DayZ Might Spread to Console(s)
The former Arma 2 mod turned standalone title, DayZ, may not just be a PC-only prospect if talks go well between developer Bohemia Interactive and Sony.
For the uninitiated, DayZ, currently in closed beta status, is a survival horror game heavy on the “survival,” tasking players to scavenge for food and supplies while also staving off a painful, bite induced death from the undead denizens roaming the game’s vast environments, which is exactly as hard in this game as Romero tried to convey to us through nearly six decades of zombie films.
According to the mod’s creator and standalone title’s designer, Dean Hall, it’s the kind of apocalypse right up Sony’s alley. “We’ve talked and met with Sony, and they’re very – you know, they’re obviously interested.”
Priority one, though, is launching the standalone on PC. “Certainly I think if we don’t, for want of a better word, ‘fuck up’ the PC release then I would say a console port is almost certain,” said Hall, speaking to The Escapist. Hall expects some resistance from the PC crowd to yet another console bound port/traitor, but he doesn’t believe the two versions existing side by side “necessarily have to hurt things." Typing to you from the other side of a low-end laptop, I second that motion.
With Sony poising a much more indie friendly distribution channel on the PS4 – to, without a shadow of a doubt, one-up Microsoft’s near belligerent mishandling of the indie gaming explosion over the past several years – it wouldn’t be totally surprising to see DayZ start its console-ward journey there, adding to Sony’s amassing indie legion (yeah, still pretty stoked about Primal Carnage: Genesis).