RocketWerkz.... it only makes sense. That's the name of Dean “Rocket” Hall's newest game studio... RocketWerkz. It's a nice play on his nickname and has the 'Z' and everything to make it hip and cool. A bunch of young people will see the name and have their eyes filled with glittery stars and their heart filled with ceaseless ambition. Alternatively, people angry that DayZ won't be finished until 2016 will likely always see the name of the company and have their heart filled with rage and their thoughts overcome with trolling.
GamesIndustry.biz caught wind of a tweet from Dean “Rocket” Hall where he made it known that he is hiring for his brand new studio, RocketWerkz.
The e-mail address is pretty hilarious... yolo@rocketwerkz.com? Well, you only live once... am I right? Am I right?
Anyway, the studio will be housed in the city of Dunedin on New Zealand's south island.
Details on what the studio will be working on are absent. Hall has been mum about his studio after originally announcing that he would be branching out from Bohemia Interactive to start his own studio.
When Hall originally announced back at the start of 2014 that he would be leaving Bohemia Interactive, it sent shockwaves through the DayZ community, with many gamers desperately questioning whether or not it would spell the end of the zombie-survival game. However, Hall was passing the torch on to a new lead designer and would venture to pursue his own ideas with his own studio.
Of course, even with Hall stepping away from DayZ, the game is constantly growing and expanding. It was announced during GamesCom that the PS4 would get a special version of DayZ and that console prototyping would begin for the game sometime well into 2015.
Just recently a roadmap for Bohemia Interactive's open-world zombie title was rolled out to showcase exactly what the team is working on and when gamers can expect to see certain features deployed for public use, including vehicles, base building and smarter zombie A.I. Even without Hall leading the development of the game, the team has already mapped out the full release for DayZ's standalone for 2016.
As for Dean “Rocket” Hall... I think he's established enough of himself in the design of DayZ to step away and start pursuing other ideas. He originally designed the DayZ mod for Arma II, which went on to help Arma II sell nearly a million copies throughout 2012. The mod's popularity reached fever pitch status and then eventually turned into a standalone that went into production back in August of 2012. The standalone alpha didn't actually release until an entire year later to a lot of fanfare. The game managed to sell quite well and continues to sell well.
Whether or not Dean “Rocket” Hall and whoever he hires at RocketWerkz can replicate the success he managed at Bohemia Interactive remains to be seen. However, I'm sure the gaming community will be eager to see what the studio produces.
(Main image courtesy of LaRuche)
