A hideous mess, but if you can stand against the tidal waves of jank, DayZ is capable of impeccable vibes and can be both an eerie and immersive survival game.

Coming back to this years after the original viral Arma II mod version, I’m happy and sad to say that it feels almost identical to how it did then. This is a game where every life can be completely different, and everyone’s going to take away something different:

To some it will be entirely fiddling with the completely obtuse menus before getting bum-rushed and dying, to others it will be a social survival experience. To those like me, it will be an immersive experience of carefully sneaking around decrepit buildings while salvaging food, clothes, and ammo, listening to the ambient sounds of nature… feeling like I’m all alone against the elements in a wilderness of trees and concrete.

Then fiddling with obtuse menus, getting bum-rushed by zombies or other humans, and dying.