Gamebreak Game Company's H1Z1 was one of the first survival simulators to introduce the Battle Royale concept to the gaming world. It was competing for dominance of the market early in the lifespan of the genre for eighth-gen gaming alongside Xaviant Games' The Culling. Over the years H1Z1 may have been overshadowed by the more popular Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, but that hasn't stopped the developers from putting in time and effort into advancing the game and attempting to win back the audience. The developers are looking to put smiles on the faces of winners and frustration on the faces of losers when H1Z1: Battle Royale exits open beta on the PS4 come August 7th.
The news comes courtesy of a post over on the PlayStation Blog, where it was announced that H1Z1: Battle Royale would be graduating from open beta starting August 7th. The game has been in Early Access development for years, dating back to 2015. It started as a spin-off of Bohemia Interactive's DayZ, which was hugely popular at the time.
During the Early Access phase, a number of changes were made to the game, and a number of new modes were added to the line-up, including the Auto Royale mode and the King of the Kill, which is what initially helped make the Battle Royale mode popular.
There was definitely some struggles in the development, and a number of design decisions made that fans didn't readily agree with, but after getting over some of those hurdles Day Break eventually released the H1Z1: Battle Royale beta for PlayStation 4 gamers back in spring of this year during May. The game was hugely popular and managed to garner more than 10 million registered players.
At this point, the game is now ready to take the PlayStation and PC universe by storm on August 7th. In celebration of the release of the game, Daybreak Game Company has a number of new items in store for gamers, including two brand new weapons and a new vehicle. The first weapon is a SOCOM semi-automatic sniper rifle, while the second weapon is an RPG. Both are designed for long range engagements, giving gamers who enjoy picking off foes from a distance an opportunity to take advantage of the new weapon.
The developers have also added 30 new reward tiers across free-to-play, premium and PlayStation Plus categories. You can unlock each of the tiers by either playing through the game and earning XP by playing the game the old-fashioned way.
And finally, two new bundles are being added to the game, including the Viper and Hardline bundles. These two launch bundles range from $4.99 as a starter kit containing a Burce Lee-inspired outfit, and $34.99 featuring a heavily armored character that comes with a custom set of guns and an armored Humvee.
This will be Daybreak's attempt to muscle in on Epic Games' mostly dominate market share of the Battle Royale genre on the PS4. Epic's Fortnite is a monster right now, taking charge of the mobile sector, the home console sector, and the PC sector. If all goes well for the official launch of H1Z1: Battle Royale on PS4 starting August 7th, then Epic will have some serious competition to deal with.
