By August of 2012, Dean Hall’s ArmA 2 mod, DayZ, already had a million users and showed no signs of slowing. The zombie mod was doing so well that a standalone game was soon announced for Christmas of 2012. That date came and went, and Hall claimed that the standalone release was basically just the mod with some new bells and whistles, which wasn’t what he wanted to release. Hall envisioned a true game, not just a larger version of the mod. It’s April now, and DayZ is four months behind its initial proposed release date and, according to Hall, the game is progressing nicely. When will it be out? What will we be playing the game on besides PCs? Quite possibly the PS4 according to the game’s creator.
“I think if we don’t, for want of a better word ‘fuck up,’ the PC release then I would say a console port is almost certain,” Hall told The Escapist on Monday, “I know a lot of people get really hot and bothered about it. Like: I’m not a console gamer, I’m a PC gamer, but I think it necessarily has to hurt feelings.”
A console version of DayZ has been in consideration ever since the game went into production as a standalone product. Bohemia Interactive itself discussed a console release last September, citing the success of other popular independent PC titles on Xbox Live Arcade as a sign that it could justify the investment. “We’ve always wanted to make games for consoles,” said Bohemia’s producer Jan Kunt, “Obviously we’re a PC developer and have been for some years, but consoles have a huge market and you don’t have so many problems with piracy. Obviously DayZ, you’ve seen the success of Minecraft on Xbox Live Arcade, and we’d probably be stupid not to try to do something similar.”
Xbox Live Arcade may not be the console destination of DayZ in the end, though. “It appears to be the kind of game that Sony are interested in,” said Hall, “I think we just have to wait and see. We’ve talked and met with Sony, and they’re very – you know, they’re obviously interested.”
Sony has spent much of the past two months emphasizing its support of the independent game development community, pushing the PS4 as the indie developer console of choice and announcing multiple new partnerships at GDC 2013. DayZ is made by an independent developer and based around unique community interactions online. It’s definitely the sort of game that Sony is trying to invest in currently.
