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6 months ago
Feature: Shambling on
I spot the man seconds before my flare fizzles out. It’s dark - so dark that even though he’s just a few feet away, I can only tell he’s there from the condensation of his breath. My own breathing stops, thoughts racing behind a moment pregnant with possibility, a crossroads where anything could happen. “Hey”, he says. “Would you like my beans?”. DayZ doesn't get…
Six years in the works (counting its time as an Arma 2 mod) and Bohemia Interactive's zombie survival sandbox DayZ has left early access, flinging open its doors for a free launch weekend. Snag it here on Steam before December 17th and you too can enjoy hiking through the rain across the sprawling, bleak land of Chernarus. Maybe you'll even find weaponry and shelter before zombies…
7 months ago
Not-being-eaten-by-zombies simulator DayZ has had a huge impact on gaming over its six years of development, arguably inspiring the all-consuming tide of battle royale shooters. Not bad considering that it's still not out yet. The end is very nearly in sight, though - Bohemia Interactive say it's leaving early access next Thursday, December 13th, after a whirlwind run of beta testing. It recently added base-building,…
8 months ago
It might have been the spark that lit the battle royale inferno that consumed the industry, but zombie survival sandbox DayZ has been largely forgotten, languishing in early access. The end is finally within sight for the former Arma 2 mod, as its first beta build has officially rolled out today, a major release with the aim of preparing the game for a final launch…
9 months ago
Feature: Listen or count calmly to ten
Whoa whoa, calm down, breeeathe. Now, explain it to me slowly. The RPS podcast did what? They talked about the games that make them panic? Hm. That does sound like something those scoundrels of the Electronic Wireless Show would do. They’d probably talk about Subnautica and Duskers and SpyParty. Okay, well stay calm. That’s right. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. There’s no need to –…
Feature: Live, die, repeat
We’ve been battered by wave after wave of survival romps since Minecraft popularised the genre, with its deadly nights and groaning zombies, almost a decade ago. In its wake, we've been introduced to a cavalcade of punishing, persistent environments intent on putting us in an early grave. The masochistic impulse to put ourselves through the wringer for entertainment has spread to RPGs, management games, cosmic…
1 year ago
Feature: Bore me
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2 years ago
I'd forgotten all about DayZ, but being reminded of it's existence brings the memories flooding back. That moment when I broke my legs, and my friend had to put me out of my misery and inadvertently became a bandit. That time when I was stranded, weaponless on a rooftop and the same friend arrived just in time to save me. The session where I was…
Feature: A day in the Safe Zone
Every week we abandon Brendan to the post-apocalyptic wastes of early access. This time, the cold, hard life of Next Day: Survival [official site] I found my new friend sitting in a car outside the Safe Zone compound. The car was broken down and stationary, but he sat behind the wheel anyway. He was making his own speedy car noises and engine sounds. "Brrrrrrr-brm-brrrrrrrrr. Brrr-brr-brrrrrrrvvvv!"…
DayZ creator Dean Hall has announced Stationeers, a game about constructing and operating a space station on your tod or with chums. No, don't confuse this with Ion, his effectively-cancelled space sim. Stationeers promises complex simulation of station workings, and it's encouraging that Hall cites the phenomenal (and phenomenally complex) Space Station 13 as an influence. It's due to hit early access "soon" but is…
Ion, a simulation-heavy space game inspired by role-playing adventure Space Station 13 and announced by Dean Hall back at E3 in 2015 has been cancelled, reports Eurogamer. A sad day for fans of dying from a lack of oxygen in a floating metal cylinder, but perhaps not surprising given the ambition behind the game. “I want a game that is not a game," Hall had…
3 years ago
Dean "Rocket" Hall, the force behind DayZ and more recently his own studio, RocketWerkz, has made some fairly strong comments about the perils of VR development, the hostility of the tech's community, and his belief that profitability is extremely unrealistic for games developed for the host of new goggles. His own studio, he says, is unlikely to develop for VR again.
RocketWerkz' VR project Out of Ammo has tiptoed into official release with very little fanfare. It's quite sneaky for a game about leading little LEGO-esque soldiers into combat, guns a-blazin'. Out of Ammo has been an experimental attempt at VR for Dean Hall's (DayZ) fledgling studio. It's a strategy game that has you building up defenses and directing units as they head into battle, and…
Feature: VR tower defence + FPS
I suspect the 'I'd love to see X in VR' conversations have dried up already. No, we're not getting Dishonored: CorVRo's Birthday Surprise or Total WaVR: VRHammer, because the headsets' screens aren't really up to it, and few of us have PCs which can power it anyway. As that message sets in, thoughts turn from what VR gaming would ideally do and towards what can…
Feature: Shining a light
The Division has been infecting everyone at RPS one by one. And I am no exception. The Dark Zone of the game, however, is a strange beast. It is far less dangerous than its rough cast of heroes and miscreants want you to believe and many have complained that there is almost no incentive to kill the other human players who roam there. It is…
Feature: Let us be human
Trade! Buy low, sell high. Tradey trade trade. Is that intro length? Good. Now that's out of the way, let's talk about trading in videogames, and why it's always rubbish.
One big milestone DayZ [official site] has headed for on its hike through the boglands of Early Access has been a new renderer [the bit of a game engine which turns numbers into pictures -'Technical' ed.]. Developers Bohemia Interactive have been working on a new DirectX 11 renderer which should bring far better performance to the open-world survival game, and maybe tart it up a…
Cast your mind back to the hazy summer of 2012, when the world first went wild for DayZ [official site]. ITV sent Ross Kemp in to interview DayZ's most notorious player-killing gangs, an entire edition of The Observer's New Review supplement reported on arts and culture in Chernarus (with a fascinating piece on puppet theatre!), and MasterChef's Invention Test round gave contestants scavenged ingredients -…
4 years ago
Historically, the go-to feature for adding a splash of scary to games has been zombies. Hordes of 'em, coz the undead are terrifying, yeah? So what do you do when your game began life as a zombified mod for another game, like DayZ [official site] to the open-world military sim Arma II? You introduce predatory animals to the relative safety of the world's expansive plains.…
Feature: And it's worth celebrating.
Global illumination. Volumetric clouds. Sub-surface scattering. These are words that make me hot. But I know this feeling is forbidden. I should care about games, not the empty pursuit of photorealism. But oh my, it’s so exciting, and not empty. In fact, I think that right now photorealism is becoming crucial to games, and that we should celebrate it.
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