Early Access is renown for shepherding early builds of games into the public’s eye that are, quite often, plagued with technical issues. Granted, this is the essence of the system, creating a feedback loop between end user and developer that helps the latter party iterate on ideas and, in theory, create a fully-fledged title worthy of its price tag.
But for Sony Online Entertainment’s zombie MMO H1Z1, those first few days on Valve’s client hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing. Having only been available to download for a short time, players have already criticized the way in which the studio has implemented paid-for content, with premium airdrops and the like running the risk of unbalancing the game — and indeed irking a fanbase before it is even released.
The latest update from SOE brings news that the company has taken the survival-based, DayZ-esque title offline due to serious, game-crashing bugs. According to president of SOE John Smedley, H1Z1 servers have been down since late last night, and in taking to Twitter, Smedley apologized for the prolonged downtime.
Still working on 2 issues. Sorry for the extended downtime. Kind of issues that must be solved and not just go back to last patch.
— John Smedley (@j_smedley) January 21, 2015
At this stage, budding survivalists have simply been asked to wait for further updates from SOE as the studio continues to hone in on those errors in question. Of course, this fine-tuning is part and parcel of what Early Access is all about, but given the negativity surrounding H1Z1 even at such an early stage, it’ll be interesting to see whether Sony’s take on the zombie MMO can turn things around as it inches ever closer to its full release.
Tell us, have you experienced any issues when playing the early build of H1Z1? Let us know your impressions in the comments section below.
