DayZ - Update 1.20

Greetings, Survivors!

We’re releasing our first update of 2023 today! Say hello to update 1.20!

We’ve already started gearing up for a full year of DayZ support, and felt it would be wise to spend a bit of time tackling various issues and addressing all the feedback we received during our very busy developmental phase last year.

You might find update 1.20 lacking in the content department, but it certainly makes up for that with a wide variety of fixes and changes. There are far too many to mention them all here, but some of our favorites include more vehicle fixes, a resolved ADS bug, connectivity indicators, and improvements to the third-person camera. If you’d like to learn more about everything update 1.20 brings to the table, head on over to our official forums and check out the change notes (PC, Consoles).

While we’re very happy to kick off the year with update 1.20, we’d also like to discuss what’s in store for the rest of 2023. As we teased in a recent live stream, this year is going to be a little bit different. One thing we’d like to clarify is that we will definitely be supporting the game throughout 2023. The content of future updates, however, will be a lot more dynamic in nature, and won’t always deliver the usual template of “gun, feature, bug fix”. The reason for this is because we plan on expanding our focus regarding the possibilities of the DayZ game, brand, and team itself. We can’t offer too many details at the moment, but the following are a few of the areas we’ve begun to look into as possible additions to future updates.

Character cosmetics will play a huge role in every update this year. We’d like to grow what is already a massive collection by increasing the variety of loot to be found and offering even more amazing clothes to wear. Don’t expect us to follow other popular games with an abundant amount of pink skins. Think backpacks and survival themes and outfits that exemplify the DayZ brand.

Another element we intend to update later this year is the iconic northwest airfield (NWAF) on Chernarus. Our primary focus will be to simplify the airfield’s layout and make the runway and taxiways more authentic. Obviously a change to this location is a substantial project and will require synchronization with a total server wipe.

We also plan on focusing more on infected AI this year. We’d like to change the way they move through the environment, as well as how you battle them. There are a number of factors regarding this subject that require further investigation, so we can’t share much more info with you at present. But suffice it to say that the changes we’re considering have great potential to change the PvE aspect of the game for the better.

Following last year’s addition of Steam achievements in update 1.18, we’ve spent some time thinking about how we can expand the selection of available trophies/achievements. We’ve got a few ideas up our sleeves and will be offering additional challenges later this year for all you completists out there.

This year will be less about firearms as we feel there is generally a good variety present and we would rather invest our resources into other features. We would also like to give more attention to some quality of life changes, similar to what we did in the 1.20 update. Furthermore, we will continue the trend of offering more tools to server owners, with our primary focus oriented towards console communities and the ability to manage their server.

That’s pretty much it for now. We’re really looking forward to another year of great adventures and hope you’ll continue to enjoy them with us!