The DayZ standalone no longer has a release date, as Dean Hall explained to Joystiq this week at Gamescom. The delay is for a very good reason, however - the team are waiting for the game's "core network architecture" to be completed, which is a fairly important aspect in a complex multiplayer title like DayZ. More details after the break.
"The awkward thing is the only thing we're waiting on is the core network architecture", Hall revealed in the interview. "That's the kind of thing only a few people can work on. It's very specialized. It's like, you can't throw more pilots at a plane. You put a thousand pilots in a plane it's not going to fly any faster." Yes, but what if those pilots had jetpacks?
Obviously, while they wait, the team are working on other things: assets, design and so on. Then, once the network stuff is finished, "Bam, it's go time."
If the delay has made you slightly less rabid for DayZ's lonely-standing comeback, Hall considers that a good thing. "I think the best thing that could happen is if DayZ fell off a little. I think if DayZ has a soft launch it's the best thing that can happen to it. Because then a few people will play it and say 'this is cool, I want to play it with my friends.'"
On those constantly moving goalposts, he said that "the worst thing we could do would be to release too early. Flat out, that's the stupidest thing we could do. [The alpha launch] is going to be riddled with bugs, but the one thing I don't want it to be riddled with is terrible multiplayer, it's a multiplayer game."
It is indeed, though it's one that may be some way off yet. Sadface.
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