Just Survive – MMO Fallout

Much like the cycle of the moon, one can pretty much anticipate that another H1Z1 rebranding or new direction is just over the horizon. Daybreak Game Company announced today that the survival half of H1Z1, subtitled Just Survive is being further split off from its brother King of the Kill and will completely lose the H1Z1 branding. From today going forward, the game will just be called Just Survive.

In perpetual early access since its initial release of January 2015, H1Z1 has undergone quite a history of changing directions, starting with Daybreak announcing and then reneging on plans for a free to play model, chopping the game into two halves (Just Survive and King of the Kill).

“Our new logo and key art highlight all the aspects of the game that players know and love—from base building and defending, to looting and exploring, and also reflects how Just Survive is developing into a more mature and polished game,” said Ben Jones, Just Survive Creative Director. “Just Survive is about more than just killing zombies, it’s about the player’s survival journey. Re-establishing society isn’t an easy task, and this update introduces a variety of features, like Strongholds, that encourage players to band together through the dangers and tension of post-apocalyptic life while striving to reclaim their world from the zombie hordes.”

The update comes alongside a massive rework of the game’s fundamentals. Players will now start in a guarded military zone which also introduces a currency that can be obtained by selling items to NPCs. The gold will be needed to buy stronghold locations as it is no longer possible to construct a base wherever you want. For more information, check out the trailer below and take a gander at the patch notes on the official website.

zombies

Earlier this year, Daybreak Game Company announced that they would be splitting off H1Z1 into two separate games: King of the Kill and Just Survive. Since February, the games have been operating as two separate products leading myself and some others to ask: How have they fared?

Looking at the statistics, it’s safe to say that King of the Kill is easily what players bought into H1Z1 in order to play. The game peaked out in its launch month with an overall peak of more than twenty thousand players. Since then, traffic has dropped off about 25% to fifteen thousand, a respectable rate of retention, and has even grown slightly over the course of June.

The survival portion of H1Z1, meanwhile, has proven more stable while less popular. You can see in the chart that, upon split, Just Survive immediately loses nearly twenty thousand players from its peak numbers and sticks at about eight thousand. Since the split, however, the game has lost a distinctly smaller portion of its base. Peak numbers in February dropped from 8.7 thousand down to 7.0 thousand, so it looks like a substantially larger portion who stuck around during the split have stayed since then.

So while King of the Kill is more popular, Just Survive seems more stable. Both titles are no doubt doing well for Daybreak.

(Source: Steam Charts #1, #2)