The very first gameplay trailer for H1Z1 from Sony Online Entertainment has gone live, featuring in-game play from the upcoming zombie-survival MMO.
The entire thing will probably look terribly familiar to most gamers who have already taken the plunge with Dean “Rocket” Hall's DayZ standalone “alpher”. But given that DayZ is a ways off from launching on either PS4 or Xbox One, this is definitely the next best thing in the pipeline.
Also, the biggest difference between H1Z1 and DayZ's current alpha is that SOE seems to be promising – very early on, I might add – vehicles and base-building. Those two features were already present in the mod of DayZ for Arma II before Dean and the crew moved over to the standalone. SOE is smart to focus on features that gamers really loved and then put a big 'ole zombie spotlight on them.
Speaking of zombies... the trailer above also focuses heavily on zombie hordes. For those of you participating in the DayZ “alpher” you might recognize that there aren't many zombies flooding the environment right now. Instead, you only encounter zombies infrequently while scavenging for goods in the wasteland.
H1Z1 seems to be under the promotional direction of giving gamers just as much of a threat from zombies as other players. This could turn out to be for the best, as Rust – one of the other open-world, crafting-survival games out there – removed the zombies. So effectively, there's only H1Z1 and DayZ that offer survival zombie action with multiple players in an open-world environment.
As noted on MP1st, the video for H1Z1 was actually uncovered by players unlocking it following a recent live-stream with the folks at SOE.
The company is working very hard to be community-oriented during the budding development of their open-world zombie title, much in the same way that Dean “Rocket” Hall stayed very close to the community leading up to the release of the “alpher” of DayZ. In fact, SOE's president, John Smedley, regularly posts updates on the sub-reddit for H1Z1 over at reddit.com/r/H1Z1/.
The community is rapidly growing, with more than 10,000 subscribers tuned in to stay updated to the progress of this new title for PC and PS4.
SOE is planning on launching an Early Access program for H1Z1 soon; more than likely happening around the time of E3. The game will be free-to-play with non-pay-to-win microtransactions. We'll keep you posted on more details of the game as they become available.
