H1Z1 Splits Into Two Games Feb. 17, Will No Longer Be Free-To-Play
1+1 = 2, and apparently H+1+Z+1 = 2, as well. Daybreak Game Company today announced that H1Z1 will split off into two titles, one focusing on the survival aspect of the game and one focusing on the battle royale part of the game.
H1Z1: Just Survive will be the title of the survival-mode version of the game, while H1Z1: King of the Kill will be the battle royale part. Each will have its own dedicated development team and resources, and develop mostly independently of each other. The split will happen on Steam on Feb. 17; anyone who owns the base H1Z1 game before then will have both games. After the 17th, you'll have to pay $19.99 for each.
Oh, right -- neither version of H1Z1 will be free-to-play any more. That might be the right choice for survival games, but it just feels like a bit of a bait and switch, and it deserves more of an explanation than just a brief answer to an FAQ question. Moreover, it makes me wonder about the future of EverQuest Next and whether that game will still be free-to-play... whenever...
In any case, both titles will remain in early access for the time being, with King of the Kill launching fully on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One this summer, while Just Survive remains in early access for the remainder of 2016. And this will probably be the last article you see on this site about either. So, what do you think of the news?
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About the Author

Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.
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to me it looks like 20E + 20E = Tripple A title price for what? someone has just taken this shit to the next level no no DLC's we're going to chop a game completly in half and charge dubble the price to glue it back together if you want it.. dafuq 2016 and still going backwards.
i dont really care about the split, but i would like to see some performance optimization, game runs terrible for how it looks.
this is what happens when "investors" take control of game development, I knew they would do things like that (in fact, they did worse than what I imagined, getting rid of f2p model is not even a smart move in terms of profit), forget EQ Next, if it does come out, it won't be what they promised, what we were promised was a good game, this isn't profitable
and btw, this is why people shouldn't buy Founder's Pack
This is why you don't announce monetization until late in the development process, folks. Broken promises are far worse than no promises.