Two years DayZ has been in public development. Two years! At the risk of sounding like a haggard old man, it feels like just yesterday that PC Gamer was hunted down by the internet in Chernarus. In that time there have been some momentous changes, like the departure of Dean Hall, in addition to rather little progress on some longstanding problems. In a dev blog today, Bohemia took a brief look back at its trek through Early Access and detailed some of the major updates we can expect before version 1.0 arrives next year.

The choice morsels include modding support, aerial vehicles (the Little Bird helicopter ought to arrive soon in the new year), a new renderer, new animation system (this one has been a long time coming), updated UI and 'fluid movement' within the world. I'm excited! Heck, I was excited two years ago, but that petered out when it dawned how far off the finished product was—now, I'm excited again, because that list contains acknowledgements of DayZ's deepest, most enduring flaws and a pledge to get them fixed. Roll on, 2016!

Correction: A previous version of this article indicated that the Little Bird would arrive before Christmas, but it was actually pushed to sometime after, though "not too far off."