‘H1Z1’ PS4 open beta has already brought in more than 1.5 million players

By Steven Petite May 24, 2018

Image used with permission by copyright holder

As it turns out, Fortnite and PUBG aren’t the only battle royale games that can garner some serious player numbers. H1Z1 made its console debut on PS4 earlier this week and amassed more than 1.5 million players just a day after entering open beta. The official H1Z1 Twitter account shared the impressive figure after revealing that the game had already seen 200,000 concurrent players mere hours after going online.

Although many players seem to be having a great time with H1Z1 on PS4, some users have ran into issues, usually related to logging in or joining a match. For instance, after finishing a match, users have reported that either the app crashes or they have to relaunch it in order to join a new matchmaking queue. We looked into these issues, and while our experience was mostly smooth, we did experience some longer than normal load times and an instance when we had to relaunch to keep playing.

None of this is abnormal for a game in open beta, especially one with large waves of players logging in and playing at once.

If you’re unfamiliar with H1Z1, it’s the game that sparked the battle royale craze. It launched in 2015 on Steam as a zombie survival game based off of DayZ, an ARMA 2 mod. The developers quickly added King of the Kill, a battle royale mode, and soon separated the two experiences, renaming King of the Kill as H1Z1, and the original survival game as Just Survive. H1Z1 left early access on PC in February and quickly went free-to-play the next month.

Those who have played PUBG or Fortnite will be familiar with the concept. Players parachute down to a continuously shrinking map with the goal of being the last player standing. H1Z1 is fast-paced, with matches lasting around 15 minutes, and features a streamlined weapon system that keeps the pace and action moving. Quiet moments in H1Z1 are few and far between. When you add in the fact that you can travel quickly in vehicles, it’s rare to feel isolated.

H1Z1 is off to a great start on PS4 and there’s reason to believe it could become even more popular over time. The PS4 version will eventually receive Auto Royale — battle royale in cars — which has been a welcome addition to the PC version.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Steven is a writer from Northeast Ohio currently based in Louisiana. He writes about video games and books, and consumes…

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