Hall is ”not a fan” of Firaxis’ Enemy Unknown, although he loves the originals. He hopes DayZ will expand into other genres, and he feels it important to make something without zombies.
The creator of the ArmA II zombie apocalypse doesn’t want to get permanently labelled ‘zombie man’ because of DayZ, which is why he’s looking to other projects.
”When I played Jagged Alliance 2, seriously, it was just great. It had a little horror element in it. You could play the sci-fi mode. And so I just… I was thinking, wow, what a great game that would make,” Dean Hall told PC Gamer.
”The original X-COM is one of my favorite things. I love the concept of turn-based. I know it’s not super popular. People don’t really like it that much now. But that’s definitely in the cards. I think that would be an awesome thing to make one day,” he continued, musing on a turn-based DayZ eventuality.
Already Jagged Alliance 2, Arma and DayZ share similarities.
”When I thought about it, I was like, “This game has to be made.” What I’m hopeful of is that instead of DayZ being this franchise of a game after a game after a game, shooter shooter shooter, there’s some other directions it could go that could be quite interesting. Again, the whole concept of, “This is your story,” I think it would be interesting to make it…”
”Jagged Alliance 2 always felt quite linear to me. I’d love to take elements from the early Fallouts, where it felt to me like the story wasn’t so forced. And so that would be great, to take the two and mash them together and create this DayZ turn-based strategy that was not storyline-based. Again, the whole DayZ thing is, it’s your story.”
Dean Hall isn’t too concerned about making something without zombies - in fact he believes he might have to for his own sake. If he went and jumped into a turn-based spin on the DayZ world then he’d get pigeonholed.
”If I went and made the DayZ turn-based strategy game, a turn-based game like Jagged Alliance, then everyone would say, “Dean Hall equals zombies.” I think it’s important to go out and make a game that’s not zombie-based, that I’m passionate about, that I’ve always wanted to make. I don’t think it will be as mainstream, obviously.”
”DayZ turn-based strategy would never be as mainstream. But I don’t think that’s bad. Look at KSP. Look at Hotline Miami. Well, actually, Hotline Miami is pretty mainstream now. But there’s a lot of games out there that find their place and do well. It’s what the PC does so well. Maybe the PS4, too? You never know.”
Check out the full interview between Dean Hall and PC Gamer.
