Whatever happened to H1Z1? One of the earliest successes in the battle royale genre, the zombie open-world game saw tremendous success in recent years. Now, though, thanks to PUBG and Fortnite, it’s slowly shambling out of sight.
Video game stats site GitHyp has crunched the numbers and discovered that, since H1Z1’s July 2017 concurrent users peak of 150k users, the active user base has dwindled considerably. Now, the number is closer to 10k, a drop of over 90%.
By comparison, PUBG currently (as of writing) has 2 million users. Even in the watch count, where buzz can be picked up again at a considerable pace, it’s flagging. Fortnite’s 70,000 current viewers far outstrips the H1Z1 total of 2,300.
The advent of PUBG and Fortnite, with their strong social media presence and constant developer feedback, has seen H1Z1 plummet to new lows. When coupled with the fact that DayZ, its closest rival, is also stagnating, the signs are looking bleak. It’s clear that the cycle of quick, easy wins is getting shorter and shorter for these battle royale-style success stories.
GitHyp also points towards the game currently entering its second year of Early Access. Consumers, who have already been burned by a lack of a finished product after a considerable amount of time, are fleeing in their droves. If nothing else, it serves as a lesson for PUBG and Fortnite: keep the updates coming, and make sure everything is mapped out. H1Z1 lost a large amount of its player base in just over 6 months, who’s to say one of the other big-hitters won’t be next?
