Bohemia doubling DayZ dev team size

Bohemia has doubled the size of the development team behind DayZ after hiring a large number of new employees for the project.

The standalone title has been a huge success on Steam Early Access since its release in December last year, garnering more than one million in sales as the game continues to top the digital store’s charts.

The title is still in Alpha phase and may not reach beta until next year. Further planned additions in the meantime include animation improvements, reworking of emissive materials and the development of a new cooking system.

DayZ creative lead Dean Hall recently revealed it was his intention to leave Bohemia by the end of the year to start his own studio, and would be handing over his development duties to the current team.

"Originally I wasn’t going to do this year, but it would be stupid not to, and it would be unfair to the community," said Hall.

"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.

"The thing is, if I’m involved in the project, I’ll be fighting anybody on the project to make sure it’s good, so for the rest of the year, I’m there. And I don’t just sit around; it doesn’t matter if I’m the cleaner or the leader or whatever, I will be making sure – I will be in Marek’s [Spanel, CEO] office yelling at him. I’m notorious for it."