We’re probably going to get a whole bunch more zombie and survival games thanks to DayZ
The PC shooter, which has players trying to cope with a world crawling with undead, is continuing to find success on Steam’s Early Access program. Today, DayZ lead designer Dean Hall revealed that studio Bohemia Interactive has sold over 1 million copies in less than a month.
The game has reached that milestone in under four weeks. DayZ launched on Steam and on the DayZ website for $30 on Dec. 16. It’s still in an early “alpha” testing phase. Gamers that pay to get the game in its current state will get all future updates to the title at no additional charge even if the studio decides to charge more for the final release.
“Well, 1 million copies in 4 weeks,” Hall wrote on Twitter. “So much for the death of PC gaming.”
DayZ has players joining servers with hundreds of other gamers. They must compete for weapons and resources in a zombie apocalypse. The open-world mechanics create many circumstances of emergent gameplay. For example, here’s a roving gang of bandits that make two people in yellow coats fight because, of course, we can have only one yellow coat per group:
When asked if the sales performance of DayZ met with his expectations, Hall said that they were “way, way beyond” what he was anticipating.
“This gives me a mandate now to make all the crazy games I ever wanted,” he wrote.
Well, as long as he finishes DayZ first.