H1Z1 Dev: “There Wouldn’t Be PUBG Without H1Z1”

Daybreak says it “pioneered this idea.”

By Tom Marks

I recently spoke with H1Z1 developer Daybreak about the latest update to its battle royale shooter H1Z1: Kill of the Kill and the runaway success of its competitor PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

When asked how PUBG’s success has affected H1Z1’s development, Game Manager Anthony Castoro told me that “there wouldn’t be a PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds if there wasn’t an H1Z1.” He followed up by saying that “there’s room for this genre to expand,” and believes PUBG is “creating an opportunity” for H1Z1 to reach a larger audience that it otherwise wouldn’t.

I asked Castoro what he thought PUBG did that made it see such a high level of success, and he dismissed it as a “fast follow opportunity” after H1Z1 “pioneered this idea.” He said that Daybreak was “the company that really first identified the commercial opportunity with a game that could really work.”

“[PUBG] is a clear fast follow opportunity."

“[PUBG] is a clear fast follow opportunity: take an existing game engine, find someone who has worked on this kind of idea that established it already, and do a decent job with the game, and guess what? [The battle royale mode] really is fun and exciting and engaging. So, from a business perspective, that’s just a fast follow scenario.”

Castoro said H1Z1 was already “attracting that audience and really figuring out that formula,” but had to do so starting from H1Z1’s original concept as a survival game, not a battle royale game. Since its early access launch, Daybreak says it has “doubled-down” on the battle royale side of the game, beginning with a massive update last September that spurred King of the Kill’s growth in popularity.

Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene, creator of the original Battle Royale mod for Arma and Creative Director of PUBG, was actually initially brought on by Daybreak (then Sony Online Entertainment) to help bring his mode into H1Z1, which would later be broken out as the standalone King of the Kill.

“Their success is unprecedented, and it is related to that game, but also this genre.”

“I think there was a lot of mentoring that went on for Brendan,” Castoro said, “because he hadn’t done commercial games before, he had done mods. He learned a lot, I think probably, from the development cycle there. It’s kind of why I say there wouldn’t be PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds without H1Z1.”

Despite Castoro saying they see PUBG’s success as an “opportunity to define ourselves and what makes us special,” I asked if he was worried PUBG might instead smother its competition, but Castoro said he wasn’t worried. “I don’t have that fear any more than maybe CS:GO has that fear right now,” Castoro explained. “Their success is unprecedented, and it is related to that game, but also this genre.”

H1Z1 released a large update at the end of last month revamping combat, as well as a roadmap for the future of the game - which includes the goal of balancing matches to roughly be just 20 minutes long.

Tom Marks is an Associate Editor focusing on PC gaming at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

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