We’ve talked quite a bit about DayZ in recent weeks, a game which actually started off as a zombie mod for Arma II and was subsequently picked up by the studio behind Arma as a standalone title.
Development is progressing nicely, with coders and graphic artists currently focused on an aspect that is very important but might ultimately be overlooked by FPS enthusiasts – interior design.
I think all gamers will agree that when you walk through an in-world door into a business or home, the interior definitely makes a difference in terms of realism. Meaning, if you bust into a structure and there is no furniture (rotting or otherwise), well the game suddenly doesn’t feel nearly as real as it would if the building was furnished.
So as noted above, interior design is what the designers of the video game are focusing on right now. This clearly marks big change from Arma II, which includes only a few buildings with recognizable interiors.
“Our artists have been very busy, methodically going through all buildings in Chernarus and adding interiors. The task can be pretty difficult, when the buildings were made interiors were not considered so it can be a challenge for the artists to make the interiors both look correct and work properly,” DayZ creator Dean Hall wrote in an official blog post.
“The village I used to take the screenshot in now has all its buildings enterable, including the sheds. Most focus has so far been on the buildings that are situated outside of the center, but focus now is turning to doing interiors for the city buildings. This is complicated by our desire to dramatically increase performance, and given the scene complexity inside cities we need to balance this with the desire to increase building scavenging opportunities inside the cities.”
DayZ is still slated to be released by the end of 2012. While we initially thought the game would only be available for the PC, it appears DayZ is heading to Xbox Live as well. With us midway through October, the end of the year and the launch of DayZ is close, and certainly can’t arrive soon enough for me.
