The post-soviet country of Chernarus is struck by an unknown virus, turning the majority population into frenzied infected. Fighting over resources has bred a hostile mentality among survivors, driving what’s left of humanity to collapse. You are one of the few immune to the virus – how far will you go to survive?

DayZ is an unforgiving, authentic survival experience. Up to 60 survivors on a server engage in a completely unscripted gameplay scenario with no goals given, except for one: to survive as long as they can, by all means necessary. There are no superficial tips, way-points, built-in tutorials, or help given to players. Every decision matters, and every mistake can be lethal. If you die in DayZ, you lose all your character progress and start over, as the game features a permadeath concept.

With the need to manage your character's basic survival requirements and the looming danger of permadeath restarting your progress, DayZ is an exceptionally immersive game. Despite not directly featuring any storytelling mechanics, the post-apocalyptic open world of DayZ presents a unique online sandbox where every decision adds up, creating your own personal story. When all 60 players on a server engage in this completely unscripted survival scenario, the resulting emergent gameplay leads to intense player interactions — some action-packed and short, and some involving long, sophisticated roleplay with very real emotions that you remember long after.

Bohemia Interactive is announcing its overall plans for DayZ in 2022, which include five updates, Seasonal events, and plenty of new additions to terrains, asset production, firearms, and more.

Bohemia Interactive kicks the year off with the release of Update 1.16 on all platforms. It does contain a new firearm, but more importantly, it offers a wide variety of fixes and adjustments which are aimed at numerous balancing and gameplay issues.  This offers developers a chance to clean up the game and sets the stage for invigorating updates to come, which is great news for Survivors everywhere.

Bohemia Interactive confirmed its commitment to support DayZ throughout 2022 and offer frequent updates that include a healthy balance of fixes, stability, balancing, and new content. The developers plan on releasing five updates this year, ranging from minor to major. All of them should add at least one firearm and, unlike last year, the focus will be especially on civilian weaponry.

The plans include:

• Unlike last year, we would like to pay more attention to our official terrains. This is particularly true for Livonia, where we would like to add new points of interest and try to make the environment a bit more interactive.
• We plan on ramping up our asset production this year. That includes a plan to introduce a variety of utility items to enrich the overall sandbox, as well as providing meaningful tools players can use to interact with each other and the environment.
• As usual, we intend to offer at least one new firearm with each update. Unlike last year, we’ll be focusing more on civilian firearms this time around, mixing those which were previously included (legacy version) with new ones.
• We’re in the process of importing the latest version of vehicle simulation from a newer version of our Enfusion engine. We hope this will bring some much-needed stability to vehicle simulation in DayZ and expect to perform some public testing in the coming weeks.
• We plan on dedicating some time to the control scheme on controllers. This includes adding more sensitivity options and additional VOIP functionalities. Speaking of controls, we also plan on revisiting the way users can bind various gestures to keys.
• Seasonal events will return this year, which we plan on spicing up with new content and features.
• Last but not least, we’ll be enriching and expanding upon Hannah’s lore, which has already been introduced in previous DayZ update videos. Both our Publishing and Production departments will be working to support the lore both in-game and through other media.

All of these improvements will be done in cooperation with the game’s partners and community in order to maintain the performance and stability of the game. That includes ensuring that older generations of hardware are not left behind.

A couple of final notes. First, we’ll be expanding our team, so if you’re interested in working on DayZ or know someone who is, then make sure to check out our career page. And if you’d like to get your hands on some cool DayZ clothing and accessories, then make sure to head on over to our merch store.

Update 1.16 contains a variety of fixes and adjustments which are aimed at certain balancing and gameplay issues. There are far too many to list them all, so here are some of our favorites:

• Health damage from starvation was not applied when one kept drinking water.
• Characters were occasionally punching sideways during melee combat, as well as stepping forward, even though there were obstacles in front of them.
• It was possible to destroy base building walls (on fences or watchtowers) just by shooting frames from outside.
• Tolerance for the placing of base building structures (kits and tents) was increased, which should allow for much easier placing of these objects on uneven terrain.
• Bear traps can break the legs of the infected.
• Firearms with internal magazines now have a randomized quantity of bullets.

Server-side gameplay settings (introduced in a previous game update) were expanded by adding the ability to switch off the 2D map layout for a more immersive experience (only the 3D map will be available in this instance). You’ll also now find additional parameters to control the length of the unconscious state to tailor the experience according to play styles (i.e. interaction-based vs PvP servers). Speaking of servers, we have also increased the limits of script class indexing, which were causing issues when combining a larger amount of mods together. Modders and server owners will also appreciate the extensions within the firearms API, which now allows the spawning of magazines and bullets directly into newly created empty firearms (this was only possible before through the central economy).

And it wouldn’t truly be an update without us introducing a bit of content with it. That’s why we’re happy to introduce the Bizon, an iconic AK-based .380 submachine gun with an extra-large magazine. We’re also introducing the alarm clock, which allows you to see the time in-game and offers you the ability to set an alarm for a certain time in order to scare your enemies or lure the infected. 

If you’d like to see a full list of fixes and tweaks, head on over to our official forums (PC, Consoles).

Key Features

• Detailed, authentic backdrop of Chernarus, an open world terrain featuring 230 square kilometres of hand-crafted environment based on real life locations
• Real emotional experience driven by the emergent interactions of 60 players on the server, all fighting for survival by any means necessary
• Environmental dangers including the infected, dynamic weather, and animal predators
• Wide variety of complex survival mechanics - from hunting and crafting, through sophisticated injury simulation, to transferable diseases
• Persistent servers with complex loot economy, and the ability to build improvised bases
• Visceral, authentic gun play and melee combat systems
• Smooth and reactive character controller utilizing a detailed animation system
• Rewarding and authentic experience of driving vehicles for travel and material transport

DayZ is available on PS4, Xbox One and PC.