H1Z1 is playable through Steam, but still no Early Access launch date

Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley has revealed that the studio's upcoming post-apocalyptic zombie-survival game H1Z1 is playable through Steam.

"It's our first step towards Early Access launch," he said on the game's SubReddit. H1Z1 still doesn't have a Early Access launch date just yet, but Smedley said "it's getting a lot closer." So what's the hold up?

"Because instead of marching towards a date, we're marching towards an internal feature list that we've set as the high bar," Smedley explained. Things like crafting a bow, shooting a dear in the eye with the bow (yeah we've got that). Prone.. and other features we felt like we needed to add after getting to that original 4-6 week mark we had set out. That turned out to be a version of the game we are proud of, but we knew in our hearts we wanted to add more features.

"We don't mean to be coy about the date," he continued. "We just realized after that initial date it would be smarter to announce it after our feature list was complete. So expect to hear more on the date fairly soon."

I had the opportunity to see H1Z1 at E3 last week and am just putting the finishing touches on a few write-ups for it. In the meantime, the image below is Smedley's proof that the game is indeed working through Steam.

pic.twitter.com/fzhGeaZg1j

— John Smedley (@j_smedley) June 19, 2014