionable at various points over the course of this year, it's set to finally release this Thursday, December 7. Ahead of that, Fntastic has put out a statement aiming to address, well, a whole bunch of vaguely defined groups, from future players to people "who didn't believe in us" to the studio's own business partners.
Like a few of Fntastic's other public statements, the whole thing is delivered in a tone more appropriate for people about to face the guillotine. There is a perplexing level of gravitas to the whole thing, which I'll embed in its entirety below, but let me try to give you the gist. Of the statement's six bullet points—each addressed to a different hypothetical reader—the longest by far is the one made out to "a person who didn't believe in us," which begins by saying "We made this game for you, too. We accept any kind of criticism and don't hold a grudge against you."
Things continue from there. First up: "Please forgive us for not doing the best marketing and teasers," reads the statement, "We learn something new and improve ourselves every single day." Second, "Please don't accuse us of scamming; that's not true. We didn't take a penny from anyone." Third, "Please don't accuse us of asset flip; that's not true also. Our team worked day and night for five years to make our dream game a reality." The studio goes on to ask that people "don't underestimate our work; it wasn't easy."
That line is maybe the most awkward. Fntastic has come under fire before for calling for "volunteer" workers to put work in on The Day Before. While the studio does employ full-time workers (and, strangely, a select few "full-time volunteers" who work on a salaried basis, which doesn't sound very volunteer-like to me), it's not clear how much of that backbreaking work it refers to there has been done by unpaid volunteers.
I've reached out to ask Fntastic about that, and I'll update if I hear back.
The studio actually addresses those volunteers in this statement. "You have supported us through our darkest nights, and we look forward to sharing the best days ahead with you." If I were a volunteer, I wouldn't mind a share of the revenue, too.
That's the meat of it, although I couldn't help but chuckle when the statement addressed streamers and said Fntastic hopes "all the secrecy of The Day Before will help you make a ton of interesting content from the game." That is certainly one way of looking at it. That secrecy won't hold for long, though: The Day Before launches in two days on Steam. It's been a long road. Here's that statement in full.
📢 #thedaybefore #fntastic pic.twitter.com/nKJ3mqSHntDecember 4, 2023
