Tencent has continued its investment spree, this time in Arma and DayZ studio Bohemia.

The Chinese mega corp has acquired a minority stake in Bohemia Interactive, which is based in the Czech Republic. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.

Bohemia boss Marek Španěl insisted his company will continue to operate independently and be led by the existing management team. The initial plan is to bring Bohemia's PC and mobile sandbox creation platform Ylands to Chinese players.

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DayZ and Arma 3 developer Bohemia Interactive has moved to quash recent reports claiming Chinese conglomerate Tencent had purchased a majority share of the studio.

News of the acquisition first surfaced in a story by tech industry website The Information, which reported that Tencent had acquired a 70-80% stake in Bohemia Interactive for around $260m USD, citing "a person familiar with the matter" as its source.

However, in a new statement released to press, a Bohemia Interactive spokesperson has refuted the website's claims. "The information in that article is incorrect," they said, "Tencent has not purchased a stake in Bohemia Interactive and it remains an independent studio."

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There's plenty to keep Xbox Game Pass subscribers busy this month, as survival title DayZ is joining the console version of the pass along with several other big titles. Good thing we've all got a lot of time on our hands.

Starting 7th May, subscribers will be able to access both DayZ and Red Dead Redemption 2, the latter of which has already been announced for Game Pass (at the loss of GTA 5). The week after on 14th May, Final Fantasy 9 will become available, while on 19th May you can try out Fractured Minds - an indie game by Wired Productions about anxiety and mental health. To see the full list of games available on Game Pass this month, make sure to check out our guide here.

On the PC version of the Game Pass, meanwhile, you'll be able to get your hands on Halo 2: Anniversary edition from 12th May, which comes with support for 4k UHD, 60+FPS and ultra-wide monitors.

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It was hardly a joint decision, but following the Australian Classification Board's ruling that DayZ would be banned from sale for its depiction of drugs, Bohemia Interactive has announced it will edit the game to bring it in line with Australian rules. For all versions worldwide.

Last week, news broke that the ACB had rejected the physical release of DayZ thanks to "illicit or prescribed drug use related to incentives", specifically, the use of cannabis as a reward - even though the drug was not yet implemented in the game. Despite DayZ having been available in digital form for five years, the ACB indicated it would also work to get the game pulled from digital storefronts.

Faced with a complete ban across Australia, the simplest thing for Bohemia Interactive to do was change the game, and the studio has now confirmed to Kotaku Australia this is the plan.

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A couple of days ago, news outlets reported DayZ's physical release had been refused classification in Australia - despite the game having been out in digital form for five years. The reason for this, according to the Australian Classification Board's listing, was that it was deemed to "depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified".

Obviously, that's a pretty broad spectrum.

Thanks to a report seen by Kotaku Australia earlier today, we now know exactly why the game has been blocked from release, and the situation is weirder than first thought. Namely, it's about cannabis - something that currently isn't active in DayZ - and the ACB is apparently working towards getting the game's digital version banned too.

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Bohemia Interactive's multiplayer zombie survival game, DayZ, a title that's been legally available in Australia for over five years, has been refused an age rating by the Australian Classification Board, effectively banning it from sale - but it's a restriction that, rather absurdly, only applies to the upcoming physical release.

While Bohemia Interactive is publisher of DayZ's digital version, which has been available on Steam since 2013, the upcoming physical version is being handled by distributor Five Star Games. And it's this latter version that has (as spotted by Ref Classification on Twitter) fallen foul of the Australian Classification Board's notoriously draconian rules.

According to DayZ's listing, actually dated June 4th but only surfacing now, the game has been refused classification as it was deemed to "depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified."

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The next episode of Inside Xbox will livestream next Tuesday, March 12th, and will bring, among other things, "exciting news" about Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

If you're looking for exact times to put in your diary, Inside Xbox begins at 10pm, March 12th in the UK (that's 2pm PT), and will last around an hour - a marked improvement on previous instalments, which, some say, are still going on to this day.

In amongst your usual prescribed dose of Inside Xbox banter, Microsoft is promising news on DayZ, One Piece World Seeker, and Xbox Game Pass. There is also, of course, the aforementioned "exciting news" involving Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

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Bohemia Interactive has announced that the PC version of its long-in-development online zombie survival game DayZ will leave early access and launch in its 1.0 guise next week, on December 13th.

It's been a lengthy journey for DayZ, of course; the game started life as a fan-made mod for Bohemia's Arma 2 in 2012, and was an almost immediate hit, reaching one million players in the first four months of its release. As a result of its popularity, Bohemia made the decision take on the project in an official capacity, and early access development of a standalone version, with original creator Dean Hall at the helm, began in 2013.

Since then, much has changed; Hall left the project to start his own studio in 2014, and the originally PC-only game is now available as part of Xbox One's Game Preview programme, with a PS4 release also planned. After years of seemingly glacial development progress, DayZ eventually entered beta in November, with a full release pencilled in for the end of 2018.

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Ageing online survival game DayZ is finally launching a beta build, nearly five years after it first arrived as a standalone release.

Up until now, DayZ has only been available in a version labelled as an Early Access alpha. Development progress has been slow, to put it lightly.

But a fresh update from Bohemia Interactive lead producer Eugen Harton has laid out an ambitious plan - to freeze the deployment of new items and focus on "bugfixing, polishing and balancing" to get the game ready for a full version 1.0 release before the year's end.

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DayZ will finally - after more than four years - shed the Steam Early Access label and launch in 2018.

Czech developer Bohemia committed to a console - Xbox - version in 2018 as well.

"DayZ will be out of Early Access next year," wrote Bohemia in an end-of-year DayZ update, "and we'll also finally deliver it to console players in 2018.

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