DayZ's standalone version, the follow-up to the popular Arma 2 mod, is out now on Steam early access for $30. Unfortunately, DayZ creator Dean Hall was notified at the last minute that the launch trailer (below) that Steam pulled his trailer "due to censorship," but you can still watch it thanks to YouTube.

The trailer may have been pulled because of the suicide you see in the end, which we know is a new feature in the game.

As we've previously reported, Hall has made it explicitly clear that this is an alpha build of the game in the truest sense of the term. It is a work in progress, only a representation of what's to come, and filthy with bugs only players who want to observe and participate in the development process should buy into.

True to his word, Hall gave this warning top billing over any other cool features in DayZ. The main description of the game on Steam reads:

"WARNING: THIS GAME IS EARLY ACCESS ALPHA. PLEASE DO NOT PURCHASE IT UNLESS YOU WANT TO ACTIVELY SUPPORT DEVELOPMENT OF THE GAME AND ARE PREPARED TO HANDLE WITH SERIOUS ISSUES AND POSSIBLE INTERRUPTIONS OF GAME FUNCTIONING."

And only then does he describe the experience, a realistic, open-world survival horror hybrid-MMO.

Disclaimers aside, the descriptions of what's included in the alpha currently available on Steam is sure to get a lot of people to buy into it. It already has Chernarus, the 230km² landmass of deep forests, cities, and villages that severs as DayZ's playground, and it can already handle up to 40 players per server. Persistent player profiles, crafting and other staples of the original DayZ mode are also all in there to varying degrees. We'll see you there, but we won't trust you to not steal our stuff.

Development on the standalone version of the DayZ mod has snowballed into more intense territory than anticipated. DayZ creator Dean Hall has posted an update on the DayZ blog to say that “The experience will be entirely new. There is virtually nothing that has been directly ported from the mod, everything has been redone. This wasn’t our original intention (hence the December deadline) – but it has evolved this way. We’re all glad it has!” Read on to find out what the team’s been tinkering with.

Hall says that character development is “the absolute core of our current design efforts.” New models for ethnic female characters have been added, and there’s more to come. “Until initial release, the vast majority of our efforts will be with expanding options for developing and customizing your character.”

Meanwhile, DayZ’s lead programmer is shifting the multiplayer engine to a “server-client MMO mode,” which will add a bit of much-needed stability. If you want to run games for your community, good news: “Private servers will be supported.”

Designer Ivan Buchta has also rejoined the team after the Greece ordeal, and is working on renovating the DayZ’s island. You can see the results in the latest DayZ screenshots below, spotted by Kotaku

The latest DayZ Standalone update dispenses with the technical round-ups of recent posts, and instead focuses on creator Dean “Rocket” Hall having violent and unnatural spasms. Because he’s doing motion capture work for the game. Not because he’s possessed or anything. Probably.

The twenty minute video takes you through the mo-capping process, and features select interviews with DayZ’s animation team. In it, you can learn Bohemia animator Martin Michalik’s favourite mo-capped animation for DayZ. Spoiler: it’s “defecation”. Wait, what?

Don’t expect a huge splurge of information about the status of the project. Still, it’s an interesting look at a particular aspect of development and, at the very least, is good for a cheap laugh or two.

Rocket and Lightfoot. It sounds like the name of a new cartoon animal duo, but thankfully for us it’s referring to the DayZ standalone’s project lead Dean “Rocket” Hall and production assistant Matt “Lightfoot” Lightfoot, who have teamed up to narrate this 20-minute slice of the impending zombocalypse. It’s the first time we’ve seen the game in motion, and it seems to be coming along quite niceZ.

Among other things, the video shows us DayZ’s revamped food system, which now leaves behind empty cans after you’ve munched on a delicious meal of beans. There are also motorcycle helmets, more detailed environments, and many, many more zombies in the game – around 3,000 currently spawning (centrally) on the server, with the promise of more. All in all, there’s a nice big chunk of DayZ footage here, though it seems we’ll have to wait a while longer to see the standalone’s zombies in action, which are being given fancy new skeletons for the occasion, eliminating the classic zigzagging animation once and for all.

