DayZ in 2021

Hello survivors!

We kicked off the new year with the release of Game Update 1.11. While the update might not be packed with new features and content, it did allow us to focus on our backlog of issues and provided us with enough space to prepare this year’s schedule. As mentioned in our previous DayZ in 2020 article, we are committed to supporting DayZ through 2021 by releasing regular game updates, just like we did in 2020. Support will come in the form of new content, features, balancing, and continual bug fixing. This article will outline part of our focus for this year.

• One thing we’ll continue introducing to the game is new firearms. Unlike previous years, we intend to mix things up more by introducing weapons which weren’t present in the legacy version of DayZ. You can already see evidence of this with the brand new SVAL rifle, which we introduced in the last game update.
• Another area of focus that’s important for us this year is balancing the damage system. For example, we intend to look at how we can improve melee (mainly against infected), including a more consistent way of landing stealth kills (rewarding players for a stealth approach). We would also like to look into differentiating more individual firearms, as well as increasing the chances of PVP encounters ending in an unconscious state (rather than instant death).
• Along with our efforts to improve melee with the infected will be a larger focus on Infected AI reactions to their surroundings. This includes balancing existing noise sources and adding new ones (such as light or doors opening). We’d also like to experiment with some new capabilities for the Infected AI.
• To spice up your adventures, we’ve begun looking into introducing a new type of environmental threat to both of our maps.
• We intend to improve feedback to players on the state of their character. This could include various states like bleeding, hunger, thirst and more through post-process sounds, effects or particles.
• Also being considered is further iteration of the in-game respawn menu.
• We want to focus more on seasonal events, mainly by introducing additional events throughout the year, as well as enriching the events themselves (mostly through new in-game assets).
• Last, but certainly not least, we will continue to support our creative community (i.e. modders and server owners).

Our plan is to release four more game updates this year. And in an effort to breathe fresh air into the official hive, we’ve also decided to incorporate semi-regular wipes of character and server persistence files (bases, vehicles, etc.). We won’t be doing these wipes with every update, but we do want to make sure there’s an ending (and a new beginning) every 3-4 months. We already started with Game Update 1.11 and we expect to do two more this year. While these wipes will always be synchronized with game updates, the reasons are purely balance-related and not of a technical nature. We remain committed to providing backward compatibility between updates, so none of these wipes will be forced on community-run servers. Rest assured that all wipes will always be announced a few weeks ahead of schedule. During that time, we might spice things up a bit on the official hive, like we did with 1.11 and the increased occurrence of helicopter crash sites.

In order to achieve all of the above (and more), we’re continuing to expand our development team. If you happen to be interested, or know someone who is, check out our website for available positions.

On behalf of the DayZ team,

Adam