Dean "Rocket" Hall (born 14 May 1981) is a

video game design Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the Video game development#Pre-production, pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the Video game development#P ...

er from

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

. He is best known for creating the zombie apocalypse PC game ''DayZ'', which began as a mod and was later developed into its own game under the same title. Hall left the DayZ development team in 2014 to found his own studio, Rocketwerkz. Hall was a

Commissioned Officer An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service. Broadly speaking, "officer" means a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer, or a warrant officer. However, absent conte ...

of the Royal New Zealand Corps of Signals in the New Zealand Army and attended survival training in

Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely sur ...

where he came up with the basic idea for '' DayZ''.

Early life and education

Hall grew up in Oamaru, New Zealand, and attended

Waitaki Boys' High School Waitaki Boys' High School is a secondary school for boys located in the northern part of the town of Oamaru, Otago, New Zealand, with day and boarding facilities, and was founded in 1883. , it has a school roll of approximately 400 students. The ...

. He played role-playing games with fellow New Zealander Chris Butcher, who later became the Technical Director at Bungie working on ''

Halo Halo, halos or haloes usually refer to: * Halo (optical phenomenon) * Halo (religious iconography), a ring of light around the image of a head HALO, halo, halos or haloes may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Video games * Halo (franchise), ...

'' and ''

Destiny Destiny, sometimes referred to as fate (from Latin ''fatum'' "decree, prediction, destiny, fate"), is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual. Fate Although oft ...

''. Hall started video game development on an Amiga personal computer that his parents purchased him as a child.

Military service

Hall served as a

commissioned officer An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service. Broadly speaking, "officer" means a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer, or a warrant officer. However, absent conte ...

in the Royal New Zealand Air Force for five years, completing a degree at the University of Otago under a Defense Scholarship. In 2009 Hall re-enlisted in the New Zealand Army and was posted on an exchange program with the Singapore Armed Forces. Hall was inspired by his efforts on survival training and in using video games as a method to train soldiers in the emotional reactions they may face, including him pitching the concept to leadership within the Army. When interest was not shown, Hall stated he decided to add zombies and release it publicly. Hall was posted to the Singapore Armed Forces on an exchange program during which he completed his survival training in Brunei. His experiences on this trip formed the basis for his ideas with the development of the mod. Hall was not used to the diet during his period of deployment, and this became a further problem as the training progressed. He ran out of food during the survival component, eventually resorting to trying to eat rotten fish and ferns. By the end of his training, Hall weighed 25 kilograms less and required surgery to repair his injuries.

Video game career

After leaving the Air Force, Hall was employed as a

producer Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

at Sidhe Interactive in Wellington, New Zealand, and worked on '' Speed Racer: The Videogame''. Hall briefly left the industry to return to the army before returning for a contract at Bohemia Interactive to work on '' Arma 3''. During this time, Hall created DayZ, a zombie

survival horror Survival horror is a Video game genre, subgenre of Survival game, survival of the players as the game tries to frighten them with either horror graphics or scary ambience. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel l ...

mod for the '' Arma 2''. After the success of the mod Hall started work at Bohemia in the position of Project Lead of the standalone version of '' DayZ''. DayZ mod was nominated for the Online Innovation Award at the GDC Online Awards 2012. In November 2014, Hall left Bohemia Interactive to found New Zealand game studio, RocketWerkz, and announced the debut title ''Ion'' at E3 2015. Development of ''Ion'' was later cancelled. Hall announced '' Stationeers'' at EGX Rezzed 2017. The game was released on

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporizat ...

in early access on 12 December 2017. The game draws inspiration from Space Station 13.

Views on the video game industry

In 2012, Hall stated that the seventh generation of game consoles were at the end of their lives, and that this had resulted in the PC providing more innovative games for the market. Hall believed this would result in the

next generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

of consoles competing for the ability to cater to this desire for innovation as seen on the PC. Hall has also been critical of the traditional publishing model for video games, turning down many offers to publish ''DayZ'' and asking what value publishers provide in a modern context. Hall suggested that publishers are becoming "irrelevant", citing '' Minecraft'' as an example of this.

Personal life

Mountaineering

Hall is an accomplished mountaineer, having climbed

Mount Cook Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

in New Zealand. In May 2013, he summitted

Mount Everest Mount Everest (; Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow ...

, making him the 42nd New Zealander to do so. He has stated that his experiences mountaineering have also formed part of the inspiration for his game design work.

Games developed

References

External links

* *
Dean Hall
on Google+ * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Dean 1981 births Living people New Zealand Army personnel New Zealand computer programmers People educated at Waitaki Boys' High School Royal New Zealand Air Force personnel University of Otago alumni Video game designers New Zealand summiters of Mount Everest