Dean 'Rocket' Hall, the creator of the seminal survival game DayZ, has spent over a decade grappling with what he identifies as the genre's most persistent challenge: the endgame. Hall, now founder of RocketWerkz, compares his pursuit of a solution to a relentless search, admitting, "I think I am going to die without having solved it."
DayZ, which began as a mod for Bohemia Interactive's Arma 2, revolutionized the survival genre, influencing countless titles and establishing it as a major gaming pillar. However, for Hall, its immense success marked a profound personal shift. "When DayZ happened, it was like dying," he stated, reflecting on how it altered his life and relationships, despite acknowledging the immense fortune it brought him. He has since been trying to recapture the creative spark he experienced during the mod's development.
The core issue, as Hall sees it, is the tendency for survival games to become tedious or unsatisfying in their later stages. "People will say it gets boring, or the end game sucks," he observed. Traditionally, this has been addressed by sheer volume of content, a method Hall considers a "brute force" approach.
Hall's journey through game development has been marked by significant financial challenges. His studio, RocketWerkz, faced near bankruptcy with its early projects. Ion was cancelled, and Stationeers, a complex space-station management game, received mixed reviews and struggled commercially for years, only recently nearing profitability. "It's built up about seven years of losses," Hall noted.
Following Stationeers, RocketWerkz developed Icarus, a free-to-play survival game that aimed to address the endgame problem through a run-based loop. Players would complete objectives on planetary missions before returning to space, starting a new cycle. This model, however, proved unpopular, with players perceiving it as a loss of progress. "People didn't want it," Hall stated.
Facing financial peril, RocketWerkz pivoted Icarus to a paid model and committed to a demanding schedule of weekly updates. This intense period of development and support, while grueling, allowed the studio to build a dedicated audience. Hall explained that the sale of paid expansions for Icarus has been crucial for the studio's survival, though he cautioned that profit margins can be slim, with some DLC barely covering development costs.
"I can tell you right now, the studio would be bankrupt if we didn't do that strategy," Hall emphasized. "Our dream for a long time has been to make more per day than we spend, because as a game developer, you need to build a big cash reserve, especially now because there's no investment money out there."
This experience has led Hall to value community engagement over sheer player numbers. He advocates for developers to "focus on getting fans, not on selling product," suggesting that a small, dedicated audience can be more rewarding and sustainable than a large, indifferent one.
RocketWerkz's latest project, Kitten Space Agency, embodies this philosophy. This free game, a spiritual successor to Kerbal Space Program, is funded entirely by player contributions, placing the onus on the community to determine its value. Hall expressed a personal preference for this model, allowing him to concentrate on creative aspects rather than justifying pricing.
Despite these innovations, Hall acknowledges that Icarus ultimately relied on the content-heavy approach he initially sought to avoid. He continues to explore potential solutions for survival game endgame design, citing examples like Valheim's boss-preparation loop and the insanity meter introduced in the Minecraft mod EnviroMine. These mechanics introduce layered pressures that Hall believes can offer more engaging long-term experiences than simple content dumps.
As RocketWerkz becomes financially solvent, Hall is reinvesting all profits into the studio's next major project: a game described as being in the vein of DayZ and Arma. "I've never made any money from RocketWerkz. All the money goes back in," he stated. His enduring quest to solve survival gaming's core design challenge continues, a pursuit he seems resigned to, yet undeterred by, even if it spans the remainder of his career.