Dean Hall spills beans on first post-DayZ project: 'It's about madness'

DayZ creator Dean Hall has been talking about his first project since leaving Bohemia Interactive and the ongoing production of his zombie survival game. Speaking at the Slush Play conference in Iceland (via GameInudstry.biz) he described the new game as "about madness".

Shortly after he left Bohemia, Hall set up a new studio called RocketWerkz, which is operating out of both the UK and New Zealand. Exactly what its first game is he wouldn't say, but Hall did reveal that he and his team of 20 are working on a game with an isometric viewpoint.

He also spoke about the themes he enjoyed exploring in DayZ and which will carry through into this new project. "We intrinsically understand as humans the concept of loss and cruelty," he said. "I've never really gelled with the concept of superheroes, unless it's your everyman sort of superhero. And it goes back to that concept of loss, cruelty.

"Maybe I'm just really cynical but [those concepts] seem really real to me. DayZ was really an extension of that: You're not special, you don't matter, you die very easily. This is something I've been exploring a lot in my next game."

Hall also spoke about creating virtual worlds. "For me, the virtual world has got to matter to me. I want to feel what I'm doing matters."

This is something he says was essential to the development of DayZ, which started out as a mod for ARMA 2, but which took on its own life and is currently in Early Access on PC ahead of a full release on PS4 as well.

The developer will be in attendance at the first ever PC Gaming Show at E3, a new conference dedicated to PC games. We can expect to hear more on the project there, but it remains early days.