It may come as a shock but almost five years after its initial release, the brutal online survival game DayZ finally launches beta. Unbelievable as it is, the internet mainstay has actually been in Early Access alpha this entire time.
A status report on the official DayZ website from Bohemia Interactive lead producer Eugen Harton explains that the Experimental branch has been updated with the first ever Beta incremental update.
“The update itself contains multiple features and tons of content. Just to name the headliners: all new base building, a new implementation of vehicles, player restraining, leaning and more. I’m excited about this first step to a more polished gameplay experience with more endgame goals to achieve.”
This is all in an effort to be able to release a 1.0 update to the game’s stable branch by the end of this year. The former Arma mod has been no stranger to bugs and issues during its development period. It’s no surprise there’s push to get fixes to major issues before DayZ finally launches beta on the standard servers.
Harton also stated that extra features such as content variety are important but will not be a focus until after the official 1.0 release.
After so many years in development, there’s some speculation as to whether or not the team will manage a release in this time frame. However, Harton believes the deadline is achievable. “There is about a month of real development left, and hopefully some you have noticed we have started fixing some really pressing issues in DayZ over the last week as we shuffled our priorities.”
“While there are large numbers of issues left, only about 600 of them are crucial to make DayZ work as intended. We plan to do exactly that. Fix features, stabilize the game and make it enjoyable after being weighed down by bugs for a very long time.”
