{"title":"Daybreak Game Company","description":"\u003cp\u003eDaybreak Game Company began life inside Sony as Sony Interactive Studios America, an internal development studio formed in 1995, where John Smedley directed the development of EverQuest with Brad McQuaid and Steve Clover among its early programmers. The studio was formally founded as Sony Online Entertainment on December 17, 1997 and established as Sony's online games business in 1998, with Smedley going on to lead the company as president and CEO. EverQuest launched on March 16, 1999 under the Verant Interactive label with modest expectations, only to become the defining 3D massively multiplayer world of its generation, and Sony Online Entertainment acquired Verant outright in June 2000. The catalog that followed reads like a history of online gaming itself: the massed combined-arms warfare of PlanetSide on May 20, 2003, Star Wars Galaxies on June 26, 2003 with its player-run economy and cities, EverQuest II on November 8, 2004, the superhero action of DC Universe Online on January 11, 2011, and PlanetSide 2 on November 20, 2012, whose continent-scale battles between thousands of players still have no real equal. Not every world endured - Star Wars Galaxies closed on December 15, 2011 and Free Realms on March 31, 2014 - but the studio's commitment to keeping servers alive for decades made EverQuest one of the longest-running games in the medium.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe Sony era ended on February 2, 2015, when Sony announced the sale of the studio to the investment company Columbus Nova and it took the name Daybreak Game Company. Smedley stepped down as president that July 22, with former chief operating officer Russell Shanks taking the role, and left on August 21, 2015 to found a new company. The same year produced Daybreak's most unexpected hit: H1Z1 entered Steam Early Access on January 15, 2015 as a zombie-survival sandbox, and in February 2016 it was split into Just Survive and H1Z1: King of the Kill, one of the first standalone battle royale games and a direct influence on the genre's explosion that followed. King of the Kill dropped its subtitle in October 2017, fully released on Windows on February 28, 2018, went free to play that March, reached PlayStation 4 on August 7, 2018 and was rebranded Z1 Battle Royale on PC in 2019, where it remains free to play on Steam; Just Survive closed on October 24, 2018. Three rounds of layoffs between April 2018 and October 2019 preceded a January 2020 reorganization into three divisions - Dimensional Ink Games, Darkpaw Games and Rogue Planet Games - and Enad Global 7 acquired the company for $300 million in a deal completed December 22, 2020. A February 2024 layoff touched the teams supporting EverQuest, Dungeons \u0026amp; Dragons Online, DC Universe Online and The Lord of the Rings Online, yet on July 1, 2024 Daybreak announced the acquisition of Singularity 6, the developer of Palia. Today the company is headquartered in San Diego, California, led by chair Jason Epstein and CEO Ji Ham, with roughly 307 employees across Darkpaw Games, Dimensional Ink Games, Cold Iron Studios, Rogue Planet Games and Singularity 6. For players, the appeal is continuity: few publishers have kept so many persistent online worlds running for so long, and the studio's expertise in large-scale multiplayer stretches from EverQuest's Norrath through PlanetSide 2's Auraxis to the shrinking arena of H1Z1.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"h1z1-king-of-the-kill-pc-download","title":"H1Z1: King of the Kill","description":"\u003cp class=\"lead\"\u003eH1Z1: King of the Kill is where a lot of players first learned what a battle royale was: a parachute drop over a rural map, a scramble for a gun and a vehicle, and a ring of toxic gas that keeps shrinking until one player or one team is left. The game is free to play on Steam, where it now carries the name Z1 Battle Royale, and it has been revamped to bring back the classic look, movement and gunplay of its King of the Kill era.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eThe Battle Royale That Got There Early\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDaybreak Game Company launched H1Z1 into Steam Early Access in January 2015 as a zombie survival game, and the standalone deathmatch mode inside it quickly became the main attraction. In February 2016 the two halves went their separate ways: Just Survive kept the survival side, and H1Z1: King of the Kill became a dedicated battle royale. It reached full release in February 2018, went free to play the following month, and was rebranded Z1 Battle Royale in 2019 when the game was restored to the faster, looser build that longtime players remembered. Seasons have continued since, with fresh maps and rewards, and the servers remain live today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eHow a Match Plays\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvery round starts in the air. Up to 150 players parachute onto the map and land with nothing, so the first minute is about getting inside a building, finding anything that shoots, and hoping the neighbor did not find it first. From there the match is a loop of looting, positioning and fighting as the gas closes in.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eScavenge what you can carry.\u003c\/strong\u003e Rifles like the AR-15 and AK-47, shotguns, hunting rifles and the Hellfire SMG turn up in houses, barns and gas stations. Helmets and body armor absorb a hit or two, and a spare shirt can be torn into bandages when a first aid kit is nowhere to be found.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDrive everywhere.\u003c\/strong\u003e Off-roaders, pickup trucks, police cruisers and ATVs are scattered across the map, and vehicles are central to the game's identity. A truck gets you to the safe zone in time, carries a whole squad, and doubles as a wall when the gas leaves you nowhere else to stand.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eWatch the sky.\u003c\/strong\u003e Airdrops fall throughout the match carrying the best gear on the map. Every player in earshot sees the same crate coming down, so going for one is a deliberate choice to start a fight rather than a free upgrade.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eSolo, Duos or Fives\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThree ways to queue, each with its own rhythm and its own kind of pressure.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdl\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eSolo\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eThe purest version of the game. No one is coming to help, every footstep you hear is an enemy, and winning comes down to your own aim, your own timing and your own read on where the last few players are hiding as the circle collapses.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eDuos\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eA partner changes how you move through a match. One player drives while the other watches the treeline, loot gets split so both of you are ready for the endgame, and a bad landing can be rescued by a teammate who found the better house.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eFives\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eFull squads make the map loud. Five-player teams roll through towns together, coordinate pushes on vehicles, and turn the final circles into pitched fights between whole crews, where callouts and shared loot matter as much as any single shot.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003c\/dl\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eFast, Arcade-Style Gunplay\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis has never been the slow, realistic end of the genre. Movement is quick, jumping and crouching in the middle of a firefight are part of the meta, and a well-placed pair of AR-15 headshots on a helmeted opponent ends a fight in a second. The restoration work brought back the movement, animations, combat feel and vehicle handling that made the original so distinctive, so a match still swings from a cross-map sprint to a close-range brawl without much warning. Matches are short and decisive, which makes it easy to queue for one more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eSeasons, Ranked Play and Missions\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBeyond the core loop there is structure to keep coming back to. Seasonal play with a ranked playlist gives your wins a ladder to climb, in-match missions hand you small objectives to chase while the gas moves, and the fragment collection system builds toward rewards over time. Cosmetic skins for weapons, vehicles and outfits are available as in-app purchases, though nothing behind them affects how a gun shoots or a truck drives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eDrop In\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is a reason the King of the Kill name still comes up whenever players argue about which battle royale felt the best to actually play. Install it, queue for a solo, and see how long you last when the gas starts closing.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Daybreak Game Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":33966689868,"sku":"PC_H1KGOFTEKLSKEY_NEW","price":9.29,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0875\/3268\/files\/card-h1z1-battle-royal-pc-steam-game.jpg?v=1789178406"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.pjsgames.com\/en-de\/collections\/daybreak-game-company.oembed","provider":"PJ's Games","version":"1.0","type":"link"}