DayZ News

Hey Survivors,
Spring has sprung, and with it, we’re running the Spring Sale on Steam to celebrate the loosening of winter’s icy grip. With up to 50% off, you can grab all things DayZ on Steam until March 20th.

As we "march" well into 2025, you might be wondering what’s in store for DayZ. Well, you’re in luck! We’ve published a DayZ in 2025 article alongside the 1.27 Update release. Check it out for exciting glimpses into our secret plans.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/221100/DayZ/

What is DayZ?
The post-soviet countries of Chernarus and Livonia are struck by an unknown virus, turning the majority population into frenzied infected. Fighting over resources has bred a hostile mentality among survivors, driving what’s left of humanity to collapse. You are one of the few immune to the virus - how far will you go to survive?

The 1.27 Update has also brought new things to DayZ Frostline and Sahkal. From the addition of new points of interest to quality-of-life changes, these are sure to spice up the weather-beaten icy wasteland. And the good news? The DayZ Frostline Expansion is also on sale with 26% off!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2968040/DayZ_Frostline/

What is DayZ Frostline?
Sakhal harbors both beauty and danger, offering an experience DayZ fans have never seen before. As you explore, hunt, survive, and unfurl the mysteries hidden beneath the frost line. Unite with fellow survivors or forge your path alone; the choice is yours in this perilous winter wonderland.
Preparation is the key to survival, and as the frost sets in, only those with Ice in their veins and Fire in their hearts will endure.

Deluxe Edition & Cool Edition
More comprehensive versions of DayZ in Deluxe and Cool Editions are also on sale with up to 50% and 35% off, respectively.



Whether you’re a survival game aficionado curious about what DayZ has to offer or a DayZ veteran looking to return and try out the new Frostline Expansion, now is the perfect time to jump in.
2025 is shaping up to be an exciting year for DayZ, and we cordially invite you to join us on this journey.

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Hello, Survivors!

We’re thrilled to announce the release of update 1.27!

This is our first stable update of 2025. It marks an important milestone for the year ahead. As with similar updates in the past, this one focuses heavily on stability improvements, bug fixes, and other necessary refinements based on player feedback. But that’s not all. Following the scale of our last update, we couldn’t resist adding a few exciting changes as well!

Those of you who participated in the update’s experimental phase may already be familiar with the improvements we made to DayZ Frostline’s general environment and gameplay mechanics. We revamped navigation across the eastern and southern coastlines, introduced new snowy variants of broken-down houses, and tweaked several important survival mechanics to ensure a fresh and dynamic experience on Sakhal.



Here are some of the most notable additions and improvements in update 1.27:

• New Locations on Sakhal and Improved Map Navigation: The eastern coast is now better populated with expanded cities, villages, and smaller landmarks, while a major new point of interest on Shantar Island introduces exploration opportunities and a simple new gameplay mechanic.
  
• Fishing & Survival Adjustments: Fishing has been rebalanced; it now takes longer with incomplete tools. We also reworked the bloody hands and food poisoning mechanics, with different infections now linked to specific types of animals.
  
• Customizable Boat Decay System: To prevent boats from accumulating in inaccessible places, we’ve introduced a boat decay mechanic which is fully configurable by server owners.
  
• Expanded Backpack Storage: New tool slots have been added to most backpacks; we've generalized the glowstick and radio slots, allowing for more diverse item usage.
  
• Sound & Immersion Upgrades:
  
  • Balanced footstep audibility - especially in forests, where stepping on clutter adds an extra layer of environmental depth.
    
  • New character sound effects, including chattering teeth when cold.
    
  • Gunfire sound tweaks for submachine guns, along with reworked bullet cracks.
    
• New Particle Effects: From snow falling off trees when shaken to vomiting, breath vapor, and bleeding effects, many visual elements have been reworked for added realism and polish.
  
• There’s still much more to uncover in update 1.27! For a full list of changes, including more audio updates and performance optimizations, we encourage you to visit our official forums, where you’ll find a detailed breakdown in the patch notes.

Wipe News: To maintain a fresh and balanced experience for all players, we will be performing a full wipe on all platforms with the release of update 1.27. This includes all maps and characters. The reset ensures a clean slate and an equal start for everyone as we move forward in 2025.



DayZ in 2025

As we kick off the new year with update 1.27, we also want to give you a glimpse into what’s ahead for DayZ in 2025.

This year will be an important one for DayZ, as we continue our commitment to regular updates while working on some of our most ambitious plans yet. Our focus remains on expanding and refining the core experience, ensuring longevity and continued engagement for long-time players and new survivors alike.

