When Daybreak Games released H1Z1: Battle Royale on the PS4 back on May 22nd, 2018 as an open-beta title, it quickly became a popular game to play within just the span of a month. In fact, from May 22nd to June 28th, Daybreak managed to rack up 10 million registered players on the PS4.
Players have already invested more than 102 million hours into the game during its first open beta, and those who logged into the game before June 27th were given some free in-game items added to their inventory, including a darkfire pickup truck and a sunrise parachute.
The news about 10 million registered players didn’t occur in a vacuum, though. Daybreak also took the opportunity to update the game with a new revive mechanic, and aim acceleration adjustments for the Battle Royale mode. The update also comes with an airstrike signal to call down missile strikes on enemies.
The new H1Z1: Battle Royale mode for the PS4 and PC is free-to-play, and was designed as a reimagining of the original H1Z1 in order to cash in on the popularity of the genre thanks to games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Epic Games’ Fortnite.
Before those two other titles were released in 2017, H1Z1 was actually already doing the Battle Royale-style schtick years before. The game was actually supposed to be Sony’s answer to Bohemia Interactive’s DayZ, focusing on an open-world, multiplayer survival setup. However, modes like the H1Z1: King of the Kill and the Battle Royale modes turned out to be a lot more popular than the standard zombie survival gimmick.
At this point, Daybreak seems to have found a way to bring about a resurgence in popularity for H1Z1 after the game hit a pretty big slump following the Auto Royale update.
I don’t know if they’ll be able to rekindle any of the love loss between gamers with the PS4 release of the H1Z1: Battle Royale mode, but if you do have a PS4 you can check out the free version of the game right now by hitting up the PlayStation Store.
Additionally, if you were interested in the infographic stats that accompanied the news about the team reaching 10 million players during the first month, you can check it out below.
