Bohemia Interactive announced that the game that started the whole zombie survival trend in gaming has finally graduated from Early Access on Steam. The game is now available for $34.99 over on the Steam store.
The game is also discounted by 15% off on Steam for the first week, so you can get the game for $29.74. The game is also free-to-play up until December 17th, so you can test the game out with all the new features since it entered into Early Access way back in January of 2013.
Over the years the team had to complete gut and remake an all new engine for the game based on Arma 2 and Arma 3, and have fixed a number of issues that plagued the game when it was just a mod, as well as many of the core mechanical failures that it suffered from while in Early Access. To commemorate the release there’s a launch trailer for the PC version of 1.0, which you can check out below.
As showcased in the trailer, the basic survival elements are present, including hunting for animals, gathering food, scavenging for items, repairing vehicles, and finding weapons, along with brand new features, such as constructing bases, maintaining supplies, and dealing with the zombie hordes that roam the countryside.
The trailer surprisingly doesn’t showcase any actual PvP, as one of the things that Dean “Rocket” Hall wanted to focus on before parting ways with Bohemia Interactive and starting up his own development company, was discouraging players from engaging in kill-on-sight behavior.
One of the ways they implemented this “discouragement” was by degrading equipment that was impacted by bullets (much like in real life). So if you shoot up someone wearing an armored vest it’s less likely to be as effective when you do get into gunfight. Or if you shoot someone while they’re carrying a weapon there’s a chance you might damage the weapon.
The user reviews were originally pretty soured on the game throughout the extremely long development cycle, but now that the game has finally graduated from Early Access, there’s some air of positivity for the game. Of course, there are also a lot of people giving the game a thumbs down and saying how much they hate it, so you’ll have to filter through the user reviews and find the ones that discuss the pros and cons of version 1.0.
For more info feel free to check out the Steam store page. The game is also available in the Xbox Game Preview program, where it’s still working through the developmental kinks on home console.