The Day Before studio now asking community to design maps for free in newly launched "contest"

Fntastic, the developer behind last year's widely derided zombie shooter The Day Before, is - having already been embroiled in controversy over its use of hundreds of unpaid vounteers - now asking community members to design maps to put in its next game as part of a newly announced "contest", but it won't be paying winners for their work.

Fntastic's erratic history stretches back a fair distance, but the studio is perhaps best known for the debacle surrounding last year's The Day Before. Fntastic's open-world zombie MMO first made headlines with a striking reveal trailer back in 2021 - catapulting the game to the top of Steam's most wishlisted titles - but its lustre soon began to fade amid repeated (and sometimes bizarre) delays, alongside frequent accusations it was a scam.

While Fntastic repeatedly denied those claims, The Day Before's eventual early access launch last December didn't exactly do much to dispel player concerns. The game that launched bore little resemblance to Fntastic's initial trailer and, with Steam reviews soon tipping into Overwhelmingly Negative, Fntastic suddenly announced it was shutting down just four days later, saying it had "failed financially".

But somewhat amazingly, that wasn't the end of the whole saga. In January, Fntastic resurfaced, blaming The Day Before's failure on a "hate campaign", and February brought word of toxic management practices at the studio. But despite all this, Fntastic returned in September to announce a "2.0" launch promising more "honesty", "transparency" and "professionalism" - alongside a Kickstarter campaign for a physics-based multiplayer game called Escape Factory. A month later, the Kickstarter was dead due to a lack of interest, but Fntastic still wasn't done and immediately announced a new "action-horror prop hunt" game called Items.

And all of that lengthy pre-amble finally brings us to the present, where Fntastic has - not for the first time - decided it wants other people to help develop its game for free. Although, unlike its previous dalliance with "unpaid volunteers", the studio is dressing this particular opportunity up as a competition. "We're thrilled to announce our first-ever contest," the developer wrote on its Discord (as spotted by The Gamer), "Design a Map for ITEMS!".

"This contest is a chance for you to unleash your creativity," it continued, "by designing a map card that, if it wins, will be added to the game in future updates!"

Fntastic says it's happy to accept entries as a 2D drawing, 3D model, or "any other style", but there's more participants are expected to do. Submissions must include images or artwork, a map name and description, its theme, layout, even balance considerations. Despite that small shopping list of requirements, Fntastic won't be paying anyone for their work, but winners will see their map "fully designed and playable in the game", with their name displayed on it "somewhere", and - assuming it ever materialises - a free copy of Items itself.

A little over 24 hours after announcing the competition, four entries have been submitted.