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

By Suzie Ford on April 05, 2019 | News | 0

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.

Got laid off by NantG. Will write a tweet longer soon. We tried very hard to make it work and I couldn’t be more happier and proud of the people we worked with trying to make this happen. Love you all <3 H1 community will always be in my heart just like Planetside will. — Arclegger (@Arclegger) April 4, 2019

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 -

End of an era guys. Been a fun ride overall. Onto the next thing!! — The Nottus (@iNOTTUS) April 4, 2019

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

Lots of incoming messages so just let me say, I am no longer affiliated with NantG, Z1 or DB. The last 6 months was an awesome ride with a great team who were willing to give it their all, no matter the odds. To the H1 community, thanks for sticking with us. Wish you the best. — Anthony Castoro (@CastoroGamer) April 4, 2019

Former Daybreak CEO John Smedley weighed in as well -

sorry friends at Daybreak and NantG :( — John Smedley (@j_smedley) April 4, 2019

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