It’s been a long time since we’ve had a reason to check in with DayZ, the zombie-survival game from Bohemia Interactive that made its Early Access debut three and a half years ago. Despite falling in love with the project shortly after it hit Steam, it became increasingly difficult to justify the glacial pace at which Bohemia Interactive iterates on DayZ . And it wasn’t long before a string of similar titles from other studios, like Daybreak Games’ H1Z1, stripped away any lingering desire to keep tabs on a project that some fans aren’t sure will ever be be finished. But there’s a new patch this week, currently available via the game’s test environment, which improves many aspects of the game’s engine. But is it too little, too late?
Here’s a list of changes in the Experimental 0.62 Update, via the DayZ forums :
New tree models
Denser forests
New clutter (grass, small plants)
New surface textures - plains and such
Improved wind behavior
New shader for the wind, affecting trees and grass
Tweaked and changed lighting for the world
Small improvements to satellite textures
Rain affected by wind and refinement of its behavior in general
Many reworked locations on Chernarus
Reworked ghillie (to be consistent with new tech)
Small bugfixes to some issues from 0.61
New ambient sounds
For what it’s worth, those still playing DayZ seem pretty excited about the changes. Fans have been quick to document new locations throughout Chernarus, from a sprawling castle on the hills to a new dam near Myshkino, and one even managed to compile a pretty detailed breakdown of the forested areas improved by the new foliage. They’re even experimenting with the new audio cues in an effort to determine which are directional, and offering feedback on things like wind noise when you get closer to buildings and other large cover.
The problem is that DayZ isn’t the only game in its lane anymore. Even if you ignore the zombie aspect, as many players try to, Bohemia Interactive’s first non-military shooter isn’t even the best open-world deathmatch on the market. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has been absolutely dominant in recent weeks and H1Z1: King of the Kill -- the PvP offshoot of Daybreak’s zombie survival game -- already managed to get a TV deal. Both projects are updated more frequently than DayZ and feel more feature-complete right now, despite being available to the public for a fraction of the time. Meanwhile, the DayZ team goes radio silent for weeks at a time and never returns with as much content as you’d expect. Not exactly a winning pitch to consumers.
To make matters worse, there’s still no timeline for DayZ to ditch its alpha testing and switch to a beta label. It’s probably too soon to assume DayZ is dead in the water. But we will say it’s looking increasingly unlikely that the game ever climbs back up the list of Steam’s most-played games. By the time Bohemia Interactive are ready to use the beta designation, there’s a good chance we’ll already be exploring the new maps being developed for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds . It’s possible we’ll even be exploring a non-Early Access version of H1Z1 . But the team’s own pace is likely to be its biggest obstacle. DLC and post-launch support is a huge part of the modern games market. And the one feature that would set it apart from the competition, zombies, remain one of the least interesting parts of the game. Bohemia Interactive will have a hard time convincing DayZ fans that ongoing updates would emerge any faster than the alpha content or that this particular take on zombie survival is somehow more exciting than what’s appeared in its wake.
Bohemia Interactive also published a new Q&A video featuring DayZ senior map designer Adam Franců, which addresses questions about map size, future improvements and even the possibility for a DayZ map-making tool. It’s not exactly required viewing, particularly if you don’t care about the work that goes into building out Chernarus, but could be interesting for aspiring mapmakers in the DayZ community. Even if we’re a bit disappointed to hear Bohemia Interactive doesn’t have additional environments in the works.
DayZ is currently available in Steam Early Access. There’s still no timeline for start of the game’s beta or an official DayZ release date.
Be sure to check back with Player.One and follow Scott on Twitter for more DayZ news in 2017 and however long Bohemia Interactive continues to support DayZ in the years ahead.
