50-player, instant respawns

H1Z1 is set to receive a massive update next week. Along with brin?ging a training grounds map for practice, a 50-player free-for-all deathmatch mode will be launching with the game's? "Season 3" update on February 21. This mode will be a 15-minute excursion with instant respawns where players will battle it out to reach 25 kills before everyone else.

Speaking with Eurogamer, H1Z1 producer Paul Matthys said, "Broadly speaking, we see FFA as our first opportunity this season to experiment with fun, fast-paced game modes that offer our players new gameplay types outside the traditional core battle royale modes H1Z1 is known for." This new mode is all part of Daybreak's push to take H1Z1 beyond battle royale.

You can check out ??a full ma??tch of FFA in the video below.

"Season 3" will also introduce a battle pass for H1Z1. Similar to other battl??e royale titles, the battle pass will include 100 tiers for players to work through with various unlocks being granted along the way. Daybreak Games is teasing over 200? items including weapons and vehicle skins, new emotes, and nine additional outfits.

H1Z1's upcoming fre??e expansion adds a new 50 player FFA Deathmatch mode [Eurogamer]

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Co-owner cites 'dwindling interest' in the game

Earlier this year, I was invited to Las Vegas to cover the inaugural weekend of the H1Z1 Pro League, or H1PL. It was a big, glitzy affair, put on by league owners Twin Galaxies, with guest appearances from celebrit?ies like Michelle Rodriguez who wa??s there to launch what league manager Jace Hall considered the next evolutionary step in esports.

Players in the league signed a contract and were ??to receive part of a $250,000 stipend paid for by the league. According to ESPN, that stipend was never paid, and wh?ile some team owners were able to cover player expenses out of pocket, others weren't. Obey Alliance was the first team to pull out of the league two months ago, and now all the teams have been let go from the league. According to a message sent to teams by Hall and obtained by ESPN, the league is still working to pay the teams.

The H1PL launched in April, airing exclusively on Facebook, but apparently was only able to reach a height of 7,900 concurrent viewers on the platform. In comparison, the Overwatch League Grand Finals peaked at 319,000 viewers this past summer. H1Z1 is available now for PC and PS4 with the latter platform hitting ten million downloads e??arlier this year.

H1Z1 Pro League to shutter amid payment issues [ESPN]

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Z1 Quest

NantWorks LLC has made an investment in Daybreak Game Company to create a new joint venture company (NantG Mobile LLC) focused on mobile game development. The first two titles to come out of this will be mobile conversions of H1Z1 and EverQuest. Along with that, NantG Mobile will assume control of the current PC version if H1Z1 for future development, which is set to be renamed Z1 Battle Royale.

Jason Epstein, Chairman of the Board for DayBreak, told Business Wire, "Daybreak Games is pleased to have NantWorks as our invest??ment partner to support and accelerate the growth of our compa??ny. Working with NantWorks, NantStudio and Dr. Soon-Shiong will allow us to maintain our cutting-edge development in the video game industry and to benefit from Nant’s technological expertise and reach as a resource."

NantWorks is also planning to build a new event hub near the LA Times Center. Situated in El Segundo, Los Angeles, this center will contain an event space, a production studio and multiple e-sports arenas to host tournaments. As Business Wire states, it will be a "convening hu?b" for the community and a place for NantG Mobile to launch multiple new e-sports leagues.

NantWorks Makes Strategic Investment i?n Daybreak Game Company and Establishes Video Game Publishing Joint Venture, NantG Mobile [Business Wire]

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Who will survive?

The PlayStation 4 edition of survivalist-shooter H1Z1 will take its Battle Royale mode out of open beta at th?e start of next month, opening up yet another option for your Last Person Standing needs.

Developer Daybreak Games has confirmed that, come August 7, H1Z1: Battle Royale will official launch on Sony's blac?k box, complete with a list of Trophies and a wealth of new in-game content, including vehi?cles and weapons.

If you wanna be the final figure on the map, then specialists you might want to grab a hold of the new semi-auto sniper rifle, while an RPG launcher will also be made available for those ??who prefer a hammer to a scalpel. To get you and your motley crew to and from the carnage, saddle up with the new ARV, which also includes a hatch for those drive-by sniping opportunities.

Battle Pass Season 1 will also go live in-game, allowing players to bag rewards as they track their XP progress. Three stat tracks will be provided, including a free track for all players and two paid tracks, Premium and PlayStation Plus, which will offer greater rewards as you rack up your wins. For more details, check out PlayStation Blog.

H1Z1 is available now on PC, and le??av?es open beta on PS4 August 7.

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Undisclosed amount out of work

Daybreak Studios, developer behind the previously popular H1Z1, has confirmed that an undisclosed amount of staff have been let go from the company. The dev told PC Gamer in an e-mail, "We are realigning our workforc??e to better position our company for the future. Because of this, we have had to make an extremely difficult decision to part ways with some of our emp??loyees across various disciplines at the studio. We are doing everything we can to take care of each affected individual by providing them appropriate transition assistance."

This was followed up by an assurance that Daybreak will continue to support its currently available games and won't stop developing new IPs. While it isn't uncommon to see layoffs following the release of major triple A titles, H1Z1 had been a paid early-access title for years before eventually launching as a premium title. The shift to free-to-play came within a week of release, which certainly ticked off pe?ople who had been supporting ?the game for years.

While sad to see, I can't say I'm surprised. H1Z1 started a craze, but then failed to capitalize o?n the popularity it had. Players can only take so much before they move on, which probably hit Daybreak harder than most realize. Hopefully the people affected move on to something better.

H1Z1 publisher Daybreak Game Company cuts staff [PC Gamer]

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A look at the H1Z1 Pro League

Caesar's Entertainment Studios in Las Vegas hides in plain sight. Just off the main strip where the entire human history of excess and wealth, from the orgies of ancient Rome to the Wall Street decadence of New York City, are recreated and celebrated by throngs of thong-footed tourists, it stands a simple building. Among the liquor stores and chain motels I’m sure have the saddest little slot machines in the lobby, this warehouse is ground zero for what Caesars, Twin Galaxies, Facebook, and 3-Time NBA champion Rick Fox are hoping will be the next great thing in esports: the H1Z1 Pro League.

