DayZ, Nothing About Flowers

Shivering in the cold, dressed in an assortment of scavenged clothes and gear I wait on top of the hill overlooking Balota Airfield. Through the scope of my Mosin, I watch down below hoping to see something interesting or somebody to talk to. I see some movement off to my left, and excitedly I turn my scope that way to see if its a fellow survivor. I sigh, only a zombie and return to my vigil. Suddenly bullets appear out of nowhere, hit me in the back and a black screen appears: You are dead.

This is a usual scenario in DayZ, the zombie apocalypse MMO, which has been dominating the steam sales for about 5 weeks, ever since its early alpha release. The game itself started out as a mod for ARMA 2, the hyperrealistic army simulator, which became immensely popular catapulting its maker Dean Hall to internet fame. Following several knock-offs which disappointed (e.g. WarZ), this game has finally been released. It has now sold more than a million copies and is the success that it was aways promised to be. The games premise is that you wake up with only a flashlight in the post-apocalyptic Chernarus, which has been ravaged by zombies. Looting the cities, towns and surrounding military bases for gear, water and food is your only hope. The only goal of the game is to survive as long as possible, because I promise you will die at some point. Oh I didn’t mention the fact that once you day, you start completely over? Yeah, that’s a bummer.

Now why would anyone want play such a horrible game, I hear you think? Because it is just so original and different from anything out there. Not only that, but it also does it really well. Even though DayZ is still in alpha, with bugs, glitches and several features missing this game still offers more than most full games. One of the great feature that this game is its immersion. Without any HUD indicators (e.g. life, stamina etc.) you have to rely on the periodic status updates like “I am hungry/thirsty” of your character. Furthermore the fact that your death actually means something, adds tension that very few games possess. Another feature that adds to the immersion is the realism (apart from the zombies of course) of the game. You need to purify water before you drink it, you need to make sure food isn’t rotten before you eat it and your gear degrades naturally, in some cases making it completely unusable. Several You actually feel like you are bleeding to death while running from a crazed zombie while wielding a badly damaged axe. In fact it gets so tense at points that I need to take a break to just calm down. That’s how immersive it is.

Another great aspect of this game is the multiplayer aspect. The zombies while dangerous at the start, become just a nuisance once you kit up. It is the other players who are the true danger. Unpredictable, I tend to find more people willing to shoot me than actually team up and help me. In one instance this has lead me to being handcuffed, drained of my blood and then force fed some disinfectant which lead to my death. Yet for all these idiots dickishness, they are what keep the game new and interesting. In the future I am actually hoping that I will find someone genuinely nice, and we will make the most awesomest team, and hunt down all those bandits.

On the technical side, the graphics, new AI and map are quite impressive. Furthermore the game seems relatively well optimized so should run ok on most computers.

All in all this game is well worth the £20 I paid on Steam for it. Furthermore considering that the price will only be going up, as the game goes through alpha, beta and then release stages, you may as well just buy it now. Furthermore if you want someone to play with once you bought the game, don’t hesitate to add me on steam and join the growing Imperial clan in Chernarus! My steam name is Megglman. I hope you guys will join me on my zombie killing, bandit hunting adventures!