UPDATE: Survival game DayZ has taken almost four years to reach beta stage

Update (4.30pm May 3): We’ve recieved a statement from from Bohemia Interactive with some more details. DayZ is still very much planned for console, but they’re still a ways out from the beta releasing publicly. 

‘While it’s true that DayZ is two updates away from its first BETA marked public build (coming with the 0.63 update, the current public version is 0.61), we’re still months away from that important milestone in development. The BETA update will see us implement all the important technology modules (and related features) that we’ve been working on during the Early Access ALPHA stage, ultimately allowing us to finally make DayZ the way we always envisioned it.

We can’t provide any detailed release time frame for the BETA (beyond what I just wrote above). We’re now closer than ever, but we’re definitely not there just yet.’ 

Regarding the console versions, Bohmeia said: ‘Our goal is to have at least one of the console versions out very soon after we reach BETA on PC.’

Original story: ‘Survival game DayZ has taken four years to reach beta stage’

DayZ, a permadeath survival game that released on Steam early access almost four years ago, is finally approaching beta. I say ‘approaching’ because although the latest status report details the beta update, it doesn’t actually say when said update will land. It does say that most of the team is working on it.

DayZ started out as a mod for ARMA 2 and proved so popular it was developed into a standalone. It was scheduled to enter beta, or indeed hit full release, several times over the years, and is still (apparently) planned for console as well, at some unspecified point. 

This is all kind of okay, though, because devs Bohemia interactive are very open about their development processes, and DayZ continues to have an active community who enjoy the game.

It’s actually really fun, especially if you’re kind of hungover from a Christmas LAN, and your friend Tim collapses in-game because he drank so much water he couldn’t eat, so you’re shoving a steak you found in his mouth to see if that will actually keep him alive, and then Josh finds you both and Josh has a defibrillator, but then he accidentally uses it on himself and also collapses. So, maybe try it out.