DayZ devs taking time, beta not planned until close of 2014

With over 875,000 copies of DayZ standalone sold in Early Access, the development team is going to take its sweet time getting to a final release version. In a recent update on the official DayZ development blog, the team said, "Please keep in mind that we do not expect to reach Beta status sooner than the end of 2014."

"The level of support and confidence we have received from the DayZ community makes us even more dedicated to the game than we were in the past 16 months of DayZ standalone development," stated the post. "In the short term, we're going to focus on the most critical problems you're experiencing [at the moment] and at the same time we're going to work on the road to the DayZ Beta."

Over the year, the team plans to continue working on "server performance, stability and security," along with hunting, gathering and "more complex interactions with the environment and crafting options."

The launch strategy publisher Bohemia Interactive and DayZ creator Dean Hall are using for the game isn't that much of a surprise. Hall told us last year at Gamescom the best thing that could happen is if DayZ, which started its undead life as a runaway mod success, fell off the radar for a while. Hall said at the time, "I think if DayZ has a soft launch it's the best thing that can happen to it." We don't know if having nearly a million sales is a "soft launch," but the team clearly isn't in a rush.