DayZ sells 875,000 copies in three weeks, new development post outlines priority features

Despite DayZ's Early Access Steam page containing enough warnings to make even the most dedicated impulse buyers pause for thought, it seems as if PC owners really want to trudge through a grey field, before being held up by bandits and robbed of their shoes. A new post on the official DayZ blog reveals that the standalone alpha sold over 875,000 copies in the first three weeks of its release. That post also outlines some of the priority features that should see their way into the zombie sadistic jerk survival game over the following weeks and months.
"We didn’t want to compromise on the brutal and unforgiving nature of the early days of the DayZ mod so we’re very surprised to see such interest as this clearly is not a game for everyone," writes Bohemia's Marek Spanel, "especially considering that there are some radical changes under the hood in comparison to the mod."
"We’re already seeing unbelievable player stories happening every day in the game even in its very limited Alpha and we’re focused to make huge progress in 2014 on many areas of the game," he continues. "In the short term, we’re going to focus on the most critical problems you’re experiencing, and at the same time we’re going to work on the road to the DayZ Beta."
That beta isn't due until much later in the year. In the shorter term, then, the team will be revisiting their roadmap towards the end of the month, but their top priorities are the following fixes and features:

• Server performance, stability and security
• Animals & hunting
• Cooking & gathering resources
• Playable user customizable vehicles
• Player created constructions in the environment
• More complex interactions with the environment and crafting options
• Streamlined user actions and interface
• Control and animations expanded and improved for fluidity
• Upgraded graphics and physics engine (including ragdoll, etc.)
• Support of user mods and more flexibility for user hosted servers and game types

Spanel wasn't wrong about the player stories that alpha DayZ is already producing. For examples, just see our round-up of the best DayZ videos so far.