DayZ has turned into its own beast. Still in alpha, the mod for Arma II has pushed Bohemia Interactive's simulation-based FPS into all new territory, nudging sales close to the half-million mark. What's more is that DayZ will be receiving an update soon that contains dogs.
DayZ is a modification for the PC game, Arma II (short for Armed Assault). The mod turns the massive landscape of Chernaus into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, populated by zombies and scavenged by pockets of real-life humans desperately trying to survive.
The mod has become popularized because the survival factors are off the hook. Players have to eat, drink, watch their temperature and basically avoid infections. It's a harsh, no-holds-barred horror-survival experiment and it's becoming quite popular. According to Blues the game has been on Steam's Top 10 for nine consecutive weeks. The game is also pushing Arma II close to moving half-a-million copies over the past three months.
The success of the mod has lead designer, Dean "Rocket" Hall, to consider an expansion into a standalone game. According to an interview with Eurogamer, there are big plans for DayZ...
"There are no rules. There are no objectives. It was really just designed as a tech demo for something I'd been pitching for a while,"..."Currently we're running 22,000 concurrent at full peak, and 10,000 off peak, which is pretty huge numbers considering the original data structure and system was designed to handle 100 concurrents, and two servers,"
The ultimate goal is to turn the mod into a free-to-play game. How the cash shop would work is anyone's guess (hats, perhaps?)
The next step is implementing dogs...yes, dogs. If you thought the zombies were trouble you'll probably get a kick out of being chased by a German Shepard.
You can pick up DayZ right now, but you'll need Arma II: Combined Operations. Even though there is no sales on Arma II the game is still selling like fried hotcakes during Octoberfest. You can learn more by paying a visit to the Official DayZ Website.
