Following in the footsteps of legendary projects like Counter-Striker and Team Fortress, Arma 2’s mod DayZ, which is all the rage currently, will be turned into a standalone game, announced its makers. Such was its rise to fame that the three year old game for which it was built, jumped to the top seller charts on Steam following the release of the mod.
Bohemia Interactive, the studio behind the development of Arma 2, will be guiding this project, revealed the modders. Meanwhile, updates for the current mod will continue to be doled out regularly. The creation of the standalone title will follow the Minecraft development model. This means that the community will be involved heavily in the process with alpha and beta versions being made available to them at discounted prices.
“That’s right, this is actually happening – DayZ will be developed as a standalone game, with me as project lead, by Bohemia Interactive. This is the fairy-tale outcome for a mod that many would have said impossible four months ago. Development and updates of the mod will continue in parallel with the development of the game, so anyone who is playing the mod now will be able to continue to do so,” explained Dean ‘Rocket’ Hall, from the DayZ team.
The gameplay of DayZ transpires in a fictional post-soviet state of Chernarus. Here, an unknown virus has turned the entire population into zombies, while the military force of the region too has been devastated. Gamers play as a human survivor who must go all out to stay alive in the zombie apocalypse. Searching for food, water, weapons and medicine as well as avoiding both zombies and other players are some of the scenarios involved.
A definite release date for the standalone Dayz title hasn’t been disclosed yet. For now, gamers can play it by purchasing Arma 2 and downloading the mod.