Arma sequel Arma II is fairly well-received, but really comes into its own with the release of the DayZ mod, a setup that turns the military simulation game into a survival one. The mod becomes Arma's main claim to fame, and it's clear why - it's offering something that doesn't really exist on the market anywhere else, except for, like, some hardcore minecraft mods or something. The entire 'survival crafting game' trend didn't exist yet, it was a *reaction* to DayZ.
DayZ's basic premise was that players randomly spawn, with limited gear, and have to procure their own weapons and equipment while combatting environmental hazards like zombies, and their own hunger meters. Being a mod itself, it was immediately favourable to spinoff mods, where players would tweak which aspects they enjoyed, and minimise those they didn't. Quickly, distinct subgenres emerged - some focused on the survival crafting aspect, and introduced base building, endgame vehicles, and base raiding tools (the foundation for games like Rust); while some focused on the PvP element, introducing features that made meeting and gearing up easier. Even in pure survival servers for DayZ, areas like the northwest airfield tended to be complete free-for-alls, and some versions focused in on that, even including the ability to spawn in the air and parachute to a desired location. One popular PvP mod, by the modder Playerunknown, focused heavily on this side of the game.
As Arma II aged, and DayZ's success became evident, the developers began to work on a standalone version. Playerunknown, unsatisfied with the constraints of an Arma mod, also started working on a standalone, and released Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, PUBG, kickstarting the battle royale trend (which ultimately unseated the prior king, the zombie survival crafting game trend, also derived from DayZ). A number of other games followed in its wake, making use of the as-of-yet neglected half of DayZ's gameplay. One game, a zombie survival base-building game, by the name of Fortnite (because you build a fort and have to survive in it for a while) pivoted, and introduced a Battle Royale gamemode alongside its original gamemode, eventually supplanting it. Other franchises, such as Call of Duty, would scramble to add battle royale features and modes to chase the wave, but Fortnite, already copying DayZ from the previous trend of copying DayZ, had a leg up on them.
In brief, video game trends for the last twelve years (zombies, survival, crafting, battle royale) have basically been a whalefall, slowly consuming DayZ, piece by piece. DayZ, for its part, kinda died, and its standalone kinda sucks. Fortnite, the zombie survival game based on DayZ, switched to copying PUBG, the PvP shooter based on DayZ, and became the most popular game in the world, innovating on lootboxes based on TF2's digital hat economy, to create all new forms of predatory FOMO for 12 year olds.
pixelskylines
theartofmadeline
discoholicmusic
amandla
