H1Z1

GENRE: Survival MMO
PLATFORM: Windows
DEVELOPER: Sony Online Entertainment

OVERVIEW

NOTE: After the split there are no plans to make either H1Z1: Just Survive or H1Z1: King of Kill free-to-play titles.

H1Z1 is a zombie survival horror MMO where players must band together against hordes of zombies, bands of roaming survivors and even other players. Using the Planetside 2 Forgelight Engine the game professes to offer a far greater graphical style in comparison to other games in the genre and focuses on encouraging more cooperative gameplay.

KEY FEATURES

- Zombie survival horror MMO
- Emergent AI that thinks for itself
- Huge environment to explore using vehicles to get around
- Firearms and other high-end gear are extremely rare and hard to find
- Construct small buildings or huge fortresses that are persistent in the world
- Official SOE provided servers

LORE

The game takes place 15 years after a zombie apocalypse that has devastated the world, set in the United States those few survivors that are scattered across the country must now find or build their own haven against the constant threat of the zombies and the far greater threat; other survivors.

GAME WORLD

The world itself is extremely large, players all gathered together on a single server to create a more populated game which is possible given that the servers are hosted by SOE directly, meaning reduced lag (one of the main issues with other games of this nature).

Players will be able to travel around either on foot or in a variety of vehicles and choosing how they wish to live their virtual lives in this open sandbox game. Players are able to establish persistent buildings, everything from small shacks to huge fortresses and completely take over their environment, laying claim to particular territory by placing down their own constructions, which they will then ultimately have to defend against both the AI and other players and rival Guilds.

CRAFTING

Valuable items aren’t easy to come by in the game, such things as firearms are extremely hard to find making them very rare and meaning that those in control them are often the ones in charge (as you would expect in this kind of setting). Players are able to try and craft various items such as weapons, first aid supplies, power generators and more from the components and materials they are able to find and salvage from around the world in various buildings from the scores of abandoned vehicles that line the streets.

THE AI

One of the key fundamental aspects of the computer-controlled enemies is “emergent AI” where each zombie will have their own individual AI and think for themselves meaning they are less predictable in different situations than AI in many other games. In particular some zombies may be more keen to go after an animal and ignore a player altogether if the animal seems like the easier kill, however when in force horde of zombies can be a thing of absolute terror and can bring down a player with only a few hits.

The player has a number of tricks and tools in their arsenal, as well as their gear and there are able to interact with their environment to try and get the best of the zombies, even so far as setting buildings, zombies and even other players on fire. Skill will come in surviving in the game focusing on a semi-auto targeting style combat removing twitch-based shooting altogether.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENT

Currently Unknown