The Day Before is one of the most anticipated upcoming games on PC, with most of that popularity coming from Steam wishlists. According to developer Fntastic, The Day Before is now delayed to March 2023 – but it has also come to light that the team is made up of unpaid and paid “volunteers”.
Survival game The Day Before is the most wishlisted game on Steam – higher than even the likes of Hollow Knight: Silksong and Starfield – and was originally out June 21 before receiving a big delay to 2023, which the team confirmed to IGN is to implement Unreal Engine 5 in the open-world game.
While this seems a rather tall order, the more surprising fact (as spotted by WellPlayed’s Zach Jackson) is that Fntastic has now updated its website to reveal that the team consists of many unpaid workers. “Fntastic’s culture is based on the idea of volunteering,” states the site. “This means that every Fntastic member is a volunteer.”
In an odd turn of phrase, this includes “full-time volunteers” who, um, “work for salaries.” Fntastic admits that the number of its paid volunteers is “limited” and the majority of team members consists of part-time volunteers who are unpaid and compensated with “cool rewards, participation certificates, and free codes.”
These unpaid volunteers can be responsible for anything from “translating to community moderating” but also “can offer their unique skills to improve our projects or create new special features.” For an Unreal Engine 5 open-world survival game, that’s a lot of special features.
The Day Before is out on March 1, 2023. Unless it receives another delay, of course.