The last update for creator Dean “Rocket” Hall’s standalone DayZ dug a lengthy gameplay video out from underneath a pile of bean cans, motorcycle helmets, and a lot of zeds. There are enough goodies in the fledgling survival title for an alpha, but Rocket’s holding it back for at least three more months to polish up client-server performance.

“We’re going to review the situation in June,” Hall tells Joystiq. “So there’ll be no release between now and June. And we’re quite hopeful that we’ll go then. I know that people get really frustrated because they want to play, but I just think this is the best option.”

DayZ’s alpha keys will go out in waves, Rocket explains, and players will be allowed to jump into the standalone’s loot-ripe lands after his team tinkers some more with the client-server tech to handle larger connection numbers.

“We want to release the keys in chunks of what we have servers available,” he says. “The idea is to very quickly try to release something out there, because that allows us to start capacity testing. We’ve got one final thing we’re waiting for with the release date, which is the completion of our client-server architecture. It’s basically making the game into an MMO, and pretty much the moment that’s done, we’ll release.”

Dean “Rocket” Hall has a mountain to climb. No, not the metaphorical mountain of game development, with the continued creation, testing and reiterating of DayZ Standalone. He’s actually climbing a mountain. Everest, to be precise, which according to geography is “quite big”. Naturally, he took a quick pit stop at base camp to open up Tumblr and draft a development blog update from 5,400 metres in the sky.

Of the areas the team are now working on, it’s the in-game radios that sound the most promising. Players can find the walkie-talkies out in the world, and set a frequency that lets them talk and type to anyone on the same channel. You’ll also be able to disable the speaker, potentially letting you listen in to another group’s conversation.

Furthermore, players will need to craft headsets that attach to the radio if they don’t want its output noise to be broadcast in a radius around the set. So while the feature is being teased as a simplified version of Arma 2′s ACARS radio mod, it sounds like there’s more than enough flexibility and consequences to flesh out DayZ’s grouping and PvP planning.

Elsewhere, the team have been implementing more natural animations – including player movements that feels less militarised, tightening up zombie pathfinding in buildings, improving the towns and implementing the new art assets.

While there’s still no news about an alpha release date, Rocket finishes by saying: “we want to release our initial alpha under the architecture it needs to avoid hacking and security issues – this is the only remaining task stopping us from releasing the alpha.” Well, presumably that and the mountain.

DayZ creator Dean Hall told us today at Gamescom that the standalone version of the hit Arma 2 zombie mod, originally expected last year, doesn't have a release window anymore, but he did explain the delay.

"The awkward thing is the only thing we're waiting on is the core network architecture. That's the kind of thing only a few people can work on. It's very specialized," Hall said. "It's like, you can't throw more pilots at a plane. You put a thousand pilots in a plane it's not going to fly any faster."

Hall said that while the network architecture is being developed, other work is proceeding with the artists, animators and designers. And once the network architecture is completed to the satisfaction of the brutal multiplayer survival game: "Bam, it's go time."

Although the success of the DayZ mod made the standalone version possible, Hall actually would like to see the rabid expectation for the game die down just a tiny bit.

"I think the best thing that could happen is if DayZ fell off a little," said Hall. "I think if DayZ has a soft launch it's the best thing that can happen to it. Because then a few people will play it and say 'this is cool, I want to play it with my friends.' The best thing that could happen."

"If most of the community who maybe thought DayZ was cool a year ago and now they think it's lame, I think that's probably good for us. We don't need to sell that many copies to break-even. We want to be a hardcore game and I think if we make a good game people will come back."

He concluded, "The worst thing we could do would be to release too early. Flat out, that's the stupidest thing we could do. [The alpha launch] is going to be riddled with bugs, but the one thing I don't want it to be riddled with is terrible multiplayer, it's a multiplayer game."

do i need to pay for this game? where can i download it for free..? thanks

Guys, I'm going to get the game soon on Steam with a friend so I won't be playing alone however I heard there are many assholes in the game which would do all sort of things to you which is actually one of the purpose of the game. Anyway, any veterans here care to like tour us the game or something? Friendly vets here willing to help?

wanna buy this game, 14 keys good deal?

just bought the dayz mod from Humble BUndle, add me

http://steamcommunity.com/id/slimshady96wayne

This is really LOL,you guys should get the thai to sing

I wonder if we could start a new thread? With first post and 2nd post full of surviving tips , food/drink info, maps , etc etc