Survival veteran on Steam has more players than ever before – why is that?

Of all things, the 8-year-old survival shooter DayZ has flourished again on Steam. A new record of simultaneous players was recently posted. But what is the reason for the new success of the zombie game? Find out here on MeinMMO.

What is DayZ? DayZ is a large survival sandbox set in a zombie apocalypse. You try to survive with 59 other players on a zombie overrun island in the former Soviet Union. Survival is the only goal of the game, there is no story or anything like that.

In addition to the zombies, your biggest enemies are the other players, because they can attack and rob you at any time.

The game started in 2012 as a mod for the shooter Arma 2 and later got early access on Steam. There were tons of problems and bugs there, but the game officially entered beta in 2018 and a console version for the PS4 was even released in 2019.

The game has had some turbulent moments over the years, with the number of players falling below 5,000 in some cases. In 2020, the previous development studio was even closed.

The number of players rose noticeably again in 2020 and has now even climbed to a new record.

New player record after 8 years – what are the reasons?

What is the current number of players? Last weekend, DayZ hit a new player record on Steam. According to the site Steamcharts there were 45,973 players who simultaneously tried to survive in the zombie world.

More players are now playing it than in the early release 2013, when there were a maximum of 45,398 players. Compared to the previous month of October there are over 6,000 more players.

What are the causes? There are several reasons for the sharp increase in the number of players:

• The game is 40 percent cheaper in the autumn sale on Steam (via Steam). That made sure that many players wanted to try it out for 23.99 euros.
• Update 1.5 was recently installed, which brought among other things 2 new weapons, new clothes, a brutal beating and many fixes.
• The game still rightly has the reputation of being a tough PvP survival sandbox. If you are into gameplay like this, you can still hardly pass it.

What’s the mood among the players? The Steam reviews for DayZ are mostly positive. At the time of this news (November 30, 2021), 70 percent of 236,708 reviews are benevolent. Players are currently praising the successful, immersive world in which one constantly feels threatened. In addition, it makes the community less toxic than it used to be and you have a lot of fun, especially with friends.

In addition, both casual gamers and hardcore PvP freaks would get their money’s worth here. Only the start is a bit tough because you have to get into the game first.

So much for the new success of an 8 year old game. If you want to watch other survival games besides DayZ, then have a look at our list here: The 24 best survival games 2021 for PlayStation, Xbox and PC