Developer NantG Mobile has announced that they are stopping development of Z1 Battle Royale and will hand full control of the title back to Daybreak Game Company.
Z1 Battle Royale, better known as H1Z1, was picked up by developer NantG in an attempt to return the game back to its former glory, but unfortunately for them, that’s turned out to be much harder than they had originally anticipated.
The game was known as H1Z1 until March 2019 when the Season 3 launch update under NantG re-branded the battle royale game as Z1 Battle Royale. The update was an attempt at reviving the game and bringing players back to the title, as well as sustaining those who were already playing. However, just a month after the update, NantG has decided to call it a day.
‘Despite the team’s determination and commitment to revive Z1BR’s player base with our recent Season 3 launch update, we soon realised that the road is still paved with many challenges that preclude us from long-term success, including the confusion it caused by having both NantG Mobile and Daybreak managing the same game under two separate brands,’ NantG said in a statement.
‘Based on these events and the current state of the game, NantG Mobile will focus on its core mission of developing mobile games moving forward, and we have refocused our team toward this vision.’
NantG has also had to lay off multiple employees in an attempt to ensure the company is financially stable moving forward. It just so happened that these layoffs coincided with the announcement that they have finished working on Z1 Battle Royale.
With control of the game being handed back to Daybreak Games, there is some good news at least with the company agreeing to keep the servers up and running for current players of the game.
H1Z1 initially launched as a multiplayer zombie survival game before branching into two games, H1Z1 Battle Royale and Just Survive, the continuation of the zombie survival game. However, in August 2018, Daybreak Games switched off the servers for Just Survive, leaving the battle royale game as the last man standing.
