Over 80,000 survivors join DayZ Alpha in just 12 hours

In just 12 hours after becoming available on Steam via Early Access, DayZ had 88,000 players ready to survive the apocalypse. As most are aware, the DayZ standalone — a full-fledged retail version of Dean Hall's Arma II mod — opened up its Alpha gates yesterday, allowing anyone who purchased the game through Steam to gain early access.

Bohemia Interactive's Maruk tweeted shortly after, "88,000 survivors have joined DayZ Alpha in the first 12 hours. Thank you."

DayZ creator Dean Hall was even surprised by the turnout, revealing that 19,00 unique players had shown up in the game's database just one hour after launch — a number that was increasing by 200 a second.

One of the new players was none other than Cliff Bleszinski, former Gears of War frontman, who shared one of the funnier DayZ tweets of the day — a bug he found shortly after booting up the game.

Prior to the game's Alpha launch, Dean Hall warned players planning to participate to take a "skeptical approach" towards the game's early access. Even on the DayZ product page on Steam, there's a warning that reads: "Be aware that our Early Access offer is a representation of our core pillars, and the framework we have created around them. It is a work in progress and therefore contains a variety of bugs. We strongly advise you not to buy and play the game at this stage unless you clearly understand what Early Access means and are interested in participating in the ongoing development cycle.”

I've yet to partake in the game's Alpha, but feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.