We Love It's Guide to…
Scavenge a post-apocalyptic wilderness, manage hunger, illness and cold, then cooperate with or fight other survivors.
Released 13 Dec 2018
Trust or Fight Strangers
Treat Disease and Cold
Build Bases and Farms
How long can you survive a post-apocalyptic world? A land overrun with an infected "zombie" population, where you compete with other survivors for limited resources. Will you team up with strangers and stay strong together? Or play as a lone wolf to avoid betrayal? This is DayZ – this is your story.
Developed by Bohemia Interactive · Published by Bohemia Interactive
DayZ is a multiplayer survival sandbox set in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by infected. You play a survivor with no fixed missions or quests, making your own way through the wilderness and deciding how to deal with other people.
Search towns and other locations for food, water, tools and gear while keeping track of hunger, temperature and disease. Observe your surroundings to navigate, diagnose problems and find what you need; craft improvised tools, mend clothes, and make fires to cook food.
Other survivors share the world, and encounters can lead to cooperation or conflict. You can build a base, grow crops, hunt, fish, set traps, repair vehicles and explore dangerous contaminated zones while trying to stay alive.
In the supplied reviews, players often value DayZ’s immersive, punishing survival and the tension of exploring with scarce supplies. Many describe unpredictable encounters with strangers—whether cooperation, betrayal or conflict—as a source of memorable stories and friendships. At the same time, cheating, especially on official servers, is a recurring complaint that some reviewers say undermines those experiences; others criticize bugs, performance or the pace of updates.
This is Your Story
DayZ is a hardcore, survival-focused multiplayer sandbox. Thrown into post-apocalyptic wastelands, you have a singular goal: survive. There are no missions or quests. Your story will be written by facing the unpredictable challenges created by the environment, the infected, and your interactions with other survivors. Every decision is yours. This is your ultimate survival story.
Immersion First
You will find no map markers, mini-maps, or navigational HUDs. From diseases and immunity to hunger and body temperature, information is conveyed through a minimal, toggleable HUD or, more importantly, through your own observations. To survive, you must physically search for every tool, ration, and piece of gear. Your survival depends on reading the environment, monitoring the state of your character, and looting strategically.
Two Terrains to Explore
DayZ is set in fictional countries crafted with a commitment to authenticity. The base game includes two distinct maps: legendary Chernarus and the mysterious woodlands of Livonia.
Chernarus, a sprawling 230 km² post-Soviet landscape, remains the quintessential DayZ experience. This community favorite is a hand-crafted terrain, inspired by real-world locations in North Bohemia of the Czech Republic.
Livonia offers a different challenge. This 168 km² map may seem more habitable with its lush, dense forests, but looks can be deceiving. Beneath its surface lies a deep secret: one that presents a fresh survival trial for even the most experienced players.
Survive, Survive, Survive
Everything is out to get you. Dangers lurk in plain sight and in the shadows, from aggressive infected who attack on sight to wolves and bears prowling the forests. But that's not all. You'll also have to tackle various diseases, learn to diagnose them by observing your condition, and find the necessary treatments.
Loot and gear are scarce, but crafting features can help fill the gap. Patch up your damaged clothes, make a fire to cook your rations, craft improvised tools, and scour the quiet yet deceptively dangerous villages and cities.
Friendly or Foe: You Decide
Keep in mind that up to 60 players are trying to survive along with you at any time. They can be an obstacle to clear, a helping hand to cherish, or anything in between. Emote and say “friendly!” over voice chat. Maybe you’ll find yourself staring down the barrel of a gun, tied up and gagged with a rag in your mouth. Or maybe you’ll encounter the helping hand of a friendly veteran and make a friend for life. The possibilities are endless in DayZ. Every encounter is a unique experience.
Beyond Survival
Build a base, cultivate a farm, hunt, fish, and place traps to protect your space. Or fix a car or truck and cruise through the wasteland with a friend, searching for high-tier loot at various dynamic events like train crashes, abandoned military convoys, PvP hotspots, points of interest, and more. You can even find full NBC suits to enter dangerous contaminated zones. The arsenal you can search for is vast, with over 50 types of firearms available, along with their unique magazines and ammo.
It won’t be easy. And no two lives will ever be the same.
Join the DayZ Community
The motto “This is DayZ, this is your story!” is more than a design philosophy, it’s embedded in the game’s identity. As a title that was born from the DayZ community, we deeply value and continuously support modders and private server owners.
Discover a thriving ecosystem with thousands of mods and community-run servers that allow you to tailor your experience to your taste. Manage them all with ease directly from the game launcher.
Beyond the game itself, a vibrant network of content creators, event organizers, and community leaders is constantly creating new ways to entertain and engage. Your story is waiting to be written.
10+ Years of Evolution
The DayZ team has grown alongside the game, delivering year-round improvements to stability, content, and features for over a decade. This ongoing support has built a richer and more robust community, and you can become a part of the DayZ experience today.
| Platforms | Windows |
|---|---|
| Achievements | 13 |
| Age ratings |
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| Players | Up to 60 |
| Play modes |
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| Other modes |
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| Multiplayer | DayZ is a multiplayer survival game built around shared servers. The provided text states that up to 60 players can be active at once, with online PvP and online co-op both supported. Players can play solo, team up with friends or strangers, use VOIP, and choose official or modded community servers with different rule sets and modes. |
| Multiplayer & mods | Steam Workshop and community servers significantly change multiplayer. The text says players can join customized servers and browse thousands of fan-made features, maps, and guns. Reviews describe modded servers and community servers adding modes such as PvP-only, PvE-only, roleplay, deathmatch, custom maps, traders, vehicles, base-building changes, and other server-specific rules. |
| Controller required | No |
| DLC / extras | 3 listed on Steam |
| DRM / EULA |
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| Content notices |
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| Website | Official website |
