Day Z officially passes one million total players

At this point it seems likely that Day Z's immense popularity and notoriety have actually eclipsed that of the game it's actually built upon, ARMA 2. Today it wasrevealedthat the hugely successful mod has now passed an incredible landmark:one million players.

As impressive as that number sounds, it's even more astounding than it seems. As Day Z is just a mod of ARMA 2 (not a full game unto itself) that makes the barrier to entry much higher. Normally ease-of-access is a non-negotiable requisite when aiming for popularity in the gaming world. However, Day Z has managed to do extremely well even though in its early days it was actually fairly difficult just to install.

The craziest part about this is that Day Z only just hit the 500,000-player mark less than a month ago. Meaning they've added another 500,000 players in under four weeks. Clearly, Day Z hasn't even begun to approach its high-water mark yet. This game has a long way to go yet. Meanwhile, we have to imagine the folks at 505 Games and Bohemia Interactive have got to be mighty pleased right about now as the aging ARMA 2 has gained a second chance at life (and may be selling more copies now than it did at release.)

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Bohemia is also working on ARMA 3 currently. Let's hope they're working with Day Z's creator to implement an ARMA 3 version of the mod.

*Goat screenshot credit to PC Gamer.

Andrew is a freelance video game journalist, writing for sites like Wired and GamesRadar. Andrew has also written a book called EMPIRES OF EVE: A History of the Great Wars of EVE Online.