"Before the Apocalypse" is a game that entered Early Access on Steam on December 8, 2023, but due to unstable servers and quality issues, less than a week after its release, developer Fntastic announced the closure of the studio, the end of development of "Before the End" and the start of the refund process. In this regard, the game channel Game Two on YouTube and the overseas **GameStar teamed up to investigate the situation of FNTASTIC. After interviewing 16 former employees and 1 volunteer, as well as 7 employees of the publisher Mytona, we learned a lot about the information behind the development. 
Originally established in Yakutsk, Sakha Republic, by brothers Eduard Gotovtsev and Aisen Gotovtsev, Fntastic moved Studio Base to Singapore during the development of Before the End. At the beginning of the development of "Before the End", the studio had about 20 members, half of whom were working on the mobile game project and the other half were working on "Before the End". Compared to the initial planning of the project and its final product, they are basically two games, and the biggest common denominator is probably zombies. Originally, it was planned to be a small-scale survival game in the ** style, and the story stage was not in the city, but in a rural town. Comes with a short story flow and co-op elements. Later, because the management adjusted the development policy, the "Before the Apocalypse" was converted into a triple-A project for development. 
At the same time, there is also a project called "Propnight", and it is worth mentioning that the development team of this project is used as a "pre-apocalypse" boot camp in the studio, and new employees will work in this development team. If the new employee is doing well, he or she will be transferred to the Pre-Doom development team. Under this development system, "Before the Apocalypse" officially announced the actual demo of the game in 2021. It's just that the ** announced at that time was specially used for announcement**, the burden on the CPU is very high and there is no optimization, this version is impossible to play at all. 
In addition, according to the testimonies of some employees, the Gotovtsev brothers, who are the CEO of the studio, have very explicit management methods within the company, such as the dismissal of employees on the grounds that they are not motivated, and they will specially notify them in the company group. In addition, fines are imposed for mistakes at work, such as two former employees who said that they had been fined a portion of their wages by the CEO for poor recording quality. In addition, the intensity of daily work is also very high, and for up to a year and a half, you can only take a single break, including two months without any vacation at all, and even the time for bathing and eating needs to be applied for to squeeze out. 
And why do you continue to work after such a difficult working environment, according to Game Two's interview, many employees are from countries where there are few game development opportunities such as Kazakhstan and Armenia, and working in this studio is the first job for many young people as game developers. In order to prevent these employees from leaving, the studio paid for the equipment with a portion of the employees' salaries when they prepared the necessary work equipment, and if they left, they would have to take on high debts, which also forced many employees to continue working. Finally, in the months leading up to the studio's closure, the Gotovtsev brothers planned to develop a completely new mobile game, and after the studio closed, some of the employees who had been laid off also received offers. Not long ago, Fntastic's official X account posted a tweet hinting at reopening the studio, but it was deleted shortly after. Maybe the Gotovtsev brothers still want to stay in the game industry, but after the Game Two channel**, I am afraid that they will encounter many difficulties in terms of their credit today.