H1Z1 (PS4, post apocalyptic MMO, free to play)

Sony Reveals New MMO H1Z1
Zombies, middle America, and crafting, oh my!


Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley revealed today that the company has been developing a free-to-play MMO called H1Z1.




Smedley addressed the similarities between H1Z1 and other survival/zombie titles by pointing to many of the features that SOE hopes will make H1Z1 rise above the rest. Some of the features Smedley spoke of include multiple servers with different rule sets that can hold "thousands of players," crafting, an in-game economy built around a trading system, and many more.


Smedley also stated that the game is designed to allow players to become part of the design process.


The game's newly formed subreddit is "very open to answering questions," and the team will be doing a livestream of a playtest session next week. Be sure to keep checking back to IGN for more news as it develops.

It’s been 15 years since H1Z1 was first encountered and what’s left of the world before is overrun with the Infected. Humanity has been reduced to hiding in the shadows, searching desperately for food and water and anything that can help to survive even for another day. But the Infected aren’t the only dangers in the world. Everyday life in the Apocalypse means dealing with all kinds of wild animals and the brutality of other survivors, as well as finding your next meal and a safe place to sleep. It also means scavenging or crafting anything that can help you live just one more day. In H1Z1 every minute of every day is borrowed time and fearing for your life… unless you are the Danger (talking to you Walter), but life can and will go on… even in circumstances as dire as this. Humanity has not given in to the Infected. There are still pockets of humanity and the fight goes on!

Smedley continued, "To use a simple reference I’m sure everyone interested in this game will get… we want our players to make Woodbury from The Walking Dead if they want to. Or take over a prison. Or fix an old car so you and your friends (yeah we have multiplayer vehicles) can run zombies and players over mercilessly, and revel in the sheer delight of hearing a zombie scream as you light it on fire, or craft a gun to take down your friends and enemies alike. Our goal here is to provide emergent gameplay that will allow our players to make the world their own the way they want to. One of the best things about H1Z1 being an MMO is the fact that with a lot of people playing, we’re able to see all different kinds of gameplay. If you prefer a quiet life as a farmer raising crops… we’re going to make sure your zombie apocalypse fantasy is complete. If you’re like me and you want nothing more than to kill everything that moves, by all means see how that goes. It’s going to be a blast!"

They can just learn from day z the good the bad and make something better

“Here is something that you can do here [in H1Z1] that you can’t do in other games, light things on fire. You will be able to burn down trees, burn down stuff and that is going to be a lot of fun,” he said in an interview with GamerTalkLive.

Unlike other zombie games, H1Z1 will feature dynamic zombie AI resulting into different experience every time the player plays the game. “H1Z1 is the first game that we will be putting out that will have emergent AI. The zombie themselves have their own individual AI, they are not on some pre-programmed script and they actually think of themselves.,” he explained.

He also believes that H1Z1* features the deepest crafting system ever. “This game has the deepest crafting system that I have ever seen in any game. If you find a vehicle, you have to find a battery, you have to refill the cell, find spark plugs. We are not screwing around, this is going to be a hard game. If people don’t like hard games that don’t play this game. “


[...]

"Our Map Editing system allows us to quickly add massive areas. We want to make sure we clearly understand how the players are playing the game before we do that. On Planetside 2 we made a mistake by making multiple continents before we had a strong enough idea of what worked and what didn't. This game is different. We're doing it smarter."

Smedley went on to confirm an Early Access period in which a "massive" map will be open for players--but this "massive" map is only the beginning. "Over time (very quickly) they'll magically just be able to keep going further than they've gone before. It's a very unique way of doing it, but we actually think this is a better way to go."

Smedley also talks about nailing the atmosphere of a zombie apocalypse, something that the MMO genre's somewhat immersion-breaking traditions seem at odds with. "Zombie Apocalypse isn't going to be any fun if it's like Disneyland on Spring Break and super crowded," he believes. "We want remote.. haunting... being scared when you see someone. Your first instinct needs to be to hide. If there are 20 players in your view it's not a very convincing Apocalypse "

"So how many players per server? Who knows. As we add more land the number of people we can hold on a server goes way up."

In a previous post, Smedley also explained:

"We’ll have urban cities and desolate wide open places. All connected seamlessly. Our focus is building a sandbox style of gameplay where players can build shelters out of resources in the world. They can even work together to make amazing fortresses complete with weaponry to help defend against both the Infected and other players."