Fntastic also had to postpone because of legal disputes over the name and was fed up with rumors of a scam going on.

The Day Before has disappeared from Steam. Fntastic announced the game in 2021, but shortly after the announcement, an individual trademarked the game’s name in the US. He contacted Fntastic on January 19 with a formal complaint. As a result, they had to postpone the game from March 1 to November 10, and the first gameplay video of The Day Before will not be released until later. The studio was accused of misleading the community on Twitter, Discord, and Reddit. Players say the trademark dispute is suspicious, and the studio is trying to hide the game’s development situation.

Eduard and Aisen Gotovtsev, the two co-founders of Fntastic, explained in a statement to IGN that the delay was planned before the trademark dispute: “We planned to move the game’s release before and plan to announce it with [publisher] Mytona in a ten-minute gameplay video, and then you all know what happened. So to be on the safe side, to ensure there are no more transfers, we, along with the publisher, chose November 10. That is a safe date, given the trademark dispute. When the game comes out, people will finally see the truth.”

The studio is confident the problem can be solved, and with the extra time, the zombie survival MMO (which immediately got a lot of attention in 2021) can launch in better shape. It was initially due out in June 2022, but Fntastic switched to Unreal Engine 5, and that’s when The Day Before got a nine-month delay to March this year (and we can add the extra eight months now). We heard from the team last year that some of the part-timers were working for free…

But here’s another statement from them: “We’ve been creating the game for four years. All these years have been full of sweat and blood to make this game, and for many members of our team, it is unpleasant to hear such accusations. We didn’t take a penny from people: no crowdfunding, pre-orders, or donations. The game is fully funded by Mytona, one of the largest mobile publishers in the world, who checked the game’s build at every milestone per our contract. […] We only believe in the final product. No matter what anyone says, you’ll see for yourself on November 10 this year.”

What a messy situation.

Source: Gamesindustry