Did H1Z1 Shut Down?

Did H1Z1 shut down? Yes – on October 24, 2018 Daybreak Game Company terminated H1Z1‘s servers, effectively ending its run and closing the book on one of gaming‘s pioneering battle royale titles. As an avid gamer and industry commentator since H1Z1 first exploded onto the scene in 2015, I had a front row seat to its dramatic rise and fall.

In this deep dive autopsy, we‘ll dissect the key factors that ultimately led to H1Z1‘s demise, explore the booming genre it helped birth, and the lasting impact its breakthrough innovations left on gaming history.

What Killed H1Z1?

H1Z1 originally launched in Early Access back in January 2015 as blatant zombie survival clone hoping to piggyback off the success of the freshly minted DayZ mod turned standalone game.

But within its DNA were the beginnings of what would become H1Z1‘s saving grace – a scrapped concept for large scale "deathmatch" modes that dropped players into sprawling maps to fight to the last man standing. H1Z1 developers were among the very first to realize that this basic free-for-all format could become its own wildly popular genre if executed properly as a standalone game – what we now know as battle royale.

So just a year later in February 2016, H1Z1 officially split into two separate games:

• Just Survive – Maintained the original open world zombie MMO survival concept
• King of the Kill – Strictly focused on fast-paced, last player standing battle royale

And this proved to be a pivotal turning point. Because while Just Survive quickly fizzled out, King of the Kill exploded almost overnight, amassing over 130,000 simultaneous players within its first month.

Recognizing they had backed the right horse, Daybreak swiftly re-branded the game as just "H1Z1" and invested heavily into improving and optimizing the emerging battle royale experience over the following years.

Yet sadly, H1Z1‘s days at the top were numbered almost as quickly as its meteoric rise. Just a year on from those highs, here‘s the series of uppercuts that put H1Z1 on the canvas:

Knockout Blow #1 – Technical Knockout

While monstrously popular off the bat in 2016 thanks to buzz and word of mouth, H1Z1 was plagued by bugs, glitches, balance issues and server troubles from launch. As the initial influx of curious players dwindled, retaining and growing the audience became critical.

Yet the developers failed to address core issues like cheating and hacks quickly enough while also letting long standing complaints like awkward vehicle physics and repetitive meta fester. This technical knockout caused many early adopters and streamers to throw in the towel.

Knockout Blow #2 – The 1-2 Fortnite/PUBG Combo

The technical flaws could have been forgiven if Daybreak had beaten competitors to the punch delivering the high octane but polished experience people wanted.

Unfortunately, by mid 2017 the battle royale hype H1Z1 stirred up led to new titles like Fortnite and PUBG capitalizing by addressing H1Z1‘s shortcomings and hitting the market with higher quality offerings tailor made for the nascent genre.

Practically overnight, these slicker, more exciting pretenders leeched away H1Z1‘s audience. And the knock out punch came as fans moved on, Unity engine limitations prevented H1Z1 iterating fast enough to keep up, and revenue took a terminal plunge from diminished players.

So in summary, H1Z1’s downfall tracks back to two related root causes:

1. Failure to Capitalize When Ahead

   As one of the very first polished, high fidelity battle royales tailored specifically for the emerging genre, H1Z1 enjoyed a healthy head start over later entrants in 2016.

However, Daybreak wasted this lead by taking their foot off the gas pedal instead of aggressively improving and iterating. This complacency opened the door for more nimble challengers like Epic and PUBG Corp to polish off lac kuster elements and sprint past Daybreak over the following 18 months.

2. Lack of Technical Foundations

   H1Z1 was built hastily by repurposing the patched together remnants of a cancelled zombie MMO project built on aging architecture. This resulted in severe technical constraints that stopped Daybreak modernizing H1Z1 fast enough to keep pace once competitors began treating battle royale as a tailored experience vs shoehorning it into existing frameworks.

While certainly not the sole factors, these two foundational issues clearly were the mortal wounds that ultimately killed off H1Z1 for good by late 2018.

The Battle Royale Behemoth H1Z1 Unwittingly Created

Yet, for all its faults H1Z1 still deserves tremendous credit. Because by charging ahead as one of the very first standalone polished battle royale shooters in 2016, H1Z1 proved this new competitive format could successfully crossover from a niche mod concept to full fledged mainstream genre.