“I strongly believe battle royale is the next biggest gaming genre by far. We’ve seen all these different, wonderful takes on the genre, and that’s exciting, but H1Z1, at the moment, is really the most digestible, easily understandable expression of the battle royal genre and I think it can continue to lead the growth of the entire industry. H1Z1 was effectively first and now it’s effectively first with the Pro League.�/p>

Those are the words of Jace Hall, owner of Twin Galaxies and the H1PL [H1Z1 Pro League] spokesperson for the inaugural weekend. Hall is no stranger to the industry. Before buying Twin Galaxies he served as the general manager of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, started his own video game talk show with The Jace Hall Show, produced 800 episodes of Hulu’s The Morning After, and released a rap album titled Video Games Aren’t Bad for You.

Hall purchased Twin Galaxies in 2014. What originally started as a way to track video game world records is morphing into something entirely new. The H1PL is set to?? be?? the first of what could be many pro-gaming leagues run by Hall and Twin Galaxies. There are obvious plans for more. He’s already in contact with other publishers and developers, eyeing something far larger than the foundation the H1PL will set. But can you effectively build an esports league on the back of a game nobody cares about?

H1Z1 had a shaky start when it first hit Early Access three years ago but showed enough promise for players to sell more than a million copies rather quickly. After some shakeups with the development, the battle royale portion of the game, simply titled H1Z1, exited Early Access in February, just a few months after Hall announced the Pro League. It also went free-to-play, the only sane move the company could make in a time where ?e??very new battle royale hitting the market doesn't cost a dime.

But in the years leading up to its official release, its name has fallen by the wayside. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite especially have taken over industry chatter, paving the way for mainstream acceptance of the genre. In terms of viewers online, H1Z1 doesn’t even register. Saturday afternoon, as I enjoy some delicious, catered wraps, I peek over at Twitch to compare streaming numbers. Fortnite sits easily in first with 149,000 viewers. PUBG follows a distant second with 85,000. H1Z1? A measly 1,000.

The game is attempting to claw its way back into the limelight. It recently announced a PlayStation 4 port set to launch next month and all eyes are on the H1PL to gi??ve the game the widespread exposure it needs to maintain its place in an increasingly saturated field. An expanded player base is what developer Daybreak Game Company is hoping to see come out of this. For Hall, his sights are set on something different.

“Our goal with the league is to make an esports broadcast and presentation that is digestible to a mainstream audience,�he explains to me. “When you’re a publisher you want everyone to focus on the game. Twin Galaxies is not a publisher. The entire economic basis for this is the same as the NFL or NBA. It’s viewers.�/p>

He comes off as h??onest and earnest about H1PL even if I question whether he fully believes the words he is saying. During a press conference with players from the league �Casey “Flamehopper�Pitel of Counter Logic Gaming, Shane “SpiritsZ�Adams of Nobel, and Matthew “Stompalittle�?Willis of SetToDestroyX �they join in his excitement of battle royale as a mainstream esport.

“Battle royale is the genre nobody knew they wanted,�Pitel says. “Every round there is an emotional journey from the start of the game to the end. From a viewer’s perspective, it’s a journey they can go along with.�/p>

That journey is a? key part of what Hall believes will set what he calls “Esports 2.0�ap??art from “Esports 1.0�

The H1PL isn’t just a weekly broadcast of competition, but an entire, social media-based network of coverage around the league and its athletes. Streaming on Facebook, a partner Hall has no qualms about in light of the recent scandals that have plagued the company, viewers can engross themselves in the H1PL by watching the weekly Wednesday matches, recaps of the live broadcasts, and video content produced by the league and teams that give fans a closer look at the people they’re rooting for or against. The word “stories�gets thrown around and the way this content is spoken about gives the impression of something along the lines of ESPN’s 30 for 30.

But then I hear the stories or snippets of them and they’re about as white bread as you can imagine. Yes, it’s interesting that you quit your job of five years to play H1Z1 professionally, or that you left your parents to come live in a hotel in Las Vegas for a few months, but have you seen some of those athlete profiles out there. The morning of my flight back from Vegas, SportsCenter runs an excerpt from a longer special airing later in the day about Pratim?a Sherpa, a young woman from Nepal who lives with her parents in a maintenance shack on a golf course who has taken up the sport in hopes of lifting her family?? out of poverty. That is a goddamn player profile, but I’m sorry you were saying something about having to play video games for 12 hours a day?

I get that sounds cynical and perhaps I’m just jaded. I wouldn’t be alone on this. Many of my fellow games journalists covering the H1PL inaugural weekend express skepticism about the intent of the league to one another. Some are more forward in their doubts, like Newsweek’s Steven Asarch who decides to tell the perfectly nice PR representative for Daybreak Games who invited us to this event and ushered us through the weekend that the game is garbage. He's as big an asshole as I’ve met since I started doing this job, but he is right about this �em>Alice in Wonderland�feel the weekend has.

From the time I arrive at the Saturday press con??ferences to the moment I embarrass myself asking Rick Fox for a picture after the night’s competition is over, there is a false atmosphere in the air. Las Vegas is a lot of things, but one thing it isn’t is authentic. The fake Eiffel Tower, fake Sphinx, and fake boobs are proof enough of that. The city advertises itself as a glitzy playground for the young and sexy; a myth immediately dispelled when you walk into a casino and see the overweight man in the Raiders shirt sitting on his hover round at the blackjack table as a skimpily dressed hand massa??ger goes to work on his hot dog fingers. It’s a city that sells itself as something more than it is, much like how the H1PL is manufacturing its position as the premier esports league.

