DayZ is an open-world survival game by Bohemia Interactive, set on a post-apocalyptic Eastern European landscape overrun by infected. You spawn on the coast with almost nothing and have one goal that never changes: stay alive. There is no respawn with your gear — when you die, you lose everything and start fresh on the coast.
It plays on PC (Steam), Xbox and PlayStation. The infected are dangerous in a pack, but the players you meet are what make DayZ what it is: there is no team marker, no name tag floating over anyone's head, and no way to know if the stranger on the road wants to trade, talk or shoot you.
There is no "winning"
DayZ has no story mode, no missions and no final boss. It is a sandbox: you decide what to do. Some players hunt gear and fight (PvP), some build hidden bases, some hunt and cook and never see another soul (PvE), and some just talk to strangers and see what happens. A single life can last ten minutes or ten weeks.
What is actually trying to kill you
- The environment — hunger, thirst, cold and sickness kill more new players than anything else. See hunger, thirst & energy.
- The infected — slow alone, deadly in numbers, and loud fights pull in more.
- Other players — the only thing that can plan, lie and ambush you.
- Yourself — most deaths are a bad decision: a broken leg far from help, a fight you did not need, drinking from the wrong pond.
Vanilla vs modded
Out of the box, DayZ is "vanilla" — the base game with no add-ons. On PC you can also join modded community servers with extra guns, traders, map changes and more. On Xbox and PlayStation you cannot install mods, but server owners can still change the rules heavily, so two "community" console servers can feel like different games. More on this in PC vs console.
