If you happen to be one of those weirdos who is constantly thumbing through SteamCharts to see how games are doing (i.e., me), you might have noticed an odd spike in activity for Z1 Battle Royale, the artist formerly known as H1Z1 and before that H1Z1: King of the Kill. Let’s be honest, this thing had a lot of names as it was kicked around between teams. At the moment, though, it’s the PC version of the game, and as far as we know, Daybreak still owns it. But it’s been in deep decline for the last few years following multiple scandals. In December, for example, it had a peak player count on Steam of under 500 people – its all-time lowest peak.
But in January of this year, that number shot way, way up to a peak nearing 10,000 with a gain of nearly 900% players in terms of average concurrency. So what gives?
I’d like to be able to tell you that it’s because H1Z1 is being rescued by the powers-that-be at Daybreak, but if that’s the case, we don’t know about it yet, nor was there any mention of H1Z1 at all when Daybreak recently spun off its three core MMORPG teams into their own named units under the Daybreak umbrella.
Nope, apparently it’s because a couple of top streamers decided to start showcasing the game, running tournaments and reminding watchers about the game’s selling points.
Will it last? We don’t know. But it sure is fascinating watching streamers – and their fans – literally trying to rescue a game from the deep hole it’s been left in.
