SOE’s John “Smed” Smedley says he loves Day Z and hopes that its team will enjoy H1Z1.
When H1Z1 was announced, a lot of people (including us) drew the obvious comparison to Day Z. Sony Online Entertainment’s John “Smed” Smedley recently took to reddit, to address some concerns fans of the game may have, including the Day Z parallel.
“How is this different from Day Z?” was asked, to which Smedley replied: “Saw this a lot. Not going to give some politically correct dodgy b.s. answer. It is a survival in a Zombie Apocalypse game. So is Day Z. They have made a brilliant game (first I might add). They have a great vision for it and can count myself and most of the people on our team as fans and contributors.”
“I can say this another way. I love 28 Days and 28 Days Later. I love World War Z. I love Warm Bodies … And so do most of you. So sure. We’re another Zombie Apocalypse game. Call it what it is. But our goal is to make ours fun, accessible, hard core and super, super deep.”
Quite a humble response from Smedley, who added “So this is our take on the Zombie Apocalypse with a lot of friends and hopefully some great enemies both living and dead. We’re proud to be up front and say we love Day Z and the job they’ve done and we hope they enjoy what we make too.”
He also talked about his future plans for the game, and apologized for the technical issues that the game’s first live-stream encountered.
“Long term we plan on making this about a persistent world with a big landscape with thousands of players. The way we would like to see this roll out is much more like players building small enclaves or pockets of territory and hold out against a legitimate zombie threat that’s ever present while others go it alone taking their chances.. These player built structures, forts and towns are one of the ways the players try to carve out some small space in a dangerous world.”
