DayZ creative director Brian Hicks is leaving Bohemia Interactive

DayZ creative director Brian Hicks, who recently soothed Chris' concerns about the addition of a sprint meter, has announced that he is leaving Bohemia Interactive. Hicks said in a farewell message that he's excited for the release of the .63 update, but he also believes that the game has reached a point where he is "no longer needed." 

"For the last year, I have been slowly taking more and more of a back seat (as I'm sure some of you have noticed) and tried to push folks like Peter, Adam, and others to let their voice be heard. Over that year I have made plans for what is next for me and worked for free with Peter Nespešný in a design consultant role," Hicks wrote. 

"I won't lie—it hasn't been easy, and there have been times where Peter and I both were uncertain about how .63 would be received, or how it would perform under full-scale load. I don't want to be a broken record—but I am so happy that all of those concerns have been washed away." 

Hicks compared his departure with that of Dean Hall, the creator of the original DayZ mod for Arma 2, who expressed similar sentiments about his own departure from Bohemia in 2014. "I'm really good at risk-taking and making other people take risks, I've always been good at that in my life," Hall explained at the time. "Eventually, that's the bad person to have." 

The loss of Hicks is big, but as he suggested, it sounds like DayZ is coming together well. Lead producer Eugen Harton said recent stress testing of the .63 build "has been a step in the right direction," although he added that a lot of work remains to be done. The next round of stress testing hasn't been scheduled yet, but DayZ remains slated for a full release sometime this year

Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

Latest in Survival & Crafting
Wearing a hazmat suit, a Rust player proudly holds up a freshly cooked pie, foregrounded by a table covered with pies and a large pumpkin on the left.
Rust's crafting update gives the survival sim real-time food cooking and pies to rival Monster Hunter, but the tastiest treat is the ability to make and throw 'bee grenades'
A pig, a cow, and two birds dance
Minecraft Live returns in March with everyone's favorite kind of content: 'exclusive movie content'
An explosion in a desert environment
Survival sandbox Core Keeper gets explosive next week with a whole new skill tree devoted to bombs and grenades
Dead in Antares screenshot
The tough luck continues in Dead in Antares, the newest addition to the long-running series about people trying not to lose their heads in bad situations
Jack Black with mining gear.
'3 hours of my life that I'll never get back': A Minecraft modder did the lord's work, creating a mod that adds Jack Black's voice to the game
The Last Caretaker trailer still
Humanity's last hope is a little robot with can-do spirit in The Last Caretaker, coming to early access this summer
Latest in News
Recently appointed Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan.
Here comes Intel's new CEO: a semiconductor veteran that won the same prestigious award as Jensen Huang and Lisa Su
BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 15: Protestors attend the SAG-AFTRA Video Game Strike Picket on August 15, 2024 in Burbank, California. (Photo by Lila Seeley/Getty Images)
8 months into their strike, videogame voice actors say the industry's latest proposal is 'filled with alarming loopholes that will leave our members vulnerable to AI abuse'
Orithopter shooting down another in Dune
Dune: Awakening confirms air-to-air combat in ornithopters
live action Jimbo the Jester from Balatro holding a playing card and addressing the camera
LocalThunk forbids AI-generated art on the Balatro subreddit: 'I think it does real harm to artists of all kinds'
Inzoi - A Zoi's face in three graphical presets showing a progression from a slightly blurry minimum specs to a higher fidelity recommended specs.
Oh great, the full Inzoi system requirements are posted and I'm barely above the minimum specs so I guess my Zois will be beautifully blurry
Mark Darrah
BioWare veteran says a big delay is better than lots of little ones, because sometimes you just gotta 'burn it down and take the other fork in the road'