Sony Online opens up about their open-world zombie game.

If you're reading this between 6PM - 7PM Eastern, catch the live H1Z1 keynote!

We're on the ground at SOE Live, and the H1Z1 devs have shared a few tidbits.
We've put them together in one place, and here they are below!

Early Access

• H1Z1 was born out of tech research & development on ForgeLight
• Leveraging tech from Planetside 2
• Early Access will be a "vertical slice"; looking for player feedback and to build community
• Open development and collaboration is key (esp. for server types, etc.)
• Rapid iteration would mean it's not ready for a large audience; want a level of stability
• Should be very playable experience, good amount of features
• Pre-alpha state looks pretty and smooth; lighting is good; lots of zombies
• First few weeks of EA is about tuning, looking at what players are doing
• Tracking player behavior/metrics
• Need to get the basics right and iterate

Gameplay

• "The first thing you do in our game is die"
• Hardcore in consequence but accessible and intuitive
• Challenging, high risk/reward; decision-making crucial to players
• Trying to leverage the world to prevent automatic kill-on-sight
• Air drops, plane flies over and drops a crate – hopefully creates opportunities for player interaction
• Female characters in the game

Zombies

• Plan for several types of zombies, first is known as the 'walker'
• Variation in eyesight / hearing / speed / sounds like Last of Us and L4D2

Environment

• Aiming for a certain amount of 'realism' in the world
• Capable of putting 100s of players on a server, but almost definitely won't
• Ever expanding world, 100s of sq. km.; 64km square at launch; "crazy big" is the goal
• Small town U.S.A. vibe; urban environments and large residential areas are in
• Star map should be accurate
• Navigation done by points of interest and signs
• Player settlements/housing; board-up and control buildings or make your own

Servers

• No player hosted servers – want to provide consistent quality
• Server rulesets will be varied and based on what players want
• Need a way to poll as many players as possible, not just vocal minorities
• Game modes – still planning

For more H1Z1, check out the YouTube channel, the subreddit, and this:

Locksixtime, Contributing Writer
Colt "ShdwFlm" Casey, Deputy Editor