While we don’t want to go into too much detail just yet, here are some of the key areas we aim to explore through our upcoming updates:

• Gunplay refinements – featuring improvements to scopes, new firearms, and weapon handling
  
• Quality-of-life and performance enhancements – addressing community feedback, bug fixes, and optimizations
  
• Expanded dynamic events for Sakhal – bringing more variety and unpredictability to the world of DayZ
  
• A refreshed experience – updates to the main menu interface to improve navigation, news/announcement delivery and accessibility
  

We have much more in store, and while we’re not ready to reveal everything just yet, we can say with confidence that 2025 will be a major year for DayZ. We appreciate your continued support and look forward to sharing more details as the year progresses

Stay tuned for future updates. And, as always—thank you for surviving with us!



Events

We didn’t host a Valentine’s Day event this year, as its timing conflicted with the release of update 1.27. Instead, the next seasonal event will be Walpurgis Night.
Looking ahead, you can expect the return of our usual special events, including Walpurgis Night, Halloween, and Christmas —each carefully crafted to enhance your DayZ experience. We’re also exploring the possibility of collaborating on new events with other games.



That concludes DayZ in 2025. We’re enthusiastically anticipating a year filled with remarkable journeys, and we sincerely hope that you will join us in experiencing the continued evolution of DayZ.
On behalf of the DayZ team,
Scotty

Survivors,
With the 1.27 Stable Update launching on February 25th, marking the first milestone of 2025, we’re gearing up for a Fantastic February to kick off another exciting year. To celebrate, we’re hosting the Fantastic February Sales, offering up to 50% off DayZ until February 26th.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/221100/DayZ/

What is DayZ?
The post-soviet countries of Chernarus and Livonia are struck by an unknown virus, turning the majority population into frenzied infected. Fighting over resources has bred a hostile mentality among survivors, driving what’s left of humanity to collapse. You are one of the few immune to the virus - how far will you go to survive?

The 1.27 Update goes beyond just stability improvements, introducing a range of exciting reworks—from sound design and quality-of-life changes to new assets and points of interest (POIs) in Sakhal. Read more about 1.27 Update with our EXP Release Article here.
Speaking of Sakhal, the DayZ Frostline Expansion is also on sale with 20% off!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2968040/DayZ_Frostline/

What is DayZ Frostline?
Sakhal harbors both beauty and danger, offering an experience DayZ fans have never seen before. As you explore, hunt, survive, and unfurl the mysteries hidden beneath the frost line. Unite with fellow survivors or forge your path alone; the choice is yours in this perilous winter wonderland.
Preparation is the key to survival, and as the frost sets in, only those with Ice in their veins and Fire in their hearts will endure.

Deluxe Edition & Cool Edition
More comprehensive versions of DayZ in Deluxe and Cool Editions are also on sale with up to 50% and 35% off, respectively.



Whether you're a seasoned veteran diving into the new expansion or a freshie just stepping into the world of DayZ, the ultimate survival experience awaits.
So, grab your copies, spawn in, and see if you have what it takes to survive!

Greetings, Survivors!
The first milestone of the new year is here - the experimental release of game update 1.27! As with previous first-of-the-year updates, the focus is primarily on the stability of the build, as well as various internal tools and processes that will help us prepare for the rest of the year. Considering the scale of our previous update, however, we couldn't leave things totally untouched. So we made a few changes and additions based on our data and your feedback.
Here are some of the improvements we made to DayZ Frostline:

• We reinforced the eastern coast with more places to loot. Aniva city has been expanded, Baikovo hamlet has been turned into a village, and other smaller locations have been added along the eastern coast.
  
• The main island of Sakhal has been populated with more new snowy variants of broken down houses, which offer loot opportunities in the wilderness.
  
• Navigation between the vast sea ice plains has been simplified thanks to the addition of buoys and small military outposts which can be found on small islands, primarily around the island of Burukan.
  
• A minor deforestation pass was conducted on Burukan island in order to make the area a bit more dangerous to move around in.
  
• New static outdoor thermometers were added to Sakhal; curious players can now understand why their characters are freezing, even when the weather appears sunny and warm.
  
• Lastly, we added a major point of interest on the southern island of Shantar, and coupled it with a simple game mechanic as well.
  

If you’re a fan of the changes we made to bandaging (i.e. the ability to bandage multiple bleeds with the single hold of a button), then you’ll be happy to hear that we have implemented the continuous factor to more actions, such as repairing. Domestic animals like cows, goats, and sheep are now more likely to run away than before. Speaking of animals, we also looked at your feedback on fishing and decided to make an additional balancing pass. Fishing takes longer and is less effective now with incomplete fishing tools.


We also took a look at the mechanics behind bloody hands and food poisoning while cutting up freshly obtained fish. Bloody hands will now result in different diseases depending on which animal was processed. For example, bloody hands from fish will almost always give food poisoning now, and not salmonella as before. It’s still highly recommended to wash your hands before eating, though some animals aren't as dangerous as before. Meanwhile, food poisoning has been reworked to reflect different types and quantities of food more accurately. It will no longer decay on its own. Rather, it will now disappear slowly as a player battles its symptoms.

