The War Z has just launched on Steam. Actually, "launched" is probably the wrong word to use, given that the game hasn't even reached the metaphorical launch pad, and is still being ferried along by one of those giant, slow moving platforms they use to bring the games out of the giant warehouses they're developed in. Whatever's happening, The War Z has just appeared on Steam in some strange prototype form. It's not finished — Hammerpoint are calling it a 'Foundation Release', which means that it's missing a whole bunch of features — but you are invited to spend your cash today on the promise of updates tomorrow.
Update: Hammerpoint have changed the Steam store page to reflect the current state of The War Z, separating features they hope to include from ones that are currently in-game. Though some faults still remain.
Original Story:
Alarmingly, as Reddit users note, many of the features listed on the game's store page are presently erroneous, taken as they are from the notional completed version of the game that, as of today, does not yet exist. Chief among the unsubstantiated claims are that The War Z comes with more than one map (it's only got one) and that each map is between 100 and 400 square kilometres (it's difficult to measure, but even the most generous estimations of the size of the Foundation Release's map puts it somewhere around 50-75 square kilometres).
Also suspect is the claim that up to 100 players can play per server, when all servers are presently capped at 50, while some unrepresentative screenshots show artificially inflated numbers of zombies. Hammerpoint could certainly be doing more here to outline precisely what a Foundation Release is and isn't, and how it will differ from the final product, especially as they're asking for cash: either £10.99, £14.99 or £32.99 depending on how much in-game currency you fancy.
To celebrate the arrival on Steam, all three price tiers are enjoying a 10% discount. The War Z is currently sitting atop the Top Sellers list, pushing Far Cry 3 into second place. Meanwhile, the standalone release of DayZ will miss its December slot, with Rocket unwilling to launch before his own open-world zombie survival game is ready.
Update:
The War Z's description no longer refers to four maps, instead saying "Our first map – “Colorado” is over 100sq. km in size" - this is something the community dispute. The page still states that 100 players can play on a single server. Though "Leaderboards", "Private Gameworlds and Stronghold servers rentals", "Extensive list of building blocks to make your Stronghold server unique and build your own survival sanctuary" have all been pushed to an "upcoming features list".
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