DayZ 1.0 is out now on PC, celebrates the release with a Steam Free Weekend

Get ready for survival! Bohemia Interactive today announced that DayZ – their open world, online survival game – has finally launched on Steam after 5 years of Early Access development. The 1.0 update released on Steam along with a Free Weekend, allowing everyone to download and play the full game for freeuntil December 17 (19:00 CET).

"Letting everyone try the 1.0 update first hand without any barriers is really the best way to show the progress we've made over the Early Access development. DayZ is by no means a perfect game yet, but I'm confident that the effort we put into making it as smooth and enjoyable as possible paid off. At its core, DayZ still has all the gameplay mechanics that excited people when it first launched, but today it's bigger, much more responsive, less clunky, and fun to play when you give it the time. And that's probably my advice to anyone who wants to try the game – don't give up the survival too early and use the Free Weekend as much as possible. DayZ can be hard, but since it's built around emergent gameplay in an open world, it's as fun to play as you (or other players around you) make it for yourself," adds Eugen Harton, DayZ's Lead Producer at Bohemia Interactive.

On top of the Free Weekend, Bohemia Interactive decided to offer one last deal to get the game for an advantageous price – until December 17, the game is available for 15% OFF its Early Access price before landing on a final price tag of $44.99 / £31.99 / €37.99 on Monday.

"We heard our community when they asked us to be conscious about the final pricing of DayZ – our originally announced final price was a bit higher, but we've now made sure that DayZ leaves Early Access with a fair price tag. We also heard the community when they wanted to let their friends know the best time to buy DayZ – and that time's definitely now. For a game that has 88+ hours of average playtime per player, DayZ is a lot of bang for the buck this weekend,"explained DayZ's Brand Manager, Martin Čulák

DayZ's Early Access has seen a lot of ups and downs over the past 5 years, and Bohemia Interactive acknowledges that it has been an important lesson for the entire company. "Big thanks to the DayZ team and the DayZ community for their patience and endurance through the years – it was not an easy road. I wish everyone the best of luck and some fresh new creative energy for the next year. Keep on surviving." adds Marek Španěl, Bohemia's CEO.

The Early Access development of DayZ produced a whopping 1300 Experimental updates on Steam, and required over 19 000 bug fixes and improvements to be made. At the same time, DayZ's development has laid the foundation for Bohemia's new technology – the Enfusion Engine – that will continue to be developed in order to support future titles of the developer.

DayZ will continue receiving new content and features during post-launch development and support, and the development road-map for post 1.0 content will be established and presented at the beginning of next year.
DayZ is also out now in Xbox Game Preview, with the full launch scheduled for early 2019, and is also coming to PlayStation 4 later in 2019.