Fntastic's 'Honest New Game' Discovered To Be An Asset Flip by Dataminers

Less than 24 hours ago, Fntastic announced a grand return to game development with a ‘2.0’ rebrand and a new game called Escape Factory. Last year, the shady and deceptive developer released The Day Before, a rug-pull of a game that was taken offline days later, leaving thousands of players stunned and seeking refunds.

To accompany the return, the team at Fntastic put together a Kickstarter campaign to fund the development of new games and to get the studio back on its feet. It has gone down with the community as well as a cup of cold sick, and as the company attempts to distance itself from those speaking out against them, dataminers have made shocking (but expected) revelations.

Round 2

On social media, dataminers dug into Escape Factory, the free-to-play game assembled by Fntastic ‘2.0’. In particular, one user named ‘Occular Malice’ found that the game’s networking, lobby, and matchmaking mechanics are all examples of ‘Unity demo code’ that’s typically used by those learning to develop games.

Elsewhere, the majority of the game’s codebase is made up of assets simply ‘flipped’ from the Unity store, many of which are free to use.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Fntastic has been removing comments on the Steam forum talking about this ‘deception’. The team has also been actively blocking anyone on social media speaking negatively or critically about the game and the rebrand.

When we reported the news regarding Fntastic’s attempt to resurface around 18 hours ago, the Kickstarter campaign had reached just £154 out of a goal of £11,646. It’s now sitting on £370 with 23 backers – and speaking frankly, anyone deciding to back this campaign will have nobody to blame but themselves when it inevitably goes belly-up.

Despite claims of honesty, transparency, and professionalism, nothing in the world will make gamers trust Fntastic ever again, and it’s laughable that they’re even trying to make a comeback.

What are your thoughts on this fiasco? Let us know on the Insider Gaming forum.

For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Deadlock topped player charts on Steam in August