During a recent GamesCom keynote speech, Sony Online Entertainment's president John Smedley confirmed that H1Z1 is officially coming to the PlayStation 4. It had been mentioned in passing before or hinted at as a roadmap goal, but now it's completely and entirely certified for release on Sony's fourth generation home console.
The news about the game being scheduled for release on the PS4 was accompanied by nearly two whole hours of gameplay footage, as spotted by MP1st. Sadly, the gameplay was not captured from the PS4 build, but was instead a multiplayer play-session from GamesCom of the PC build.
Even still, if you weren't all that interested in H1Z1 because you weren't sure it was coming to consoles, well now you know for sure. You can also scope out some of the multiplayer footage to get an idea of what to expect from the game, as well as how the competitive multiplayer mechanics come into play.
While watching nearly two hours of footage could be taxing on anyone, there's actually a ton of info that SOE's staff spill during the Twitch streaming session. We learn about things such as the melee combo mechanics – each weapon will have its own special combo that can be utilized to render different effects on an enemy combatant. Some of the examples included an uppercut to knock enemies off their feet, or a sweeping attack to push them back, as well as piercing strikes that cause bleed damage or blunt hits that stun foes. It's not just animations for the sake of animations; each of the combo attacks with various weapons correspond to different results. This definitely gives the game a much more varied and dynamic appeal as far as melee combat goes.
The melee combos also remind me a bit of an evolved form of what was introduced in Undead Labs' State of Decay.
Generally, H1Z1 is a lot like DayZ, offering gamers a zombie-apocalypse survival experience where scavenging for food, clothes, armor and weapons take priority as zombies, wolves, bears and other players all try to rip your face off.
Given that DayZ has also officially been confirmed for release on the PS4, it's become a very tight race between Bohemia and SOE getting their zombie survival titles fixed up enough to launch on the PS4. Neither have a specific release window in sight, but DayZ is already available on Steam's Early Access platform and H1Z1 is prepping to arrive before the fall.
Given the rush to capture the console market's player base for a true, multiplayer survival experience, I wouldn't doubt that we could be seeing H1Z1 on the PS4 before 2015 is out.
