Which is good, because the last thing anyone wants is an unstable cannibal.

My complete personal experience of DayZ can be summed up with “ran around in the dark, got attacked by some zombies, panicked and ran away, managed to lose them before bleeding to death in a churchyard”. I never did well enough to become intimate with the game’s gory innards, and as such its patch and changelog notes are largely a mystery to me. Fortunately they’re still almost as entertaining as, er, bleeding out whilst cowering behind a gravestone.

Look at this stuff: “combining and splitting worms”. I can only begin to imagine what that has anything to do with. From “Watering plants” I get the impression that either farming is possible in the game, or its tone has shifted substantially and it’s now commonplace for players to build themselves cosy little homes decked out with houseplants. Then there’s my personal favourite, “abuse of vomiting to gain energy”. I can’t speak for anyone else, but the morning after the night before “gaining energy” is the last thing I am doing.

Confoundment and amusement aside, one new item and one new mechanic have been added that, I suspect, are going to prove wildly popular among DayZ’s wildly intimidating playerbase. Human flesh is now present as an item (I’m 30% items!) and “Prion Disease” can now be contracted.

Wot is Prion disease, you might ask? It’s a particularly delightful group of diseases involving proteins which fell on the wrong side of the tracks, and is largely brought about either by cannibalism (as with BSE) or contact with prions (as with CJD).

Prion diseases are currently incurable and really rather unpleasant. Assuming they’re equally nasty in the game, I suppose no one can accuse Bohemia Interactive of seeking to encourage the consumption of human beings.

Still, if you have a taste for guilt-free long pig, this is the perfect time to log back into DayZ. You should know that you scare me.