DayZ screenshot of a character walking amidst a ruined road

[Update]: DayZ 1.0 will be officially released this December 13th!

Back when dinosaurs roamed the land and zombie games were as numerous as the undead hordes themselves, the highly ambitious and immensely popular mod DayZ launched in Early Access as a standalone game. It was buggy, bare-bones and the zombies had a tendency to run straight through walls, but it was also the long-awaited followup to the original mod, so many players were more than eager to forgive its problems.

Five years have passed since then, and though many of the same problems still remain, DayZ has now at long last transitioned from alpha to beta alongside a major update! The engine and network performance have been improved, base building has been introduced along with better AI for zombies and animals, the map has been reworked in order to be more interesting to explore, and the list goes on.

You can find some of the details over at the official website, or through the recently posted developer video discussing the move from alpha to beta. Have a gander, it's a relatively short video:

Personally, I no longer even care enough to get upset about DayZ. In five years I've seen AAA games rise, fall and then rise once more, and yet DayZ has remained nearly motionless throughout all of that. It could've been a truly revolutionary game, and from a certain point of view I suppose it was given how greatly it impacted Steam's Early Access scene, but right now I can't help but feel like it's just aimlessly shambling around like one of its zombies. 

Whether you agree with me or not, you should head on over to Steam in order to learn more about the beta version of DayZ. As for the full release, it is expected that DayZ will leave Early Access "by the end of 2018" and that the price will be increased to €45/$50 once it does. I can only hope it'll be worth all the wait.