It’s hard to believe that two years have passed since Dean “Rocket” Hall launched his DayZ mod for Arma 2. Back then, Arma 2 was struggling with sales and wasn’t a particularly popular FPS, at least not when compared with other industry-leading titles from the Call of Duty or Battlefield series. DayZ changed that, propelling Arma 2 sales to new heights and starting a trend that nobody expected to be so popular. Buggy it may have been, but DayZ’s appeal was huge, and the amount of fans that picked up a copy of Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead just for Rocket’s zombie survival mod was huge.
A lot of things have happened since 2012 though. First, it’s worth mentioning that the PC modding community got to work hard, and in just a few months, dozens of DayZ mod versions appeared, some becoming extremely popular. We’ve seen mods such as DayZero or DayZ 2017 pop up and benefit from great popularity. We’ve also seen developers taking interest in Rocket’s concept, and an abundance of copycat games appeared shortly. Nether or World War Z (now called Infestation) are just some that pop to mind.
I find it hard to believe that the first version of #dayz mod was released more than two "rockety" years ago: http://t.co/lwq8WcDZBF
— Marek Spanel (@maruksp) April 28, 2014
Rocket didn’t sit idly by and leave DayZ as a simple mod though. The plans to create a standalone game that didn’t rely on Arma 2 to run were quickly drafted, and by December 2013, the DayZ Standalone had been released on Steam’s Early Alpha stage. The game set some new trends there too, where it showed that players would indeed be interested in picking up unfinished games ahead of time and contributing to the complex development process. Today, DayZ is still in an alpha state as a standalone game, but huge improvements have been made to the game since its launch in December, with more to come. There’s still a lot of content missing, but that wasn’t enough to deter fans of the survival genre from purchasing the game off Steam. In fact, almost 2 million copies (1.93 million to be exact) of the DayZ standalone have been sold so far, and players seem to be enjoying the game still. Granted, it can become dull after several months of playing, but with new things added every couple of weeks, there’s always a reason to come back for more.
Whoops. Totally forgot DayZ's birthday…. Thanks @maruksp! Hard to believe two years…. Thanks to all you made it possible!
— Dean Hall (@rocket2guns) April 28, 2014
Rocket still has big plans for the future of DayZ. While he mentioned that he would eventually leave Bohemia Interactive and move on to other projects that have no relation to DayZ, he still aims to finish what he started, and is trying to ensure that the development team behind DayZ is more than up for the task of polishing the game to perfection even without his presence. There are multiple additions to DayZ being worked on, among which a new physics system, vehicles, housing and base-building, complex hunting and much, much more. It’s work in progress, granted, but it’s undoubtedly popular among fans of the genre. This was recently evidenced when Sony Online Entertainment announced that it was also working on a similar game entitled H1Z1. Whether or not H1Z1 is a DayZ clone or not remains to be seen, but the fact that Rocket’s mod brought a breath of fresh air to the online gaming industry cannot be contested.
To celebrate two years of DayZ, we’ve looked up some of the first videos from the original mod, and compared them to footage from today’s alpha Standalone. What a memorable and bumpy ride this has been, and it’s likely to keep surprising us in the future. Take a look for yourself!
