Dean "Rocket" Hall has announced that before the end of the year, a standalone version of the popular zombie survival mod DayZ, will be released. This will include a lot of bug fixes and a host of new features - as well as being priced far lower than traditional RRPs for new games.
"It's going to be cheap," Hall announced during his Eurogamer Expo speech. "[And] it has to be out before the end of the year. Not just because we've committed to it but in order to achieve what we have to do. It has to be. There's no 'we hope it is'; it has to be." The point of pricing the game at a low point, was to make sure plenty of people paid for it. Presumably he wants to prevent those that bought ARMA II to play the mod, feeling ripped off by a full price tag on the game that will essentially be a more polished version of the DayZ available at the moment.
He went on to explain that with more purchases, will come more features. However he did say it was going to be a slow burn to start with. While he hopes to have the game out and playable by December, as 2013 rolls around, the really ambitious stuff will begin. Some of those hinted at features include diseases that spread from faeces and vomit, dumping the user interface for a more tense experience, more hand to hand weaponry, splints for broken bones and more vehicles.
There are also big plans in terms of smoothing out the game experience and making it as bug free as possible. The current DayZ mod is awash with hackers that have caused big problems for the game. With a standalone version those will be much easier to combat. However Hall has promised that he will continue to develop the mod alongside the main game.
Yesterday I talked about how bored I was of Zombie games. What about you guys?