DayZ alpha released on Steam early access

“Hello, I am a friendly chap who will definitely not kill you and take all your stuff.”

If you’ve been waiting for DayZ’s alpha to show its face on Steam’s early access system, that wait can now come to an end. The game is up and available to purchase (again, in alpha form) for $30.00 USD.

In DayZ, you … look, am I really having to explain what DayZ is? Fine. It’s the stand-alone version of the absurdly popular mod for Arma 2 in which players ostensibly scavenge for supplies to fend off zombies, but in reality are scavenging for supplies to fend off other horrible humans. The stand-alone version expands the basic game concept in a number of ways, improves the graphics and generally polishes the whole thing up. Which is why it’s taken a fair while to reach this stage.

There’s a big old disclaimer on the game’s store page for anybody expecting a totally finished game at this point. Read it, and take heed!

WARNING: THIS GAME IS EARLY ACCESS ALPHA. PLEASE DO NOT PURCHASE IT UNLESS YOU WANT TO ACTIVELY SUPPORT DEVELOPMENT OF THE GAME AND ARE PREPARED TO HANDLE WITH SERIOUS ISSUES AND POSSIBLE INTERRUPTIONS OF GAME FUNCTIONING.

It’s in caps and everything so you know it’s serious.

In case you missed DayZ developer Dean “Rocket” Hall and his team getting ambushed in a live-stream of the game at the weekend, you can find that here. And fairly amusing it is too.