H1Z1 and PlanetSide 2 developers Daybreak Game Company went through another round of layoffs yesterday, though the number of employees affected is unknown. This is the third wave since the beginning of 2018.

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Daybreak Game Company have announced that Just Survive, the game that was originally H1Z1’s survival sandbox, will be shut down soon. They’ve already delisted the game from Steam, so no one new can buy it, but current owners can play until the servers close in October. H1Z1 will continue in its current battle royale form (previously called H1Z1: King of the Kill), after the two split off earlier in development.

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We’ve just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It’s a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you’ll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.

2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets. (more…)

H1Z1 continues to grow into its own as a bizarre group gaming experiment. The title, which split into two different games in 2016, has continue to split into even more sub-games this year. The current Battle Royale game mode has bolstered by Auto Royale, which allows single, duo, or quad teams to go Full Mario Kart on each other in a quickly diminishing map. And now there is a guided Rocket Launcher.

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H1Z1, the battle royale ’em up that Brendan “Playerunknown” Greene worked on before making his own Battlegrounds, is now going free-to-play. Developers Daybreak Game Company have announced that H1Z1 will switch to free-to-play at 10am PST (6pm UK time) today, which is a surprise coming only eight days after the game left early access. It seems a sensible move, given dwindling playercounts in the face of stiff competition from Plunkbat and especially Epic’s free-to-play Fortnite Battle Royale. Hell, I will now download it to at least have a go at that new Auto Royale mode which locks four players into a car as a squad battling with other fightcars. (more…)

H1Z1 has rolled out a major new update today, officially bringing the survive-y Battle Royale out of early access. Along with it, developers Daybreak have added a surprising new variant playmode, called Auto Royale. Auto Royale is a blend of regular Battle Royale systems and perennial PlayStation favorite Twisted Metal. (more…)

This month’s Humble Monthly is offering an early unlock of H1Z1 to those who subscribe. That’ll cost you $12 / 10 at the moment if you fancy it. H1Z1 is currently available from Steam for 14.99 / $19.99, so even if it’s the only game you want out of this Humble batch, you’re in a good place. (more…)

The current hot fad in multiplayer games is Battle Royale, you might have noticed, following in the wake of games like Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (boasting the highest playercount on Steam) and H1Z1: King of the Kill as well as Minecraft’s Hunger Games servers. Epic Games are now joining the Battle Royale battle of Battle Royale games with their early access craft-o-build-a-shooter Fortnite [official site], adding a new competitive 100-player mode. It’ll officially launch on September 26th but is already rolling out for players to test. Fortnite’s core solo and cooperative play is a bit bum but can this turn out better? (more…)

Come one, come all, but not all at once or you’ll break our caching, and see the Steam Charts in all their glory! Which game will have reached the coveted #2 position this week?! (more…)

Daybreak’s H1Z1: King of the Kill [official site] was once the king of the Battle Royale hill but has been dethroned — and how! — by Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds. The way forward, developers Daybreak Game Company say, is for H1Z1 to focus more on pace and action to offer a difference experience from the slower, more tactical of Plunkbat. Across future updates, they intend “to put less emphasis on the tedious aspects of looting and more emphasis on power progression and vehicles to speed up gameplay.” (more…)