DayZ in 2024

Developers posted a new article DayZ Year in Review 2024 and this is a good moment to take a look back at everything that happened in 2024.

Firstly, lets check what devs has shared in their article. Most important thing for all players is that Bohemia Interactive will continue to support DayZ in 2025. More news about upcoming changes or new features will be announced in the newest article at the beginning of the new year.

For the past year we had 3 major game updates, DayZ broke its record of all-time peak on Steam PC platform – about 79 000 players in October and daily active users peak on all 3 platform – 355 000 on PC, 137 000 on Playstation and 188 000 on Xbox. There was also another peak – 84 000 viewers of DayZ category on 30th of September on Twitch. Additionaly, about 20 000 cheaters were banned through the BattlEye system.

Continuing with numbers, Frostline DLC sold over 450 000 units across all platforms. There are also multiple new employees that joined the team and they come mostly from the modding community.

Updates in 2024

The game had 3 major updates besides small patches with hotfixes. The first one came on 20th of February marked as 1.24 update. We have received a one new gun called Vikhr and a new 30rd round magazine for it and other weapons utilizing 9x39mm like ASVAL or VSS. Also new camo variants of the ballistic helmet and sounds for multiple crafting animations or other actions were added. There were also some important changes like collision checks for weapon raising, rebalanced weapon lengths, continuous action of bandaging or partial translating of blunt weapons shock damage into health damage. Trees received simplified collisions for better performance and behaviour in relation with vehicles (which heavily affected the gun fights in forests). There were also many balance changes to gun recoils, items weights or infected behaviour based on sounds.

Then we had a 1.25 update on 27th of May. Powerful VS-89 rifle with 7.62x54mm magazine was added as only new items. It was also a time when ambient music was implemented into the game. Additionaly game crash reporter was enhanced, there were new sounds for few weapons and other balance changes to the sound effects radius. On more technical side, developers tried to rework character reconciliation which should resolve a problem of characters being stuck behind the doors due to client-server desynchronisation. Also items placed inside containers were no longer accessible on quick bar or for reloading. With this update Livonia DLC was discontinued and became a free map within the base game.

On 15th of October we have finally received the last major update 1.26 together with a release of Frostline DLC. There were multiple new additions to the game like new animals (brown hare, red fox), new winter themed clothes, new fish food, fishing jig and wooden hook as a part of bigger fishing rework, we also received boats. Food system received a major update, allowing items to be freezed in minus temperatures and also eating hot items would result in slowed consumption and damage to the player. To enhance the survival aspects on new winter map Sakhal, temperature comfort system was refreshed, new disease related to volcanic activity was introduced, as well as a new dynamic events such as frozen scientist (with lockable briefcase) and dynamic military containers spawning on coasts. Two new triggers were added, volcanic activity and hot spring (first one causing damage, second heating up the player). Also terrain and object visibility settings were unlinked and limits were increased so we could enjoy the better horizon and distant views on more powerful PCs. Server browser was a little bit updated with some new filters and informations. Since boats introduction, players received ability to climb up from the water. Apart from that a morning fog or fog in valleys were changed to create better and more realistic feeling. Central Economy was heavily updated, making some items unique for each map (mostly clothing and weapons).

2025 is coming!

Definitely in the upcoming year we can expect more updates to the Sakhal map. It was also hinted by the project leader (in the interview done by 87.8 Survivor FM linked in two parts below) that developers will look more into the gunplay. However it was not confirmed if it is only about new sounds or also other things like inertia or new weapons and their loot balance. But the team want to focus on that, because year 2024 was dedicated mostly to the survival aspect of the game. Additionaly, it was mentioned that there were some tries on improvement of the AI, however every tested change was worsening the overall gameplay experience, so there is no progress yet.

Apart from the DayZ development and other events, DayZWorld.com would like to wish you all happy new year 2025!

Updates history based on information gathered on the wonderful WOBO’s website dedidacted to DayZ.

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