DayZ development leader Dean Hall has today announced that he will be stepping down from his position and leaving parent company Bohemia Interactive by the end of the year.

After leaving Bohemia, Hall intends to move back to his native New Zealand and form his own studio that can get to work on building a new multiplayer game.

Hall states that his reason for leaving is partially linked to a belief that eventually, he'll stop being useful to the DayZ project. Rather than reach a point where his involvement becomes detrimental, he's opted to bow out.

I have a specific use. I'm really good at risk-taking and making other people take risks, I've always been good at that in my life. Like you say, maybe I've got the gift of the gab, so I can talk, I can explain something, I can talk people up to the ledge and get them to jump off it.

That's what I did with DayZ; I've done it twice now [once with the mod, again with the standalone] - two new code teams have separately done it.

But eventually, that's the bad person to have. Eventually, you don't want the guy telling you to go over the top and get through. So at some point I'll be a disaster for the project, at least in a leadership role.

Originally I wasn't going to do this year, but it would be stupid not to, and it would be unfair to the community. 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.

While he is resolute in his decision to move on from a leadership position in the DayZ project, Hall promises not to leave the studio at a critical time.

 I would extend my involvement here as long as Bohemia wanted - needed - me.

Hall also states he'll always have at least some involvement with DayZ.

I'll always be involved with it; there's no way to escape it.

Thinking ahead, Hall already has three ideas for his new studio in New Zealand, as well as two others that still need to be fleshed out. For the most part, they have similarities to DayZ, something he attributes to his fascination with multiplayer games and survival elements.

Whatever he does work on, he aims to improve on the DayZ formula.

I feel like DayZ is a fundamentally flawed concept and I've always recognised that. It's not the perfect game; it's not the multiplayer experience, and it never can be, [with] the absolute spark that I want in it.

The absolute spark?

I want to chase that