H1Z1 Becomes "Z1 Battle Royale"

Earlier this year, Daybreak Games retired H1Z1’s survival mode, Just Survive, due to a lack of dedicated players and a desire to focus more on the competitive, battle-royale mode that is unsurprisingly getting more attention from the fans… kind of like what’s going to happen to Fortnite, come to think of it. But while that game still has the co-op survival game attached to it for some reason, H1Z1 is going full steam ahead on the battle royale mode, so much so that they’re even going to change its name.

“H1Z1 on PC will soon be known as ‘Z1 Battle Royale’! This release is the first major step in that transition. The newly re-formed dev team worked closely with the community to prioritize features and changes that return the game to its roots as the world’s most competitive BR Game.”

Given that this comes from the Version 1.0 release notes, that would also mean that the game is going to leave early access, which is… cool, I suppose. The patch notes list a bunch of other changes, affecting bullet physics, recoil, and other small but important details, but far more important are the changes that are coming to the game’s matchmaking.

Because while the game has a decent player count, it’s not drawing the kinds of numbers PUBG and Fortnite rely on to guarantee full lobbies with every cue. So they’ve decided that games will have a maximum lobby time of 135 seconds, as long as there are 2 or more players. Whatever the final number of players is will determine how big the “ring of death” is at the start of the game, a clever trick that a lot of other failed Battle Royale games should have tried.

I could actually imagine a small 3-person skirmish with a few small buildings and not a lot of loot would be rather thrilling.

In any case, hopefully, the community latches onto the changes, and things continue to progress smoothly. As sick as I am of Battle Royales, I can’t help but root for an underdog.