One of the things we anticipated when we added boats to the game was that they would be left in places that are hardly accessible without the use of another boat. To make sure new boats continue being spawned, we implemented a boat decay mechanic, which is fully configurable on the server-side as well. Furthermore, as a follow-up to update 1.26’s inventory cargo size reduction pass, we decided to increase your ability to carry a bit more with the addition of new tool slots to most backpacks. We also generalized the glowstick and radio slot, which now accept both, as well as more items!


The audio side of the game received a lot of attention as well:

• We heard your feedback regarding the boat audio and overhauled the audibility from both close-up and far points of view.
  
• We balanced the audibility of character footsteps by boosting the middle range so they would be more audible and not get lost in the mix of the environment’s sounds. Some surfaces (like forests) now have the additional sound effect of stepping on clutter.
  
• Adding to the intensity of your survival struggles, you can now hear your character’s teeth chattering while they’re cold.
  
• Bullet cracks were reworked and all submachine guns had their shot and tail sounds updated.
  
• Sakhal also received a number of tweaks to environment sounds. An example of this would be the fact that when a character walks through an evergreen tree (with branches on the ground), it will make a sound. We believe this is going to be a healthy change to PvP interactions, particularly on Sakhal where these trees are plentiful.
  

We also focused on various particle effects. There are Sakhal-specific ones, like snow falling off trees when interacting with them, as well as one for explosions on snow. Considering our recent focus on the cold weather, we couldn’t help changing the breath vapor effect, so we completely reworked it. That led us to updating vomit and bleeding effects. Finally, a number of our firearms received brand new particles. We’re certainly not done working on firearms and hope to make more changes in the future.



Last but not least, for anyone who’s ever tried to re-texture a certain vanilla item and found that some just do not work: we updated a large number of our assets to support re-texturing using configs. If you find any more issues with this, or with anything else mentioned in this article (or in our usual forum change notes), please report your findings to our feedback tracker. You can do so easily by using the feedback tracker link implemented in the game menus.
You can find the change logs here!

Thank you and see you on Sakhal!
On behalf of the DayZ team,
Adam

Season’s Greetings, Survivors! 
We’re thrilled to announce the return of our annual Christmas event across all official servers, maps, and platforms. The festivities will run from December 17th to January 7th. Let’s get into all the goodies we’ve prepared for you.  

Christmas Trees and Gifts 
The beloved singing Christmas trees are making their return! You’ll find them scattered across villages and towns on all three maps. We won’t spoil the fun by revealing their exact locations—you’ll need to go out and explore!  Each tree will feature gift boxes filled with goodies like food, Christmas-themed clothing, ammo, and more. As usual, opening these boxes will grant you gift wrap, which you can use to repackage a gift of your choice for a fellow survivor. 



Santa’s Sleigh Crashes 
Santa’s sleigh dynamic crashes are also back and, for the first time, will appear on Sakhal alongside Chernarus and Livonia. Rest assured, these festive crashes won’t replace regular helicopter crashes on Chernarus and Livonia. In fact, they’ll even include loot from standard heli crashes! There is also an additional incentive to hunt down these sleigh crashes, especially on Livonia and Sakhal. They will include keys to endgame items like punch cards on Livonia and scientific briefcase keys or glow plugs on Sakhal. As you journey through the forests of Chernarus, the plains of Livonia, or the ice sheets of Sakhal, keep your ears open for the magical sounds of sleighs crashing and your eyes peeled for the glowing blue light. Let the hunt begin!  



Reindeer Take Over 
Speaking of hunting, we wanted to bring the spirit of Christmas to life, so we replaced all the deer on Chernarus and Livonia with reindeer. Even better, there’s a special reindeer with a glowing red nose and Christmas lights tangled in its antlers! Keep an eye out for this festive creature who might be found near sleigh crashes or roaming amongst a herd of reindeer. We’re rooting for his survival after the crash, or even against the infected Santa! Otherwise you’re in for a free loot of Christmas light.

Seasonal Cosmetics 
All your favorite Christmas cosmetics are back, including headbands, seasonal eye masks, Santa hats, Santa beards, Morozko hats, and Christmas gloves.
We’re also introducing three new “ugly” Christmas sweaters with DayZ-themed slogans. We hope these additions bring a festive touch to your survival wardrobe.  



Candy Canes
The magical, oh-so-nutritious candy canes are returning! These sweet treats could prove invaluable in harsher environments like Sakhal’s inland regions where food is scarce.  
A Frosty First with Frostline 
This year marks the first ever white winter Christmas in DayZ, thanks to the addition of Sakhal. We can’t wait to see how you celebrate the holidays in the new winter map. Share your Christmas-themed screenshots, adventures, and shenanigans with us using #TalentforDayZ and #ChristmasZ.
From all of us on the DayZ team, we hope this event adds warmth and joy to your winter season. 
Best regards,
Lynn