Daybreak has just announced that H1Z1 is splitting — “evolving” is the precise word — into two games.
H1Z1: Just Survive is a persistent, open-world zombie survival game.
H1Z1: King of the Kill is a high-intensity last-man-standing shooter.
Players who purchase H1Z1 on Steam until February 16th — including people who already own H1Z1 — will get both games. Beginning on the 17th, each half of the game will cost $19.99 on the platform.
Existing crates, keys, and items will be duplicated across both games. As originally intended, Airdrop tickets will be useable in H1Z1: Just Survive and Event tickets will be usable in H1Z1: King of the Kill. If you have items on the Steam Market, they will be returned to your player inventory, and post-split you can relist them for sale under the correct game title.
So what the heck is Daybreak up to?
The more we developed this game with you, our community, the more we realized that in order to fully support both aspects of H1Z1, and their respective players, we needed to make them their own stand-alone games supported by their own dedicated development teams. Many players in the community have been discussing splitting the game and we’ve heard you loud and clear. We want to make sure we give both titles the support they need and deserve to truly flourish.
So, we’ve decided to do just that – we’re excited to announce that the survival game will now be called H1Z1: Just Survive, with a renewed focus on truly delivering a persistent, open-world zombie survival experience where scavenging, crafting, and base building are the difference between life and death.
We’re also excited to announce that the fast-paced shooter comprised of multiple, fight-to-the-death game modes, including Battle Royale, will be called H1Z1: King of the Kill (KotK).
Both games will be early access, buy-to-play games, but Daybreak says it expects them to launch fully this summer when they launch on Xbox One and PS4 as well. The company notes it has no plans to make either game F2P.
