Sony announces zombie mmo survival game H1Z1

Sony Online Entertainment has unveiled H1Z1. The game will be a DayZ-style mmo and should be playable on Windows and PlayStation 4 within four to six weeks. According to the developers, the game will put players in a world with thousands of others.

Sony Online Entertainment has now put a teaser site online that redirects to a SubReddit. In a demonstration opposite Game Talk Live, John Smedley, head of Sony Online Entertainment, indicates that the crafting system will play a major role in the game. For example, players can not only choose to live as a bandit and steal their materials from others, but they can also make them themselves. Smedley talks about electricity, bio-diesel and farms, among other things. As for the size of the game, he speaks of a scale larger than Planetside 2. Also a day and night cycle is included.

Furthermore, players are given the opportunity to build their own buildings in H1Z1. That is also in Rust, but not in DayZ, for example. Just like those two games, H1Z1 does not get RPG elements such as a leveling system. The game will contain microtransactions. Moreover, Smedley emphasizes that fire will play a major role in the game. It will be possible to set both trees and buildings on fire. As in DayZ, players will lose all of their gear when they respawn. Vehicles, including airplanes, will eventually also be found in the game.

The game runs on the Forgelight engine. The Steam Early Access version of the game should be available within four to six weeks for the equivalent of 15 euros. The Windows version of the game should come out first, but a PlayStation 4 version is also on the way.