H1Z1 Previews and Screenshots

There are four new screenshots and two more hands-on previews of Sony Online Entertainment’s H1Z1 to take in today, ensuring that your weekend reaches any zombie quota you haven’t quite fulfilled yet. The screenshots are up at Polygon, while the first preview comes to us from PC Gamer:

H1Z1’s map is modeled after (everywhere America,) but more specifically it’s meant to resemble Oregon. At this stage it’s a series of valleys, bridges, unkempt infrastructure, and thin forests. Something I’m hoping to see in a future build is heavy vegetation and grass that invites hiding and trap-laying. It’ll be interesting to see whether Forgelight can render grass at a long distance to conceal players, something that DayZ doesn’t necessarily do a great job of.

The pre-alpha inventory was easy enough to navigate and craft items through, again, clearly helped by SOE’s long history of making MMOs and building such interfaces. This same menu housed the health, stamina, hunger, and hydration meters, which I was told all influence one another. If your hunger and hydration are good, you’ll recover stamina. If they’re all at zero, your stamina meter will erode over time, and then eventually start eating into your health.

And then the other is up at Destructoid:

As nighttime rolled around, I got a taste of my favorite part of H1Z1, which is ironic because it should be the most dreaded aspect. The hues that the moon and darkness cast on the surroundings made it look like a first-person view of Limbo. It was so pretty that I almost didn’t want to build a campfire and provide any sort of illumination. Of course, I did anyway. Even if survival was futile, I felt compelled to put my best foot forward.

I had one life that seemed like a perfect storm of circumstances. I wandered across a small community that had a grocery store with a few zombies mulling about outside. I was able to go through a few of the houses unimpeded. Unfortunately, I only found some beets and water, which served as instant gratification, but nothing to help survive in the long-term. Upon trying to get into the grocery store, well, those pesky zombies screwed up that plan.