The history of DayZ Standalone's development goes back a few years, and begins with Dean Hall's initial idea for the DayZ Mod. Below you will find a comprehensive history of the game's time spent in development, starting with that initial idea and working its way up to 2017. This article will necessarily change over time as the game continues development both up to and after its retail release.
NOTE: Much of the text on this page comes from a series on the game's history written by Tatanko, himself an administrator of this site. It is not to be considered the final word on development history, and it should be noted that there is always room for improvement of both the content and accuracy of the information in this article. Care must be taken to avoid applying bias to the contents of this article as well. Please keep controversial or unconfirmed information on the discussion page of this article.
DayZ Mod & Pre-Release
Humble Beginnings
Before there was DayZ Standalone, there was DayZ the Arma 2 mod. While the standalone has achieved some success in its own right, it owes both its existence and its notoriety to the mod that came before it. Therefore it is important to understand where DayZ came from and what made it so fun before we can talk about how the standalone came into existence.
Originally released as a simple batch of files on January 21, 2012, DayZ the mod was created by Dean "Rocket" Hall as a personal project. It was his intent to create a harsh survival experience that he could pitch as a form of emotional and psychological training for soldiers, based on his own experience serving in the New Zealand Army. The story goes that Dean was critically injured while undergoing survival training in the jungles of Brunei with the Singapore Armed Forces, and that experience served as direct inspiration for what would eventually become the DayZ mod.
On April 18, 2012, Dean gave the mod a more formal release via the Bohemia Interactive forums with a thread titled "DayZ Zombie RPG." Prior to this point, he had been running a single personal server for the game, and now it would become less difficult to obtain and easier to access (though perhaps still a challenge for players used to one-click installs). It is after this point that DayZ explodes in popularity among the PC gaming -- and especially Arma -- communities, to the point of putting Arma 2 at the top of sales charts and selling hundreds of thousands of copies of the game to players interested in the new zombie survival experience.
This level of success was something the game's creator never saw coming, and less than a month later he would begin discussing the next move for DayZ.
Riding Momentum
On May 15, 2012, in an interview with PCGamer, Dean brings up the idea of making a standalone DayZ game for the first time publicly. At this point it isn't a certainty, but at various times over the following months he would bring the idea up during interviews and at trade shows/conventions. Finally, on August 7th, he makes it official: DayZ will be developed as a standalone game directly under Bohemia Interactive as its own IP, with Dean as the project lead and a release target of "the end of 2012."
For some of the game's fans, this announcement brings with it a mix of elation and anxiety. What will happen to the mod? What will the Standalone be, and how will it be different than the mod? When will it be finished? These are just a few of the questions that begin flying around after the news spreads, and in short order they would be answered -- though these answers would change over the next year, for better or worse.
With his attention focused on defining and developing the standalone game, its creator faces the tough reality that he cannot continue to devote himself to the original project. On October 29th, further development of the mod is handed over to the community, and on February 21st of the following year it is given an official Steam release under the title "Arma II: DayZ Mod."
The Long Wait Begins
With 1.1 million people playing the mod at the time of the standalone's announcement, it's fair to say that a lot of people were excited to see what the future had in store for DayZ. The idea right from the beginning was that development would be done by a very small team and in a way that would be very transparent so that fans could follow along with it.
Dean announces in September 2012 that he has a team assembled and has begun reviewing other Bohemia IPs for assets to use in the development of the standalone. In October of that same year, we began seeing teasers of new building interiors and the decision is made to shift DayZ to a client-server architecture more closely resembling an MMO. At this time, the team begins stripping away unnecessary parts of the existing game engine's architecture to simplify the code behind zombies.
What began as an improved version of the mod with critical issues fixed and additional content quickly becomes something else. In November, Dean reveals that development of the standalone will be going further than originally planned because of the game's continued success. At this point, the team is still focused on creating new architecture and tools for the future. An example of this would be shifting weapons and items into the realm of "entities," meaning they can now have customization and variables assigned to them. They are also looking to develop a new UI and greatly improve upon the controls of the game.
As 2012 comes to a close, it is declared that DayZ Standalone will eventually receive a full Steam release including Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC), server browser, and delta updates.
The Year That Would Never End
After some radio silence over the month of December, the year 2013 begins with some fans upset that the standalone has missed its targeted release for the end of the previous year. Dean has this to say about that missed goal: "Put simply, DayZ Standalone isn’t here because we had the chance to go from making a game that was just the mod improved slightly, packaged simply, and sold - to actually redeveloping the engine and making the game the way we all dreamed it could be."
From that point on, the year would be marked with regular updates on the team's development blog showcasing the team's efforts. Though it wouldn't be until the end of 2013 that the game would see its initial release, it's because the standalone became something entirely different than it set out to be. Following along as we take a high-level view of 2013...
January
- Standalone release misses its original target of "end of 2012." In the first update of 2013, Dean Hall explains the delay.
- Work done to inventory system and UI. Much new art has been produced.
- Massive late-month update regarding lighting and material improvements, volumetric cloud system, new server architecture, clothing/inventory, art & map updates, character customization, and weapon customization.
- Internal, closed testing begins.
February
- Video blog details how clothing will work and showcases a potential map addition in the form of Utes.
- Disease system is being worked on. The ability to leave notes for other players is being worked on.
- Player inventory is now fully synced with the central database.
- Team continues to grow larger. Initial internal stress testing is aimed at up to 150 people in a server.
- As of this time, private hives are a consideration but ruled out for initial release. The Humanity system is still a consideration at this point.
- Enthusiasm surrounding the future availability of APIs.
- Motion capture session is done for zombies.