The popular ArmA II zombie mod DayZ has been a huge and unexpected success and ArmA II"s developer Bohemia Interactive later announced it would release a stand alone DayZ game before the end of 2012. That time period has come and gone with no such launch.
In a new post on the game"s official blog, its lead developer, Dean Hall, stated:
Put simply, DayZ Standalone isn’t here because we had the chance to go from making a game that was just the mod improved slightly, packaged simply, and sold - to actually redeveloping the engine and making the game the way we all dreamed it could be. This blew any initial plans we had dictated to pieces.
However, Hall added that there are plans to release a closed test client of the stand alone game "imminently." The number of people who will be invited to the beta test will be between 500 and 1,000 people. Hall added, "This closed test will be focused purely on architecture, not the game design. Once we have confirmed fixes for issues arising from the closed test, we will then reschedule an internal date for our public release."
Source: DayZ blog | Image via Bohemia Interactive