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Several Z1 Battle Royale Developers Laid Off, Future of the Game Remains Unknown

Suzie Ford Updated: Posted:
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Adam "Arclegger" Clegg, lead designer of Z1 Battle Royale, has tweeted that he has been laid off by NantG, a move that may spell big trouble for the game formerly known as H1Z1. Clegg also penned a lengthy farewell to the community and to the development team that is a mea culpa of sorts about the rocky road the game has traveled since first revealed years ago. 

From Clegg's longer post

On splitting the game - I understood why the decision was made, two different communities and two different games sharing the same databases and perforce check ins. It was a huge hassle and both communities had to suffer through which game got the updates and BR was winning by a mile. I don’t like how the survival team was handled afterwards and I feel like they deserved a better opportunity to thrive and I still think there is a space for a massive sandbox zombie experience. Thats not up to me to decide though.  On combat update - Was very against it obviously but remember this was just after we got banned from China and PUBG just came out in alpha I think. Pressure was on the executives to make a move, it was just the wrong one. In hindsight the right move was to fix the bugs, fix the latency, fix the engine, and lean into supporting the game that people fell in love with. Unfortunately those things were starting to happen too little too late. 

Other Daybreak employees have posted about their termination from the company, including its combat designer - 

...and Community Manager Jason Burns as well as Executive Producer Anthony Castoro - 

Former Daybreak CEO John Smedley weighed in as well -

What the layoffs mean for the future of Z1 Battle Royale remains to be seen. We'll keep you posted!


SBFord

Suzie Ford

Suzie is the former Associate Editor and News Manager at MMORPG.com. Follow her on Twitter @MMORPGMom