lots of people think this game is "looter-shooter ARMA with zombies" so let me be the one to tell you that this is, in actuality, the most brutal survival-crafter probably on all of steam.

i'll say it right now: the wiki is your best friend. watch youtube videos. read steam guides. do NOT expect the game to help you out at all. the most help the game is going to give you is an occasional mall-kiosk-type map displayed out in the wilderness with a "YOU ARE HERE" dot on it.

once you're past the obligate cliff of difficulty that all new players have to struggle over, dayZ becomes the most immersive game you'll ever play in your life. full-stop. every action you do has a purpose -- it NEEDS to have a purpose, or else your life will be very short indeed -- and you feel the boon of every victory and the pain of every mistake as if you WERE your character. it's indescribable. you will never know the mix of relaxing bliss and paralyzing paranoia that the sounds of the forest induce. you will never know the utter jubilation of finding a pristine can of peaches when you're mere minutes from starvation. you will never know the sheer gutpunching defeat of getting fully geared and letting your attention slip for the split-second it takes for a rat with a farmer's old shotgun to give you a chernarussian salute with both barrels. UNLESS you play this game.

and please, *please* play it. it's janky, it's poorly-explained, it's riddled with sweats and cheaters, but if you're looking for an EXPERIENCE, then please play dayZ. suffer on official servers, desensitize yourself on modded servers, traumatize yourself on RP servers. anything you could want is here.

lots of people think this game is "looter-shooter ARMA with zombies" so let me be the one to tell you that this is, in actuality, the most brutal survival-crafter probably on all of steam. i'll say it right now: the wiki is your best friend. watch youtube videos. read steam guides. do NOT expect the game to help you out at all. the most help the game is going to give you is an occasional mall-kiosk-type map displayed out in the wilderness with a "YOU ARE HERE" dot on it. once you're past the obligate cliff of difficulty that all new players have to struggle over, dayZ becomes the most immersive game you'll ever play in your life. full-stop. every action you do has a purpose -- it NEEDS to have a purpose, or else your life will be very short indeed -- and you feel the boon of every victory and the pain of every mistake as if you WERE your character. it's indescribable. you will never know the mix of relaxing bliss and paralyzing paranoia that the sounds of the forest induce. you will never know the utter jubilation of finding a pristine can of peaches when you're mere minutes from starvation. you will never know the sheer gutpunching defeat of getting fully geared and letting your attention slip for the split-second it takes for a rat with a farmer's old shotgun to give you a chernarussian salute with both barrels. UNLESS you play this game. and please, *please* play it. it's janky, it's poorly-explained, it's riddled with sweats and cheaters, but if you're looking for an EXPERIENCE, then please play dayZ. suffer on official servers, desensitize yourself on modded servers, traumatize yourself on RP servers. anything you could want is here.