You may have heard about this cute little mod for ArmA II where man fights man and where there are also zombies. DayZ. Might ring a bell. That cute little mod was responsible for selling more copies of ArmA II than the game sold on its own. And recently broke through the one million players barrier.
The allure of DayZ is that it’s a hyper realistic take on your standard zombie apocalypse. You have to eat, you have to drink, you have to care for your wounds or you’ll quickly bleed out. Oh, and it’s one of the games out there with the darkest nights ever. Also, it’s a permadeath game where once your character dies, you’ll start from scratch. And people usually die quite a lot in that game, since, well, it’s hyper realistic survival horror. With a stress on survival.
Today the lead designer of Day Z announced that this cute little mod is now on its way to become a standalone product, hopefully making the installation process a lot easier. Day Z standalone will follow the Minecraft distribution model of cheap alpha access that buys you the finished version of the game once it’s done. I predict many sleepless nights, intense firefights and shed tears of rage for dead characters.