Yesterday we learned the popular zombie survival mod for ARMA II, DayZ, will be developed as a standalone game.
The developer of the mod, Dean “Rocket” Hall, made a blog post on the DayZ Tumblr that he will serve as project lead and Bohemia Interactive (the same guys who make the ARMA games) will develop and publish the game. “The project will follow the Minecraft development model; fast iterations with the community alpha available for a heavily discounted price,” wrote Hall as part of his personal announcement.
The mod is less than 6 months old, but has made such a huge impact on gaming that it has boosted sales of ARMA II to record numbers and made it a top seller on Steam for weeks. Just a couple days ago DayZ reached over 1 million unique players, so it’s not surprising that Bohemia Interactive is attempting to capitalize on that success by publishing a full-fledged game. Whether or not the standalone DayZ game will please fans of the mod remains to be seen.
A website for the production of the standalone game has been made, but lacks significant content at the moment. Keep your attention there for progress.
Though incredibly popular, fun and immersive, the mod was not without faults. Being built on a military battle simulator certainly helped the post-apocalyptic Chernarus landscape feel more realistic, but the bugs and awkward controls came along with it. Now that it is being built as a separate entity, the producers will be able to smoothly add in features while creating a zombie survival game from the start. Of course, the DayZ mod itself is still in an alpha stage and is expected to be developed in parallel with the standalone game, so fans of the mod should continue to receive new updates.