Make no mistake, this is all manufactured. Until recently, professional gaming has grown organically from a community of driven players. People would get good, local arcades or community centers would host tournaments, those tournaments would grow and after so many years you end up with EVO or Dreamhack. Those esports grew out of a large player base demanding an opportunity to prove they’re the best in their community, their country, the world. That’s how it’s been. That’s what we’re used to. That was the way things were done until Blizzard announced Overwatch.

Overwatch, more than any other title released in the last five years, plays like a product created for the sole purpose of making it an esport. The game launched in March 2016 and by November, Blizzard made it known that it intended to launch a league. It may not be the central conceit the game was built around, but there was no way, with esports viewership hitting nearly 100 million viewers worldwide, that it wasn’t going to find itself the center of the professional gaming universe. While everything else was still a series of tournaments with winner-take-all jackpots, it would be the first to mimic what mainstream audiences recognize as an authentic league. But to Hall, Overwatch is still part of “Esports 1.0".

“Video game publishers have been the masters of the gaming universe forever,�he explains. “Their interest is selling video games. We all have this propaganda that they’ve fed into us for years and years and years which is ‘The game is the most important thing. How many game sales have we made? Out game sales are important. Look at our patch. Look at our new anything.�It’s always that.�/p>

Twin Galaxies doesn’t have to worry about game sales, nor does it have to ??bother itself with the complaints of players, though Hall has some ideas on how it could become a third party for disputes as the company grows. It only has to focus on getting eyes on that screen to sell to advertisers. Hall sees the league as a television program and as such, changes have been made to accommodate that.

H1PL matches max out at?? 22 minutes, bringing it in line with a standard half-hour of television. Every day of competitive play contains just two matches. With broadcast personalities, interviews, and commercials, it comes out to a solid hour of esports entertainment not including any potential pre- and post-game shows. An hour a week is the easily digestible portion Hall is aimi??ng for, but the content that makes up those 60 minutes may not be as palatable as we’re being led to believe.

The projected assumption that H1Z1 is the “most digestible, easily understandable�of the battle royales is what the H1PL hinges on. Everyone on board seems to think getting into the Pro League will be as simple and natural as getting into more established sports, a process po?tentially made easier by the league’s decision to go with Facebook for broadcast rather than Twitch.

“Our goal with the league is to make an esports broadcast and presentation that is digestible to a mainstream audience,�Jace says. “An audience doesn’t have to be informed and Twitch is not that place. Everyone at Twitch is already fully informed and their audience isn’t as expansive. There are more people who don’t know about Twitch than do. More people are watching Jeopardy than Overwatch. Where do you find people with an affinity for gaming? Facebook has 800 million people who have shown an affinity for some type of gaming, whether it’s Farmville or anything. When you boil down all those interests, Facebook is really one of the only choices to put your broadcast on. Facebook is already built for the discovery of new audiences with sharing and liking. As a partner, they have been totally supportive and attentive. They know how important this is and support the player stories. For our objective, Facebook is the right place to be.�/p>

I won’t argue against the idea Facebook is a better platform for this new league over Twitch, but I do think the concept of a battle royale as a sport takes more than an hour of passive viewing to understand. When I attend a baseball game?, I am bored out of my fucking mind. But the very first time I attend a baseball game, I understand the basics of it in an inning or two. Football, hockey, soccer, basketball, it’s all the same. I may not know every individual rule and penalty by the end of the game -- if Lebron is playing I’ll certainly know what traveling is -- but I have a good enough grasp of how the game works that I can follow along.

H1Z1’s blend of battle royale seems simple enough to follow -- shoot them before they shoot you -- but as any player of the genre can tell you there is so much more to the game than this. There are many different types of guns to account for, many different ve??hicles scattered throughout the map, and then there is the map itself.

The H2 map the league plays on is huge. Like the landmasses in PUBG and Fortnite, it’s made up of similar-looking small towns, outposts, and other buildings. It’s so massive, it’s impossible to take it all in during an hour-long broadcast. None of the established sports I mentioned above have this problem. Their fields of play are easily understood and can be seen all at once. That’s a problem the H1PL is going to have to figure out because if you’re bringing in Farmville fans to try and get ??them into battle royale, they’re going to need to know what’s going on beyond just people shooting one another.

The setup of the Caesar’s Entertainment Studios lends itself well to the league. There are four sets of bleachers, a VIP area, and in the middle is a massive round stage with 75 computers for the 15 teams. As teams are eliminated, it’s kind of fun to watch them take a single-file walk of shame. The venue also has lights that trigger when certain events take place. If the on-screen player is in a cop car, blue and red lights flash. A nice touch, but one that goes too far in the first match when it is set up so a bright white light flashes at the audience every time an on-screen player pulls the trigger. The first few times we hear gunfire it’s followed by an audible moan from the audience as the lights flash. This is turned off before the massive firefight at the end sends us all into an epileptic shock like a banned Pokémon episode.

As with any sporting event, the H1PL is more entertaining in person than watching it on a computer, but I’m not quite sure H1Z1 is quite ready for broadcast. During the inaugural matches, the audience misses dozens of kills. T??here’s no instant replay and, when the game is focusing on one player, if something happens with another player across the map like a shootout or explosion, the only way I can watch it is by catching the repla??y afterward.

The tempo of the match also works against it, something born out of changes made to the rules. The H1PL differs from standard H1Z1 play in a few ways. Most notably, melee kills are worth 10 points and points can multiply if players are able to outlast other teams. This changes how the t??eams play and, in action, it leads to matches where nothing much happens until the final moments when the poison gas pushes those surviving players into such a small space they have no option but to attack. For much of both matches, the teams keep their distance like the sexes at a middle school dance. There are maybe one or two kills over the first 10 minutes or so, neither of which happen on camera.

