A post on the DayZ dev blog from Bohemia Interactive’s Marek Spanel confirmed the long wait we have ahead of us until the Early Access title reaches beta, which is almost a year away. “[W]e do not expect to reach Beta status sooner than the end of 2014.”
Its alpha status hasn’t put many people off, however, as Dean “Rocket” Hall revealed that 800,000 copies of the game had been sold in less than a month on the weekend, a figure that has continued to increase dramatically since then. Spanel notes that over 875,000 copies have now been sold.
Spanel reiterates that the alpha version showcases the core pillars of DayZ and its framework, and that customers should only pick the game up if they understand that it’s Early Access and thus contains a lot of bugs. Bohemia Interactive has been very clear on the state of the game from day one, not relying on the Early Access label alone.
The DayZ roadmap, Spanel explains, will be re-evaluated later this month, but has released a list of the teams top priorities:
- Server performance, stability and security
- Animals & hunting
- Cooking & gathering resources
- Playable user customizable vehicles
- Player created constructions in the environment
- More complex interactions with the environment and crafting options
- Streamlined user actions and interface
- Control and animations expanded and improved for fluidity
- Upgraded graphics and physics engine (including ragdoll, etc.)
- Support of user mods and more flexibility for user hosted servers and game types