While its direct competitor, PUBG, left early access on PC and Epic Games’ Fortnite entered the battle royale market to great success, H1Z1 has seen a dramatic fall in its player base, according to figures released by GitHyp. At its height in 2017, H1Z1 achieved around 150,000 concurrent players, but that number has fallen sharply to a peak of 14,000 this February. Other recent figures had the number of players at 9,000 or lower.
H1Z1 was released in early access back in January 2015 by Daybreak Game Company, the studio responsible for Everquest, PlanetSide, and Star Wars Galaxies. While the launch was plagued by bugs and server issues, it was announced by Daybreak CEO John Smedley that the game had sold over a million copies within its first two months.
At its peak, midway through 2017, the game often reached the rank of third-most-played title on Steam, beaten for the top two spots by Dota 2 and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. And in October last year the company announced the H1Z1 Pro League, promising minimum player salaries of $50,000, on par with that of Overwatch’s gaming league.
Given the steep decline in its player base, the future of its Pro League, which is due to launch within the next few months, has now been called into question. Certainly, without a significant recovery, it seems unlikely that the companies involved would be able to pay player salaries equivalent to those of Overwatch’s professional players, and the sustainability of such a venture is highly questionable if players have lost interest in the title in favor of its competitors.
While Daybreak Game Company has yet to make any official announcements regarding its upcoming Pro League in light of these figures, the future of the H1Z1 Pro League does not look promising.
H1Z1 is available now on PC in early access.