When ther??e finally is a massive shoot-out between two or more teams, it’s not that easy to follow. An entire team can be wiped out before my eyes but I have no idea what the hell is going on until it’s over. There are a few choice confrontations during the two matches of the opening night of play, both of which involve stranded players moving very little as they try to stay alive. It’s gripping to watch if you have experienced the difficulties of what is happening in that situation -- flanked on all sides by guns as poison gas encroaches your camping spot -- but it absolutely does not make for compelling television to anyone who isn’t fully informed. The only moment that brings screams and genuine excitement from the crowd is when the on-cam player is taken out by a sniper. I have no doubt the H1PL can be a worthwhile esports league but I don’t think this is the game or the genre to push esports into the mainstream audience.

Perhaps esports just isn’t ready to cross over and is better doing its own thing for the foreseeable future. The H1PL and Overwatch League are great experiments in what is to come, but we know the “Esports 1.0�concept of big, weekend-long tournaments works well for the medium right now. There’s also still competition from streamers who don’t compete. Last year, EVO capped out at 179,000 viewers for Street Fighter V. That’s the biggest tournament of the year for what is arguably the biggest fighting game, yet its viewership is a fraction of the 667,000 viewers brought in by Fortnite streamer -- and guy who really need??s to learn the correct lyrics to rap songs -- Tyler “Ninja�Blevins durin?g a special live stream he did from the Luxor Casino.

There are a lot of questions about the H1PL's ability to operate as a league that still need answers. Does it have enough money to flourish during what will most certainly be a few building years? Will it lead to an uptick? in regular people playing the game if they see a clear path to going pro? Is it ethical for a man to run the league while also having a vested interest in one of the teams competing? Whatever happens, no matter how many or how few people tune in, Hall has his eyes on the future, one where esports aren't just a curio that find their way onto TBS and ESPN 2 at ungodly hours of the morning.

"The future of esports i?s that 'e' is going away," he says as we wrap up our interview. "People won??'t distinguish the difference. It'll just be sports and competition."

_{[Disclosure: Travel and lodging provided by the publisher.]}

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Try not to confuse it with that other game

“Battle royale” is a ubiquitous term in the gaming media right now, constantly finding its way into headlines as more developers and publishers jump on the bandwagon, hoping to find the same success afforded to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite. We’ve heard whispers of EA and Activision getting into the genre with Battlefield and Call of Duty respectively, potentially joining projects by Boss Key Productions and however many mods of existing games there are out there. They’ll also join H1Z1, the game Brendan “PlayerUnknown&r??dquo; Greene consulted on before moving onto his own project.

If you haven’t heard of H1Z1, or you completely forgot about it, it’s hard to blame you. Since September, two games have dominated the conversation, turning the Daybreak Game Company title into something of a distant third-place competitor. But it predates both PUBG and current king Fortnite. It had a rocky Early Access launch in 2015. A year later it was announced the game would be split into two separate projects: Just Survive and the battle royale King of the Kill. That moniker was later dropped and now the mode is simply known as H1Z1.

After three years of Early Access, it officially launched on PC in February and went free-to-play -- an arguably necessary move that pissed off some of its Steam buyers if reviews are to be believed. ?Next month, the game will make the jump to console with an open beta on the PlayStation 4.

Over this past weekend in Las Vegas, I got a look at the game as part of the H1Z1 Pro League kick-off. Ton?y Morton and Eric Correll from Daybreak were on h?ands to explain how the console version of the game will differ from its PC origins.

“We’re really excited. It’s a pure version of B-R [battle royale] on cons?ole,” Morton, Lead Systems Designer at Daybreak, explained to me. “It’s focused on movement and combat, getting in, getting down, getting around the m?ap, picking up weapons and just focuses on conflict. With our heritage and history, we’re just big fans of PlayStation and Sony. It’s an awesome console with a great community and we thought it was the best way to make our entrance into the console scene.”

The PlayStation 4 port does away with many of the aspects of the PC version. Crafting has been removed completely. There is simpler loot and inventory management, a weapons wheel, and a revamped UI that is easier to read. How matches play out is also getting a work-over. ?The green gas that slowly encompasses the map and pushes players towards one another will spread at a faster rate as the developers push for a target round length of 15 minutes.

At launch, the game will also feature six new weapons and locked 60 frames per second on the PS4 Pro with minimum 45 fps on a standard PS4. Microtransactions will be limited to skins and other vanity purchases. Starting today, players can pre-order a $30 H1Z1 bundle that will net them uniq??ue cosmetic times and a dynamic theme. Future updates are planned for the game and Morton says community feedback can help shape its ongoing development.

“Daybreak has a history of supporting games for a long time. Look at EverQuest or PlanetSide 2. We are a games-as-a-service company, which means you ride that thing out for as long as you can. For H1Z1, on PC we’re still doing regular updates and on console, there will be regular updates. A lot of the update structures will come from the community. What do they want to see? We have Z1?? [a new map] coming to PC in the near future and I’m sure that’s a piece of content we’re going to want to bring over to console as well.”

Auto Royale, an all-vehicles mode for the game that is currently in beta on PC, could also make its way to the system if there is demand. H1Z1 on PS4 will lau?nch with solos, duos and teams of five as well as the lone Z2 map. It’s not much in terms of quantity, but Daybreak Games is hoping quality is enough to win people over. I cannot attest to the quality of the console version as it wasn’t available for demo during or after the presentation. What I can say is, based on the video we were shown of it captured on a PS4 Pro, it looks smooth, fast, and deadly. It also looks exactly like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

I’m not a big PC gamer and I cannot name a single mod I’ve installed in my life, so when PUBG was announced almost two years ago, I didn’t give a flying fuck. I thought it was another shooter with what has to be the American version of a crazy Japanese video game title. So I ignored it until doing so became impossible. For several months it was arguably the biggest thing in gaming, neck-and-neck with the Switch in terms of media coverage. I’ve played dozens of hours of PUBG, have watched many hours more of the D-Team, and, gun pointed at my head, I don’t think I could look at video of that game running side-by-side with H1Z1 and tell you which is which.

I get it. H1Z1 technically came first, easily beating PUBG to Early Access. But just because it’s the first doesn’t mean people are going to recognize that. If you’ve never heard of the game and see a video of it, you’ll probably think it’s Battlegrounds or at least a straight rip-off of it.

