Day Z Developer Speaks Out On Game’s Console Release

You might be forgiven for thinking the PS4/Xbox One version of Day Z is no longer happening, given that developer Bohemia Interactive have stayed relatively quiet on the matter. 

Worry not though, as Creative director Brian Hicks recently told Eurogamer that the zombie survival adventure is ‘not dead at all’.

Hicks explained that we haven’t heard much about Day Z for consoles because ’99 percent’ of Bohemia’s development resources are focused on the PC version – the game’s ‘flagship’ platform.

He elaborated:

While there was a lot of push from Sony and Microsoft to get up on their stages and say, ‘Yes, we’re coming,’ our focus has been exclusively (I want to say exclusively because there’s about a one percent development resource trying to keep those platforms at a point at which, once we get to our beta and our bug fixing, we can start pushing forward on that) on the PC. We can’t really move DayZ over to these platforms, at least on a playable level for consumers, until the base engine, Enfusion, is complete. Or if not complete, feature-complete so to speak–the core tech is there.

As a result of these PC priorities, it seems that development for Day Z on consoles won’t really kick into gear until 2017.

However, Hicks did suggest that the game will probably end up on the Xbox preview program. It’s worth noting that the PS4 does not offer a similar program.

Hicks said:

Once we get to a point with the PC that we’re comfortable and we can start dedicating a little resources into catching up those [console] platforms then we’ll look at doing some announcements and talk about the Xbox Game Preview program, which is what I would imagine is the first place we’ll get to since Sony doesn’t have something similar.

Day Z launched back in 2013 as an Early Access game on Steam. Despite still being Early Access, it’s shifted more than 3 million copies.