After a long wait, the alpha version of DayZ finally launched via Steam Early Access on December 16. While it's still very much in alpha, evidently that hasn't been too much of a discouragement for survival fans, as Bohemia Maruk Spanel has revealed the game's sold 875,000 copies over the past three weeks. Players better be prepared for a bumpy ride, though, as Spanel says DayZ's not expected to hit beta status "sooner than the end of 2014."

The original DayZ mod for Arma 2 has 1,737,741 registered unique players, according to the stats on its official site as I write this. As the mod's been out since early 2012, it's impressive that the standalone already has half those figures.

"We didn't want to compromise on the brutal and unforgiving nature of the early days of the DayZ mod so we're very surprised to see such interest as this clearly is not a game for everyone, especially considering that there are some radical changes under the hood in comparison to the mod," Spanel wrote in a blog post yesterday.

He detailed Bohemia's top priorities for the game, which include animals and hunting, cooking and gathering resources, player-created constructions, upgrades to the graphics and physics, mod support, and performance and stability improvements.

DayZ is available on Steam for $29.99. Think twice before buying, mind, as Spanel reiterated Bohemia's warning, saying, "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."