It reminds me a lot of John Carter. The original novel series, A Princess of Mars in particular, has had a great deal of influence in modern sci-fi. James Cameron’s Avatar sought influence from it as did the original Flash Gordon serials that would later become the backbone of the Star Wars universe. So many well-known properties ripped their material from Edgar Rice Burroughs that by the time A Princess of Mars received its own feature film adaptation, 2012’s John Carter, there was nothing left for it to dazzle audiences with because we??’d already seen ??everything it had.

That’s the boat H1Z1 is in right now. Though it’s not the original battle royale, it’s certainly played its part in setting up the genre only to have its place overtaken by more popular titles. There wasn’t a single piece of footage shown to me over the weekend that sets it apart. Fortnite, PUBG, even the soulless monstrosity that is Radical Heights, are all more easily recognizable than it. And it’s only going to get more difficult as more titles with more name recognition enter the fray. H1Z1 is blazing a trail on PC as the first to have its own pro league, but ??on console, it’s be?tting on the "purity of play," a term I heard often over the weekend, to wrangle players in.

“If you just want to worry about getting around, getting guns and shooting people, and not anything else, H1Z1 is it, especially on the console,” Morton explained. “It literally is as pure as it can be. Grab a gun, shoot some people. It eliminates the barrier to entry and a lot of the confusion because of all the BR ga?mes it’s the most pure and, in a good way, simplistic. The pure adrenaline rush of me versus you, gun versus gun, and who wins at the end.”

I don’t know what the future holds for H1Z1, but if you’d like to get your hands on it early you can sign up now for the Closed Beta taking place later this month. As for any celebrities who want to break in on the ground floor of H1Z1 Twitch streaming a la Drake, Morton has an idea on who he’d like to see ?play the game.

“El?on Musk. He’s got to be one of the most relevant people out there and his thirst and hunger for not only knowledge but to do things better and his ability for awareness, I think if anything he would be insightful as hell if he came and gave us his thoughts on things??. So yeah… him or Robert Downey Jr.”

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Despite just launching

H1Z1 is now going free-to-play, which you may find odd considering just last week, H1Z1 finally had a full release. The history of this game is a very turbulent one, but the short version is that it once ruled the Steam charts in 2015 before failing to deliver on a lot of promises made by developer Daybreak Games. With PUBG being a massive hit and players jumping ship to it and Fortnite, there was only one logi??cal outcome for?? the game that started the "battle royale" craze.

I suppose the long coveted 1.0 version wasn't enough to entice people back, so Daybreak Studios is opening the flood gates for everyone. If you happened to have purchased the game at any point during the last three years, you'll receive an "Appreciation Pack" that contains a? bunch of goodies (includin??g victory crates and premium currency). Whether that is enough to get once loyal fans to install the game again is yet to be seen.

H1Z1 Is Now Free To Play [H1Z1]

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It has been a bumpy road at times, but it's finally here

H1Z1 is officially a full-fledged real game. It left Steam Early Access today and got an honest-to-god 1.0 release. It's a finished product tha??t can be purchased for $20.

It has been a weird nearly four years in the making, and it feels pertinent to quickly run down H1Z1's history. It was announced in April 2014 with the developer giving frequent updates as to how it was coming along. Then, it went on sale in January 2015, and quickly became Steam's top seller.

In February 2016, the game was split into two separate games -- H1Z1: King of the Kill (battle royale) and H1Z1: Just Survive (survival MMO). The latter eventually shifted further away as it was renamed simply Just Survive; as the battle royale genre started to really get popular, the King of the Kill part was dropped and it became just H1Z1.

Accompanying the full game's proper launch, H1Z1 is getting a new gameplay type. It's called "Auto Royale" which is exactly what it sounds like -- a battle royale that takes place only?? inside vehicles. Up to 30 teams of four players hunt each other and play what's ostensibly an open-world demolition derby. Auto Royale launches in beta today.

• Two New Vehicles: Players can choose from two vehicles in Auto Royale, Sedan or ARV, both new to the game and only available in Auto Royale. Sedan: Nimble car with faster acceleration and higher jump clearance, allowing skilled drivers to quickly evade enemies. Armored Recon Vehicle (ARV): Offers more stability, making it easier to drive for new players, but has less turbo fuel efficiency.
• New Weapons: The Light Machine Gun (LMG), available only in Auto Royale, deals the most sustained damage of any gun in the game.
• New Power Ups: Players pick up evasive, defensive and combat drops to throw opponents off their trail, heal themselves, or deal damage to enemy vehicles. Defensive drops include vehicle repair kits, environmental buffs, fire extinguishers, and vehicle armor. Evasive power ups include smoke screens, high-octane fuel, turbo boosts, and oil slicks.

Daybreak also sent along some updates that are a part of H1Z1's 1.0 launch. They are:

• Tactical Deployment: Players can choose which area to parachute into at the start of a match using a heat map that shows locations of where other players spawn.
• Airdrop Revamp: The airdrop system has been refined to add more points of contention, increasing the drop frequency and item value.
• Season 1: The official first in-game Season for H1Z1 starts with an all-new scoring algorithm designed to reward consistency and aggression, not just a player's 10 best placements.
• Mini Map: Players now have the option to turn on a mini map to help the navigate the world.
• Founder's Item: All players who bought H1Z1 during Early Access will receive a special in-game shirt.

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'King of the Kill' and 'Just Survive'

Daybreak plans to split up its multiplayer zombie survival game H1Z1 on February 17, 2016.

It's becoming two titles: H1Z1: Just Survive, an apocalyptic open-world experience with the usual scavenging and crafting, and H1Z1: King of the Kill, a "large-scale" multiplayer shooter. The former will be on Steam Early Access "through the end of the year," while the latter hopes to come out of Early Access this summer? with a full PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox ??One release.

The idea here is to appeal to "two distinct communities," according to Daybreak CEO Laura Naviaux. The split-apart games are even being made by separate internal development teams.

