Dean 'Rocket' Hall may have plans to leave Bohemia Interactive and set up his own studio to explore multiplayer survival games, but the DayZ creator has reassured that he'll remain there for as long as he's strictly "needed." He imagines that in a year the zombie apocalypse sim will be fairly complete, and it'll be fine for him to leave and chase his dreams.

Hall first revealed plans to leave Bohemia in an 'Ask Me Anything' session on Reddit in January, saying he hoped "to make the 'ultimate' virtual world survival game."

Now he's told Eurogamer that while he broadly intends to leave in about a year, "I would extend my involvement here as long as Bohemia wanted - needed - me." He added, "I have to be on the project as long as it's important to. Whether that role is as the leader, whether that role is in a more creative sense... But at a certain point there will be diminishing returns." Hall explained that he's most useful on DayZ persuading people to take risks, and "fighting anybody on the project to make sure it's good."

He elaborated on Reddit this morning, "In a year's time the game will be mostly feature complete and it could be very unfair to whoever leads the development from this point if I am heavily involved, even just at a PR level - because I will eclipse that person."

Once he's out of Bohemia, Hall will return to New Zealand and set up his own studio. He had only intended to be in the Czech Republic for six months, but it'll probably end up as more like three years. "I want to make the ultimate multiplayer game at some time in my career. DayZ is not and was never intended to be the ultimate multiplayer game," he added on Reddit. "I don't think DayZ is the best game I can make. Once my value to the DayZ project ceases I want to make better games."

The standalone version of DayZ, which began life as a free Arma 2 mod, sold one million copies in four weeks after an alpha version launched through Steam Early Access in December.