DayZ Standalone Isn't Ready Yet, But It Will Be Playable At GamesCom

So that “within a week” of an unspecified date has come and gone and now we're past the half-way point of July and gamers are still saying “Where's the DayZ standalone?” Well, Dean “Rocket” Hall took to Reddit to explain himself and engage with the fans a bit, which inevitably involved talking about when DayZ's standalone will arrive.

On the Reddit thread, one user basically asks Rocket about the release of the standalone, saying “So it should be out before Aug 21st, then.” to which Rocket replies, “It should already be out. But it's not, because it's not ready.”

On the upside of this, Dean is now setting up GamesCom as the sort of golden margin for releasing the alpha to the public. Someone asked if Hall would be attending the Cologne, Germany event to which Hall stated that...”Yes, DayZ will be playable there. It will be a very painful show for me if we aren't out by then.”

So obviously the within "a week” statement meant that they were aiming for something a lot closer but it just didn't pan out. It's a common occurrence in the world of game design and not something anyone should be surprised about.

What's more is that in the extended post on Reddit, Hall makes it clear that he's doing the bare minimum of attending events and keeping the community up to date without worrying too much about maintaining marketing hype.

As noted in the post by Dean “Rocket” Hall...

I feel like I am now doing the bare minimum. I'm going to the shows largely because I believe that interfacing directly with people in the industry (such as E3) and the players (gamescom, pax, rezzed, eurogamer) is something that I wish game designers did more of. I just don't have time to do any more interfacing than this bare minimum.

This is all fine and I think most people are very accepting of this.

The reality is that most people are at that nail-biting stage of development where we all know that the public alpha is on the cusp of release and we'll all soon be fending for ourselves (or with friends... or with strangers) in the post apocalyptic world of DayZ Standalone.

For those of you who may feel as if it's taking too much time and the time-frames set up by the team keep getting delayed, don't worry... it's all for your benefit. According to Hall...

[The time frame] was an attempt to propose that I believe that gamers, as consumers, would be better served by being the ones insisting on quality. Instead of a "I want to play it now! Don't care how buggy it is!" and then "OMG what is this buggy SHIT?"I make mistakes, plenty of them. But that has nothing to do with consumer pressure that I now see in some ways overtaking publisher pressure to get games out early. That is a fucking worrying trend. When the consumers are sabotaging their own games.

So there you have it. Dean doesn't want people saying “OMG what is this buggy SHIT?” and complaining about it to the high heavens when they get jammed on a door and a zombie uppercuts them through the ceiling and then they get stuck in a looped falling animation.

Hopefully the standalone for DayZ will be out before August 21st. But it looks like we now have our new launch window.

Will Usher

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.