One of the most talked about areas in DayZ Standalone is the absence of an end game. DayZ Standalone thrives in the beginning when your character is gathering together its loot and developing its arsenal. As a fresh spawn the fear of losing your kit hasn’t arrived and so you enter into the world ready to explore and gather together what you need to become a powerful character. It engages.

This is all very excellent and people love this side of the game but once you get together your kit, primary weapon, food and everything else you need to survive what do you do then?



There have been numerous suggestions and calls for survival aspects which the developers are gradually introducing to the gaming environment. They are looking at cooking, persistent objects, building structures, and a range of new items which can be used to generate storylines.





This will create an environment much like Rust and although this survival game has taken a lead from many things in DayZ Standalone it has become a freefall for those who have established themselves as powerful characters.

There are other things which have been talked about for DayZ Standalone such as vehicles, which will make people mobile, but having played the game for over 400 hours now I would like to suggest a few things in this blog post as to where DayZ Standalone might go.



There is no doubt that it is a trend for survival games to build structures, create bases and locate a teams or a hard-core survivor at one location. DayZ Standalone could take a very different approach though and one that might be seen as very refreshing. Instead of building a base or structure potentially we could see a changing environment which would create a dynamic moving story which the characters in game would have to face up to and interact with.

Ideally, because this is a zombie survival game that we are talking about here, the undead should be used as part of this stall. Maybe a great way to make players feel like they’re in a survival scenario is to have waves of zombies appearing on the map and flocking through areas. This would make people move on, struggle to survive against the zombie hordes and come up with new ways of having to find things like ammunition and food. If the zombie threat was cranked up it would also affect the dynamics of the player versus player scenario. The aggression that some players, some more than most, show would be justified and people really would be fighting over the last scraps that existed in a hostile environment.







Alongside this other aspects of the weather could be used to enhance the gameplay and make players strive for survival. Winter environments would be a really interesting setup up. People would have to survive the cold, food would be hard to eat if frozen, items would seize up and people would die of exposure. The use of wind would also add different connotations to DayZ Standalone. It would affect shooting, introduce a wind chill factor, which might affect performance and health, and also damage structures.



Structures becoming damaged will also be another interesting way of developing storylines in DayZ. The prime one could be fire. Flames could destroy buildings and towns, moving players on into other areas, forests could burn down removing cover and security.



Besides these environmental changes there should be a series of rewards, something that is apparently being worked on. Achievements should be a feature within the game, adding targets for players and encouraging a desire to want to develop their characters. Time achievements would be a good way of making sure players think about prolonged exposure on one server. These rewards would only come if people remained on one server. This could also impact the crafting system, which is currently being developed, would need to be more advanced so that players could create their own ammunition, food and a range of improvised items as clothing would wear out or become damaged from exposure to hostile elements. Expert crafters would potential receive in game bonuses.





In the end what DayZ Standalone should be is more about survival than security. It should not necessarily be about creating a base or the finishing a mission, but more about having a new excuse to survive a new encounter. Arguably players should be highly strung and on the edge of their seats if they are trying to and survive the new wave of the zombies, the ever colder nights or the fact that they are having to create their own food and items. Should this game be about camping down and fighting off other players or should we be really living a apocalyptic world where there is no stability and just the constant fear of death.

DayZ Standalone Endgame – Making the Players have to Survive