Current H1Z1 owners and anyone else who nabs it before February 17 will get King of the Kill and Just Survive at no additional? cost. Otherwise, they'?re going to be $19.99 a piece.

With all that out of the way, I think some King of the Hill Photoshops are in order.

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Currently Daybreak

John Smedley co-founded EverQuest developer Verant Interactive, which morphed into Sony Online Entertainment following EverQuest's huge success. He even hung on after Sony sold SOE earlier this year, turning it into Daybreak Game Company and laying off some SOE employees.

Smedley, however, has now stepped down as president an?d chief executive officer of Daybreak.

"I can confirm that John Smedley will be taking some time off from the company for the near-term and transitioning to a different role to be determined," a spokesperson for Daybreak told GamesBeat. "Upon finalization of his plans, fur??ther communicat?ion will be provided."

Chief creative opera?ting officer Russell Shanks will take over for Smedley.

Smedley recently threatened to sue one of the hackers who took down Xbox Live and PSN during Christmas. Julius "zeekill" Kivimaki, 17, was found guilty of 50,700 charges and got two years probation. The group Kivimaki was apart of is the one responsible for int?entionally diverting and landing one of Smedley's flights by calling in a bomb threat.

"I've also been swatted (multiple times) and had over 50 false credit applications submitted in my name and had to deal?? with the ramifications of what happens to your credit when this kind of thing happens, Smedley said. "It's not good. And to top it all off they decided to submit false tax returns."

After Smedley, upset at the lenient sentencing, threatened to sue Kivimaki, remaining members of the group took Daybreak games (H1Z1, PlanetSide 2, etc.) offline with? a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack

??Daybreak Game Company’s John Smedley steps down as chief executive officer [VentureBeat]

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Boo hoo, you're breaking my heart

Nearly 25000 cheaters just got the permanent boot from H1Z1. According to Daybreak president John Smedley's Twitter, the purge targeted cheaters using ESP hacks, a cheat designed to reveal other player's location and status and is generally used alongside an aimbot and other dirty tricks to ruin everyone else's day. Smedley specifically called out TMcheats, suggesting that t?hey have a way of identifying players using those hacks.  

Please keep using and suppor?ting TMCHEATS. We aren't banning users who use it at all.

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) May 19, 2015

I absolutely love it whenever a massive cheating ban happens and can't wait to read all the lame excuses and moaning from exiled frauds. One of the most frustrating and unappealing parts of online gaming is putting up with dicklord cheaters and seeing a developer aggressively going after them and calling out known hack sites warms my heart. But, I can't help but wonder if a mere ban is a fitting enough punishment. Daybreak should have sicced the bears on them before banishing them to the phantom zone.

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And the deadliest

H1Z1 is a game about surviving the zombie apocalypse. It should be a game about surviving the bear apocalypse, because they are way fucking scarier than any zombie. But, maybe that hits too close to home since bears might actually murder you in your house while you're sleeping. Zombies have a very low chance of doing that because they aren't rea??l.

Bears cause all sorts of shenanigans in H1Z1. They're ruthless, creative killers that have but one motive: murder. These ??videos do?n't serve to entertain; they serve to warn. If you see a bear, well, you're probably as good as dead.

Bears have no respect for a?uthority. T??hat's evident by the fact that this one took out four people chillin' by a cop car. R.I.P, Eazy-E; this bear's Straight Outta Compton, too.

Sometimes bears will charge your car head-on and flip that thing right ?over. They're fearless creatures. Death ??means nothing to them as long as they can take you down with them. Bears channel the kamikaze spirit.

H1Z1's town isn't named "Silent Hill," but it might as well be when bears meander down the street waiting for their prey. When the trap is spr??ung, there's a quick detour through the real estate of suburbia until everything inevitably ends in bloodshed.

Remember how I said bears will kill you in your bed? Your tub's no safer. Not when they clip through walls and show ??up in your bathroom.

GOD BEAR?! Fuck. This.

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I think I just broke one of the rules...

Like the Penis Brothers of yesteryear, some p?eople in zombie survival games are less concerned with the undead, and more intent on messing with fellow humans.? You know what they say: man is the real monster.

This group in H1Z1 has a new-found affinity for finding fresh players without gear ("bambis") and pitting them against one another Fight Club-style. They realize the potential in this around the 3:20 mark, and "The First Annual H1Z1 Fight Club" takes place at about 5:00 (after e??veryone annoying sho??uts into their mic in unison).

What follows is an awkward fist-filled two-step to the tune of "Down with the Sickness" while they get egged on at gunpoint. Congrats, PlsDontShootPlsPls; I like to think you're just the first of many fight club champions in H1Z1.

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'No questions asked'

H1Z1, Sony Online Entertainment's bizarrely-named version of DayZ, was the center of a kerfuffle over the weekend that didn't even have to do with the game not working at its Early Access launch.

Rather, the community leveled "pay to win" complaints following the glut of "our game won't be pay-to-win" claims that always precede releases of games that have micro transactions (H1Z1's Early Access is not free-to-play). They have to do with concrete studio claims that you can't buy resources like guns, ammunition, and food, followed by fans learning that those items can indeed be fo??und in paid airdrop events. SOE's thinking is that these server-wide events, wherein someone can poach your paid-for drop, are different from being able to just click "buy" and get a gun in your inventory with real life cash, but folks are still upset.

SOE president John Smedley took to the game's sub reddit on Friday to offer "no questions asked" refunds over the weekend, "till Monday." These refunds are not through Steam, but direct through Sony Online. Should you try to get a Steam refund, you'd get money back in your Steam wallet rather than however you paid for it. 

By Friday evening Smedley seemed satisfied that only, ".5% of the people that have bought are taking us up on the refund," but it'd be nice to know what the final numbers are. Plus, I doubt every H1Z1 buyer--it was Steam's top-seller despite not working--is jacked in to a sub reddit. Some people like to go get pizza across the bay on weekends, or crawl into hot tub holes and then get ramen. Of the vocal and jacked in fans, they seem to want fixes rather than refunds and Smedley notes that the team is, "making adjustments to the airdrops that are ?a?ppropriate."

