News
‘H1Z1’ Reaches Major Milestone on PS4, With New Goodies in Celebration
Today Daybreak Games have announced a major milestone for their battle royale game, H1Z1. The title has been played by more than 10 million players on PlayStation 4 since the game’s Open Beta launch on May 22, 2018. Specifically, players have put in more than 102 million hours into H1Z1’s first month of the Open Beta. And to celebrate, Daybreak has a few goodies for those players.
To celebrate, Daybreak Games is giving all players who have downloaded H1Z1 on the PS4 a Darkfire Pickup Truck and Sunrise Parachute in-game skin for free. Players that logged into H1Z1 prior to 11:59 PM PST Wednesday, June 27, 2018 will be granted the in-game items directly to their inventory this weekend.
In addition, Daybreak Games have also released a massive new update for H1Z1, which introduces Revive mechanics and aim acceleration adjustments, as well as a new weapon, the Airstrike Signal, which allows players to call in a series of bombs to drop on enemies.
On the PC side, H1Z1 received a brand-new map earlier this week called Outbreak, which features “new terrain, points of interest, and art and textures”. In fact, the map also contains a few areas familiar to long-time players, as the map includes several landmarks from the original map that have been redesigned. The Outbreak map is designed for battle royale in mind, rather than using the old map, which was designed for Daybreak’s other game, the open world survival sandbox Just Survive.
And in case you’re wondering about Just Survive, the game that was split off from H1Z1, there’s still no word on if that will be headed to consoles. In fact, it’s still in Early Access on Steam.
News
Legendary Grimdark ‘Warhammer 40,000’ Artist John Blanche Has Passed Away at 78
In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, but it was a cheerful illustrator from England who helped to define the terrifying war-torn imagery that inspired what we now know as Grimdark (a hybrid genre combining horror with sci-fi/fantasy).
Unfortunately for fans of Warhammer 40,000, Trench Crusade and countless other sources of Grimdark thrills, veteran artist John Blanche passed away this week after struggling with health issues for the past few years.
While the artist retired back in 2023, he leaves us with an enormous legacy of iconic artwork that continues to inspire gamers and storytellers around the world to this very day.
The news is especially gloomy as it was only last year that Daniel Lowman and Napoleon Dynamite himself Jon Heder released The Grim & the Dark: The Search for John Blanche, a documentary following Heder’s exploration of the Grimdark genre culminating in a heartwarming encounter with Blanche in his own home.
Below is one of my favorite pieces by Blanche, his highly influential depiction of Warhammer 40k’s God-Emperor of Mankind on his Golden Throne.
We send our deepest condolences to John Blanche’s family, friends, and fans.

You must be logged in to post a comment.