It gave gamers their very first high fidelity taste of what would become the signature elements that define modern royales:

• Sweaty palmed firefights across sprawling open world maps

• The euphoria of clinching a hard fought chicken dinner as the last player standing

• Camaraderie of playing in squads with friends

• High risk, high reward mechanics like air drops containing OP loot

And the gaming world clearly loved this adrenaline rush, with H1Z1 racking up a staggering 13 million players in its first 6 months.

These eye popping numbers demonstrated battle royale’s massive untapped potential as the next big thing in competitive gaming and served as ground zero for the explosion in popularity of the genre moving into 2017 onward.

Practically overnight following that initial success, the gaming industry realigned en masse to chase this new golden goose format. We saw every major developer and publisher scramble to shift existing titles or craft new games modelled on H1Z1’s last man standing formula.

And many of those attempts struck gold over the following half decade:

• Fortnite scaled battle royale to staggering peaks after grafting it onto their sandbox builder game

• Call of Duty: Warzone brought Activision’s shooter juggernaut into the modern era

• Apex Legends mastered squad dynamics with its ping system and hero based gunplay

• PUBG tapped into battle royale on a deeper level to foster an eSports phenomenon

H1Z1 may have flamed out rapidly, but the spark it lit starting in early 2016 triggered a genre dominating wildfire across gaming that still shows no signs of slowing even into 2023.

Lasting Impact – H1Z1‘s DNA Baked Into All Modern Battle Royales

By now, you‘ve likely noticed recurring themes and similar elements mirrored from H1Z1 woven into practically every major battle royale title on the market over 2022 and moving into 2023.

As one of the pioneering standalone games exclusively dedicated to last man standing arena style gameplay, H1Z1 introduced multiple original concepts that have now become sacrosanct pillars underpinning all competitors in this space:

Color Coded Loot Rarity System

H1Z1 pioneered denoting weapon power and rarity via a simple color code

Its now second nature in any modern royale from Apex to Warzone for gamers to instantly assess their loadout power with a glance thanks to this ubiquitous industry standard. But back in 2016, such easy visual shorthand for gear calibration didn‘t exist until H1Z1‘s developers came up with the convention of color coding white/green/blue/purple loot based on effectiveness to replace reams of stats.

In Match Squad Revive System

A core pillar enabling camaraderie in team modes, originally conceived in H1Z1 before becoming canon in all tag team royal formats.

Initial Loot Scarcity Emphasis

All new battle royales quickly oriented on ensuring early game tension and desperate scavenging for resources just like in H1Z1‘s formative blueprint, versus say arena shooters that allow loadout customization from the lobby.

Large Scale 100 Player Matches

The signature massive free-for-all player pools pushing 100 participants standardized by H1Z1 set the scale and scope for the frantic but lonely player journey to be the last survivor that has become a defining pillar of royale adrenaline.

And that‘s just scratching the surface. We can also trace back foundational battle royale mechanics like air drops for high powered end game weapons, the closing toxic circle, even staples like the pre-match lobby launch sequence back to their genesis within formats pioneered in these early H1Z1 alpha tests.

While no doubt a tragedy to see these brilliant pioneering concepts fade away with H1Z1‘s servers in 2018, they now live on immortalized in the very DNA powering gaming‘s most popular current genre.

We all owe H1Z1 a great debt for this lasting legacy that empowered so many later blockbuster hits.

Conclusion – What Could Have Saved H1Z1?

So in closing, while H1Z1 clearly faced the writing on the wall once technical stagnation coupled with more polished competitors sealed its fate in 2017, I do wonder in hindsight – could it have cheated death by changing strategy? Were there ways to sustain itself had stubborn pride not stood in the way of evolution?

Personally, I would have loved to see Daybreak swallow their pride in late 2017 by open sourcing H1Z1 once initial signs of concerned emerged.

Similar to how Valve handed over CounterStrike to community modders, or Epic pivoted Fortnite into a playground for fan created modes, taking their hands off the wheel could have crowdsourced the game‘s renewal. If nothing else, passionate fans likely would have kept servers alive longer beyond the October 2018 pull of the plug.

Alas though, easy to speculate alternatives when hindsight offers perfect vision.

Regardless, H1Z1‘s actual legacy remains firmly cemented as Patient Zero around which the entire battle royale revolution pivoted, even as the pioneer itself got trampled underfoot once the gold rush kicked off.

For better or worse, just about every big budget multiplayer title hoping to resonate with modern audiences now contain traces of H1Z1‘s original spark woven into their DNA.

So while its servers may now stay dark, I suspect H1Z1‘s iconic impact on gaming will continue shining bright for years yet to come. The OG royale may be gone, but certainly not forgotten.