Six years in the works (counting its time as an Arma 2 mod) and Bohemia Interactive’s zombie survival sandbox DayZ has left early access, flinging open its doors for a free launch weekend. Snag it here on Steam before December 17th and you too can enjoy hiking through the rain across the sprawling, bleak land of Chernarus. Maybe you’ll even find weaponry and shelter before zombies or other humans do you in. Having not played it since its early days as a mod (I feel very old, suddenly), I went for a jaunt around Chernarus last night. Thoughts and a launch trailer below.
The prophecy has come to pass: DayZ has left Early Access. The patch bringing it to version 1.0 is now live on all servers, and as an added bonus, the multiplayer survival game is free to play from now until December 17. See the launch trailer—wow, it really, actually launched—above.
As for pricing, you can buy DayZ for 15 percent off its Early Access price on Steam from now until Monday, at which point the price will go up.
"Over the past days the team has come closer together and worked more passionately than ever to make this important leap happen," reads a post on DayZ's site. "And of course, we have seen the support from our community, be it in Tweets, PMs or via Reddit. We want to thank every single one of you for your patience and endurance through the years."
I suspect there may be a hotfix in order: I've been watching TheRunningManZ as he's been streaming the 1.0 patch on the experimental server today, and his framerates have been much lower than usual, around 20-25 fps at best from what I've seen. Hopefully that will be sorted out soon: a tweet from the DayZ account says the issue is being looked into.
Update: A fix has arrived that will hopefully solve the fps issue. Restart Steam to see if it helps.
Not-being-eaten-by-zombies simulator DayZ has had a huge impact on gaming over its six years of development, arguably inspiring the all-consuming tide of battle royale shooters. Not bad considering that it’s still not out yet. The end is very nearly in sight, though – Bohemia Interactive say it’s leaving early access next Thursday, December 13th, after a whirlwind run of beta testing. It recently added base-building, upgraded animal AI and integrated mod support, and began a major round of bug-hunting. Below, a near-final trailer, giving us a peek at its eastern European apocalypse.
Survival game DayZ entered Early Access in December of 2013. It's taken six years, but DayZ 1.0 will be released on PC next week. On December 13, DayZ will finally leave Early Access behind.
Here's a thirty second trailer that probably won't knock your socks off because it's terrible, but hopefully it signifies that Bohemia Interactive is simply too busy working on the actual game to edit an awesome sizzle reel together:
Bohemia has said DayZ 1.0 isn't the end of development, especially since a number of expected features won't make it into the launch version of the game next week. For instance, grenades will be a no-show in 1.0, which would seem like a pretty standard feature in a survival shooter. Base-building, on the other hand, which has been tested on experimental servers for the past couple of months, will be included.
It's been a long road for DayZ, which midway through development switched game engines, slowing things down considerably. It also saw the departure of creator Dean Hall in 2014, as well as creative director Brian Hicks earlier this year.
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.
It might have been the spark that lit the battle royale inferno that consumed the industry, but zombie survival sandbox DayZ has been largely forgotten, languishing in early access. The end is finally within sight for the former Arma 2 mod, as its first beta build has officially rolled out today, a major release with the aim of preparing the game for a final launch by the end of 2018. The new beta release brings significant engine changes, base building, a map overhaul and more. Check out the patch notes here and the accompanying dev log video below