DayZ developer Hall is currently climbing Mount Everest

The long wait for the standalone version of Day Z looks to have got a little longer.

Creator Dean Hall has revealed that he’s currently housed at Mount Everest Base Camp, having taken two months off from development duties on the Bohemia game to fulfil his lifelong ambition.

Although the timing is poor for my sabbatical, it is not something planned on a whim and involves non-refundable costs of up to $100k,” he wrote on the DayZ blog.

I realise some people are upset at my departure from the project for two months to climb Mt Everest, but hopefully from this you can see the large team Bohemia have assembled behind the development that are continuing to innovate and develop DayZ Standalone in the direction of the game we all want.

This is going to take as long as it needs to, we want to release our initial alpha under the architecture it needs to avoid hacking and security issues – this is the only remaining task stopping us from releasing the alpha. Big thanks to the community for their continued patience, and everyone at Bohemia who is pushing hard towards our DayZ standalone initial release.”

When that release will occur is still a matter of much debate.

The game had originally been due to land in 2012 before slipping to 2013. The best-case scenario currently looks like summer 2013, but how likely that is only Hall could tell you.