One of the most popular Early Access games ever to release on Steam is now 1 year old.
On Dec. 16, 2014, developer Bohemia Interactive unleashed the standalone version of DayZ on Steam. The open-world online zombie-survival game quickly shot up the network’s sales chart. More than 3 million people have purchased the game. Now, after consistently improving DayZ with updates that added things like new items, new weapons, and diseases, the studio is looking back on the progress it has made in the last 12 months.
Bohemia released the following video that features the games developers talking about why DayZ is so popular:
Developer Dean Hall, who created the original DayZ as a mod for Bohemia’s military shooter Arma 2, is leaving the project. He started his own team outside of Bohemia called RocketWerkz, which is based out of Hall’s home country of New Zealand. Bohemia’s David Durcak is taking over as the lead on the project.
“Firstly, I’d like to thank Dean Hall for leading the team for the past two years, and I wish him the best with his new studio,” said Durcak. “The growth of the DayZ team over the past 12 months will be integral to the prolonged success of the game. With the additional team members, we hope that throughout the upcoming year we will be able to create more content and a deeper experience for the DayZ audience. Plus, it will also enable us to significantly improve the technology for the standalone, and polish the features that we have.”
To reassure fans of the franchise that DayZ’s future is in fine hands, Durcak provided an updated development road map for features the team plans to release over the next 12 months.
Check it out:
First Quarter
- Basic vehicles
- Advanced loot distribution
- New renderer
- New Infected A.I.
- Basic stealth system (infected and animals)
- Diseases
- Improved cooking and horticulture
- Advanced anti-hack system (Dynamic BattlEye)
Second Quarter
- Advanced vehicles (repair and modifications)
- Advanced animals (life cycle, group behaviour)
- Player statistics
- New U.I.
- Player stamina
- Dynamic events
- World containers
- New physics system
Third Quarter
- Traps
- Barricading
- Character lifespan plus soft skills
- Animal predators plus birds
- Aerial transport
- Console prototype
- Advanced communication
Fourth Quarter
- Animal companions
- Steam community integration
- Construction (base-building)
- Beta version