DayZ creator Dean Hall to leave project & Bohemia, will start new studio
DayZ creator Dean Hall has confirmed he will leave the survival sandbox project to found a new team.
Eurogamer reports that Hall will leave DayZ development in the hands of its current team, and will leave Bohemia to start his own studio in his native New Zealand. He has three game ideas written down and two more in the works in his search for the ultimate multiplayer experience. "I want to chase that," he told the site, and added that he feels DayZ is still a flawed concept.
Speaking with the site he explained, "I am a grenade. I have a specific use. I'm really good at risk-taking and making other people take risks, I've always been good at that in my life. Like you say, maybe I've got the gift of the gab, so I can talk, I can explain something, I can talk people up to the ledge and get them to jump off it.
"That's what I did with DayZ; I've done it twice now [once with the mod, again with the standalone] - two new code teams have separately done it. But eventually, that's the bad person to have. Eventually, you don't want the guy telling you to go over the top and get through. So at some point I'll be a disaster for the project, at least in a leadership role.
Hall added that he hadn't predicted the DayZ project would take off like it did, and explained, "I never intended to be here. And it's kind of like cooking in someone else's kitchen: I don't want to be constantly telling Bohemia that this is how I do it and this is the way we do it."
From here; Hall remains at Bohemia's disposal for as long as he's needed, stressing that he's flexible in that regard. He added, "Originally I wasn't going to do this year, but it would be stupid not to, and it would be unfair to the community. I have to be on the project as long as it's important to. Whether that role is as the leader, whether that role is in a more creative sense... But at a certain point there will be diminishing returns."
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