No questions asked refund policy [Reddit]

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The developers refute the claims

H1Z1, Sony Online Entertainment's zombie apocalypse survival simulator, has recently come under fire from its own community. On the day of its Early Access launch, many who had eagerly tracked the game's development for months suddenly felt as though they'd been duped all along. And, predictably, they're? not happy about it.

The controversy stems from SOE's long-running insistence that H1Z1 would not be "pay-to-win." The developer told various outlets and message boards this since the game's inception. Redditor teckademics collected a collage of some of the statements published.

However, many felt that the airdrops included in today's Early Access version?? directly opposed this. Airdrops, which can be purchased with real money, can contain any variation of supplies including but not limited to: guns, ammunition, backpacks, and first-aid kits.

In a game where scavenging for resources is paramount, H1Z1's community (many of whom have already paid $20 or $40 in advance for it) largely saw airdrops as indication that SOE had gone back on its word that monetization wouldn't change a player's chances?? for success. ??Many felt that they had been led to believe that the only benefit of paying real-world currency in-game would be for character customization.

The outrage prompted SOE developers to take to reddit to offe?r a rebuttal. In the lengthy explanation, SOE insists that there are several components to airdrops that keep them from being pay-to-win. Among them, airdrops attract several zombies, any player on a server can swoop in and take supplies, airdrops aren't available ??until the server is one-quarter full, and there could be nothing of value in any given airdrop. This, in SOE's eyes, justifies their existence as a paid event.

Obviously there's quite a disparity between the feelings of SOE and a loud portion of the H1Z1?? community. Regardless of anyone's position on this particular instance,?? it serves as a fine reminder of the perils of Early Access. Always be cautious when you're investing in a game that's still in development; you never know what you'll actually end up getting.

Streamer just cal?led in an airdrop. It dropped right above him with weapons, ammo and a backpack. This game is pay2win [reddit], Airdrops [reddit]

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Log in issues

H1Z1, Sony Online Entertainment's bizarrely-named version of DayZ, is out on Steam today in Early Access. Not just out; it's atop the "top sellers" list on the Steam store, above freshly discounted, free-to-play-for-the-weekend Saint's Row and Civilization: Beyond Earth.

It is also currently unplayable. And not just because it's kind of broke, like when Brett played it last year (or because it's kind of janky, like when I played it later last year).

Rather, it is more literally unplayable as players are reportedly having issues connecting to the login server (game error G99). One such player is jbsgame.com Features Editor Steven Hansen, who has been?? trying to log on for over an hour now to stream the game. "It's a bit disappointing that new games drop, people pony up their $20 or sometimes $60 to be there minute one, and the dang t??hing doesn't work," Hansen said.

To be fair, this is an Early Access game, the express purpose of which? is to get games balanced and working on time for their official release. It's not l?ike they didn't test it beforehand. This is the trial period. A long one. I'm more surprised it cracked the Steam top-sellers, showing people haven't lost interest in open world zombie survival sims.

"Maybe I'll finally buy The Long Dark," Hansen added.

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Bad name or memorable name?

I stopped tallying at ten counts of the word "iteration" in the early goings of the SOE Live 2014 presentation for SOE's upcoming (PC, PS4) survival zombie sim H1Z1. Okay. I get it. That's why the game wasn't so hot when it was first shown off ?and why there's still work to do before it comes to Steam Early Access "soon."

"It kicked us in the butt," I was told of initial previews, which were not all that kind to the project (our own Wett Brett Makedonski called it "almost unplayable").

But "iteration" is one of the (appropriate enough) buzzwords floating around H1Z1. The team wants to "treat it like an indie project," with open development. So it's all going to be iteration, tweaking, tuning. An??d this needs to be based on feedback (and ??backed up by data) -- it "requires a lot of people to help [them] test it."

What's the right amount of players per server? Can player?s get permanent locks for their abodes, or is everything raidable with enough brute force? What's the active cap for sniper rifles on a single server? That's why it will hit Early Access, why it's been shown so early, versus a traditional, years behind closed doors cycle.

Maybe? releasing during the open-world survival zeitgeist was important, too, rather than showing up late ?as an also-ran.

A lot of people don't mind that much, if both Rust and DayZ's millions of sales are any indication. DayZ, incidentally, just got announced for PS4, but the team doesn't see it as too much competition, especially since they'll have an easier time getting onto PS4 because H1Z1 is based on existing PlanetSide 2 tech.

H1Z1 isn't on Early Access yet because it doesn't have a base level of doneness that the team is happy with, which kind of explains the best reason to choose H1Z1 over its ilk. It has a much less obtuse UI and controls than closest competitor DayZ. What y??ou're going to get is likely something more polished, more complete, and a bit easier to just play it.

Otherwise, you're getting a similar open-world zombie survival game, conceptually. It already plays a l?ot smoother than when Wett Brett checked it out. Its world is also filthy with deer. Like, in herds of 12 plus at times. They're everywhere. And recipes, which, once unlocked, are basically all you'll hang onto after death, there's a recipe that involves mixing a deer's gallbladder with cloth to give you deer scent. This makes it easier to go up and kill them without needing to craft a bow.

It will probably be useful when there aren't so many deer. There are also horrible bears and wolves running about at the moment that are much more dangerous than zombies, ??perhaps less dangerous than other players. I quite like the game at night, illuminat??ed only by a full moon and a flashlight. The team also showed off one new idea during the panel, Air Supply Drops. You'll see trunks obviously parachuting in from the sky, and you'll have to make a mad scramble to get to it before anyone else in your game (or, maybe, team up with some people to get there first, then kill your darlings).

An Early Access version of H1Z1 is bound to have some technical ?problems, but it should generally be smoother than its contemporaries, if you want to finally test the genre.

