DayZ Standalone Alpha Gets 88,000 Downloads In 12 Hours

The DayZ standalone was downloaded by 88,000 players in just 12 hours.

After several delays, an alpha version of the zombie survival simulator went live on Steam Early Access Monday. The standalone drops up to 40 players in the fictional post-Soviet state of Chernarus with 230 square kilometers to explore, including cities, villages, abandoned military bases and more. The alpha version also offers weapon and clothing customization.

Maruk from developer Bohemia wrote on Twitter Tuesday morning, “88.000 survivors have joined Dayz Alpha in the first 12 hours. Thank you.”

According to DayZ designer Dean Hall, 19,000 players signed up within an hour of the standalone’s release. By Monday evening, there were 200 new players a second signing up for the alpha version.

Steam also issued a warning to players not to purchase the alpha standalone “unless you want to actively support development of the game and are prepared to handle with serious issues and possible interruptions of game functioning.”

According to The Escapist, DayZ won’t be ready to move into beta for “more than one year from current stage,” with a full release even further away.

DayZ was originally released as a mod for the military shooter ARMA 2. By August of last year, it had amassed one million registered gamers, and Dean Hall announced that it would get a standalone release.

“Development and updates of the mod will continue in parallel with the development of the game, so anyone who is playing the mod now will be able to continue to do so,” Hall said at the time. “The project will follow the Minecraft development model; fast iterations with the community alpha available for a heavily discounted price.”

Hall created the concept for DayZ while he was a soldier in the New Zealand Army. He said he was inspired by experience during jungle training while on exchange with the Singapore Armed Forces in Brunei. Hall was injured during a survival skills exercise and said what he endured directly affected the development of DayZ.

The DayZ standalone is available for Steam on PC for $29.99.