The DayZ team has posted a new blog on the official site. The post starts with stating the obvious: The standalone version of DayZ that was originally scheduled to be released at the end of 2012, has not yet been released. Instead, a limited closed beta is scheduled to begin “imminently”.
Put simply, DayZ Standalone isn’t here because we had the chance to go from making a game that was just the mod improved slightly, packaged simply, and sold – to actually redeveloping the engine and making the game the way we all dreamed it could be. This blew any initial plans we had dictated to pieces.