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Not a great first impression

As I was given an introductory overview of H1Z1 before some hands-on time, the development team emphasized how quickly the game was evolving. As it was the latest hardcore zombie survival MMO with open/transparent development, the designers explained that by the time the press saw H1Z1 again?, it'd probably be a vastly different game. Cross your fingers that that's the case, because what was shown to me on PC wasn't very presentable.

H1Z1 randomly drops the player directly into an open, yet somewhat forested setting. It's t??echnically eastern Oregon, but it's supposed to feel more like smalltown America. Going into the demo, I was told that surviving the first day would be the goal -- a very difficult goal, at that. Equip?ped with only an axe and a torch, I was left to fend for myself.

Upon spawning, a mass of ?zombies that rendered within one another made quick work of me.

To be honest, it was kind of amusing. "Alright, that's kind of a quirky instance," I thought to myself. It was less cute by the fifth time in a row that it happened. That was about half of the typical H1Z1 experience for me; the other half was not being ab??le to find anything at all.

Many of the times that I spawned, there was nothing on the horizon in any direction apart from a smattering of trees. I'd run one way, hoping I'd encounter something, anything really. At one point, I was sitting next to Polygon's Michael McWhertor and got legitimately jealous that he found a shack. I felt like I somehow wasn't playing H1Z1 right because this dude had a shack and I just had more hill??s.

My shack-envy quickly melted away when a small horde of zombies spotted me from across the map and mercilessly pursued me. That was about the time that a developer came around and regretfully sighed and remarked "?Yeah, I think we made them a little too aggressive for this?? demo."

As nighttime rolled around, I got a taste of my favorite part of H1Z1, which is ironic because it should be the most dreaded aspect. The hues that the moon and darkness cast on the surroundings made it look like a first-person view of Limbo. It was so prett??y that I almost didn't want to build a camp??fire and provide any sort of illumination. Of course, I did anyway. Even if survival was futile, I felt compelled to put my best foot forward.

I had one life that seemed like a perfect storm of circumstances. I wandered across a small community that had a grocery store with a few zombies mulling about outside. I was able to? go through a few of the houses unimpeded. Unfortunately, I only found some beets and water, which served as instant gratification, but nothing to help survive in the long-term. Upon trying to get into the grocery store, well, those pesky zombies screwed up that plan.

That was the pinnacle of my time with H1Z1, the effort where it felt like I actually got something out of the game, even as fleeting as it was. It ?didn't feel like much of a peak. Apart from the several crashes and general unresponsiveness of commands, it ?just isn't in a state to be shown to anyone -- especially a crowd whose job it is to play games and report on their findings. Hopefully it really is a game that's always changing, because right now, it needs to change.

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That's (hopefully) longer than your work day

Interested in seeing more H1Z1? How about 12 full hours of it? Sony Online Entertainment will be holding a 12-hour marathon of H1Z1 on their Twitch account today from 9 AM through 9 PM PST. In addition, if you happen to live in or near San Diego, SOE will be having an open house for player?s interested in meeting the devs and playing an early alpha build of the game.

Set in a world 15 years after a zombie apocalypse, H1Z1 centers around survival-based play. Will you band together with players to build a safe place to flourish, or will you go lone wolf and prey on innocent players? It’s your choice in H1Z1, based on the Planetside 2 engine. Unlike DayZ, which centers around smaller, privately hosted servers, H1Z1 will feature up to 1000 players per server?? with ??the games being hosted by Sony itself.

Footage of th?e early alpha seems to reflect a high level of stability already and core gameplay seems to have quite a bit of polish. This game is going to be free-to-play, but if you want to get into the action early, you’ll be able to purchase access to the alpha starting next month on Steam via Early Access. Pony up and let us know how the stream plays out!

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Cosmetic items, mostly

Following its big gameplay reveal of H1Z1, Sony Online Entertainment has detailed what the developers have come up with so far for the PS4 and PC open-world zombie survival game's monetization strategy. SOE president John Smedley gave a breakdown on reddit:

• Wearables will be sold, but players can "find and craft a lot of stuff." If someone kills and loots another player's gear, they'll be able to wear it for a few deaths. "Station Cash wearables won't degrade at all."
• Guns, ammo, food, water, and boosts impacting these won't be sold.
• Extra emotes beyond "the basics," which will be free.
• Character slots.
• Crates containing "random cool stuff from the store" can be found in H1Z1. "We're considering letting you see what's in them before you buy a key (ala Dota 2.). This idea isn't fully locked yet."

These concepts are of course subject to change and the team is taking feedback. So far, so good. Even if I'm not interested in playing existing open-world zombie games right now -- much less new titles along the lines of H1Z1 -- I can appreciate the transparency shown here.

We had our first monetization meeting yesterday [reddit]

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H1Z1 is a horrible name

Sony Online Entertainment is making an open world zombie survival game called H1Z1. Yeah, it's blatantly going for the whole DayZ approach. You can't really blame them though. It's a genre people are really craving for, as evidence by how well DayZ and Rust have been selling.

Game designer Jimmy Whisenhunt and technical director Tom Schenck from the SOE team took to Twitch recently and showed off 50 minutes of H1Z1. There's a lot of walking, some driving, axes, zombies, and well n??othing all that out of the ordinary. What do you think?

Also I'm not really a fan of the name H1Z1. I purpose we just refer to this as Hizi, pronounced like hizzy.

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Feeling flu-ish?

Sony Online Entertainment boss John Smedley said on Twitter that a new post-apocalyptic MMO called H1Z1 will be coming "soon." A new episode of the Game Talk Live podcast, set to show at 8 p.m. Eastern will reveal some early gameplay footage, says Polygon. 

Smedley says that you'll play as an apocalypse survivor stuck in a world filled of zombies. He also teased that following this evening's reveal, H1Z1 will be playable soon. He said on Twitter that "you can p??lay it yourself soon. and by play I mean ??play fully."

Expect a day/night cycle, the ability to light things?? (and zombies) on fire, and fort building. 

We'll be following along with the Game Talk Live podcast tonight. Stay tuned.

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