DayZ moving into 2019

Before we go and visit our families for the holidays, we would like to thank you for all the support you've shown us over the past year. 2018 and the 1.0 release have been a big move forward for all of us here. The Steam Free Weekend with nearly half a million unique survivors (466,522 to be exact) and a peak of nearly 30,000 concurrent players reassured us, that there is still major interest in DayZ.

So, things are not stopping now. As with any of our core games here at Bohemia, the support and content are on their way. It's important for DayZ to thrive and that’s what 2019 is all about for us. What does that mean exactly? Without going into specifics, we will set up pipelines for vehicles and weapons.

Another priority for us is the stability and consistent behavior of DayZ as a platform. We have to improve the server performance which has degraded over the last month and are looking into making sure this get fixed. The same goes for client performance which has seen some dips and weird behavior that is yet to be analyzed.

One big topic that is going to get a lot of attention next year is modding, that is battling different issues, but still progressing very nicely. Shout-out to those of you who made some awesome creations already! We see modding as a cornerstone of DayZ and as such we will continuously improve and add depth to the modding possibilities, which also goes through the tools. There is also the topic of documentation and samples, which we want to share to make sure the endless possibilities are used in way that is stable.

Another important element which many of you are probably looking forward to, are features that we cut from the 1.0 release. Climbing for example. As the team is staying the same size next year, we will continue our efforts to bring them in and share details, the same way we will with weapons. Things will get in game over time in both smaller and larger patches.

And while we will work on features that have been cut, we also will look back at some that are not fleshed out properly, are missing something, and/or need balancing to ensure their use is worthwhile. We do play the game with you and often feel the same way about many of its issues.

One crucial thing awaiting us now, is the amount of polish that the game desperately needs. It’s a top focus from our production cycle that we improve things that have lacked enough time put to testing and functionality.

On a last note, I would like to apologize for the lack of communication around our recent server shifts during the PC Free Weekend and the shift of the Xbox servers to the PC branch. The resulting base losses have been announced way too late and we understand this means of course a lot of frustration among you. We will improve on the way we communicate these server changes, by announcing these changes earlier and thus giving you more time to migrate your base to a new server.

We wish you happy holidays; rest up and see you next year!