Since the announcement of H1Z1 last week, we've had plenty of Easter eggs and info come out, but Sony hadn't yet shown a lot of actual gameplay footage.
Luckily for us, H1Z1 dev Jimmy Whisenhunt and tech director Tom Schenck hopped on Twitch last night and gave us an almost hour-long preview of H1Z1's gameplay.
So what happened during the livestream? Well, first and foremost, Whisenhunt made it very clear that the game will be realistic, but not at the expense of being fun. A phrase that he used often was that the devs aren't going to do anything just "because real."
That might aggravate some of the users over on the game's subreddit looking for an ultra-realistic zombie apocalypse simulator, but I actually like that commitment by the H1Z1 team. There is a certain point where realism gets silly -- I don't want to have to hammer every individual nail on my shed. I'd much rather gather the materials and just drop it in.
Which reminds me, they showed off the mechanics for building structures as well. They're working on a relatively easy to use snapping system. So if you build a shed with the wood you collected and want to slap a shed door on it, you can equip the door and just snap it right into place. And then you've got your first apocalypse studio apartment!
As far as the zombies themselves, Whisenhunt and Schenck had a little trouble with their build early on, but were able to figure it out. In the first interaction with a zombie, it basically stood there and let Whisenhunt kill it. By the end of the gameplay, however, they patched up that little bug and Schenck was being chased by about 15 zombies through a town, by himself and armed with only a hatchet. He died. So yeah, these zombies will be lethal, and not just some minor inconvenience in the game.
Oh, and materials: they're hard to find. There was literally about three guys on their server testing the game and everywhere that Whisenhunt and Schenck tried to loot was absolutely bone dry. And you will need to eat and heal and everything else, so those materials are going to be hot commodities.
It's tough to get a read on what the final game will look like, but I was certainly encouraged by what I saw during the stream. This devs seem really dedicated to creating a fun experience while not compromising the game's mission to be a true survival simulator. But don't take my word for it, check out the recorded stream below!
Watch live video from h1z1 on TwitchTV
