H1Z1, the grandfather of the battle royale genre, is finally making its way to the PlayStation 4 and it will be absolutely free-to-play.
Daybreak will be releasing an open beta for the PlayStation 4 version of H1Z1 on May 22. Keen gamers will be able to sign up for the closed beta, which will take place later this month.
H1Z1 is one of the oldest battle royale games and as of this year, has finally made its way out of early access after three long years. The game puts 150 players against each other in an all too familiar game mode, where the last person standing is declared the winner. Unlike PlayUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite, players are able to scavenge for items to craft makeshift tools or deconstruct items to create better ones.
The origins of H1Z1 are extremely interesting due to the games it was inspired by and what game was inspired by it. Upon its release on Early Access, many passed the game off as a Day Z clone. At the time, Day Z was one of the biggest game available and many developers attempted to emulate its success. After succumbing to a bad launch, a developer by the name of Brendan Greene came onto the scene and designed a battle royale mod for the game. It quickly became so popular that the developers ditched its original style of gameplay and completely adopted the battle royale mode. After working for Daybreak for a while, Brendan Greene went moved on to make a little battle royale game of his own. It is called PlayUnknown's Battlegrounds.
Whether H1Z1 will be able to compete with the monstrosity that is Fortnite is yet to be seen. Competition is extremely healthy and considering that H1Z1 will be free-to-play, I'd say it has a pretty good chance of succeeding.
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