DayZ PS4 - Game Review

By
Susan Giles
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10

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7

10

DayZ PS4

Games with an open world can be exciting, scary, and quite difficult. However, DayZ managed to combine a zombie apocalypse world into a survival of the fittest game.

The game was developed by Bohemia Interactive, and it was officially released in 2019, but DayZ had a long early access period that lasted over 5 years and that’s partially why so many gamers are skeptical about it.

The game has its fair share of ups and downs, but the majority of players still enjoy it. Let’s dive in and read more about DayZ to find out if it’s worth buying for PS4 or not.

DayZ puts players in a post-apocalyptic and zombie-infested world. It has two massive maps that you can explore by walking many miles checking and looting houses or buildings to survive. It starts you off at a fictional post-Soviet Republic area called Chernarus.

It doesn’t have a story or narrative that you follow, and it’s just a large open world to explore, find supplies, food, weapons, and shelter. You will find zombies randomly, and you must be careful around them. Kill them, trap them, or just run as fast as you can because they’re designed to keep following you unless you hide or run too far.

You will meet people as well, and the density of the population depends on which server you choose. The game has many servers, and some are over-populated than others. Some servers are completely empty, and you may spend hours traveling alone without finding anyone. The game has a good voice-chat system built into it, so players can communicate automatically when they’re close to each other.

The objective of this game is survival and not just avoiding getting killed by zombies. The developers designed the game where each character has different icons that players must keep an eye out for. These icons are for hunger, thirst, body temperature, stamina, and random diseases.

A player can die from exhaustion, freezing, catching a disease or infection, dehydration, and malnourishment. This system is quite cool if you ask me because it makes the game more immersive, and the threats are more than just the zombies.

The bars and icons are neatly positioned, and they look nice, but it takes some getting used to until you understand what everything means. I like the inventory menu too, and you can pull it up to change clothes, hold different weapons, and even let go of items to throw them on the floor.

The layout is good, but it does have some bugs. Sometimes the icons don’t show, or items are too bugged, or my character dies suddenly without noticing that I had an infection. When a player dies, they respawn again, but they lose their items, which makes it quite frustrating. Players have to be extra careful and check every icon everywhere. However, these small bugs got fixed in the recent patches.

The sound effects are nice, and some of them sound realistic, but a few of them did sound kind of funny to me. It wasn’t a huge problem for me, and I still enjoyed it. The soundtrack and ambient sounds were amazing, and they fit the whole style or vibe of DayZ. It’s ominous, mysterious, and scary sometimes.

The soundtrack always makes me feel like someone is about to ambush me, or a zombie will attack me out of nowhere.

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I loved the survival system and the exploration, even if I kept running for so many hours, the exploration aspect is pretty entertaining and fun. Checking different buildings, houses, or sheds is important for getting supplies or weapons, but sometimes there’s a surprise waiting that I have to be ready for.

At some point, the buildings and houses seem repeated, as they have the same layout, designs, and even colors. It didn’t bother me at first, but I had trouble remembering if I checked a certain building before or not.

I feel like they should add more unique designs or more life to the world because it feels stagnate when you play for so many hours. The developers are trying though, and most patches have something new and interesting in store for the players.

The game has a lot of bugs still when interacting with stuff, and I lost count of how many times my body or other players’ bodies started clipping through walls. Doors get stuck a lot, some pieces of furniture can trap me in place.

Driving cars is a mess most of the time because sometimes they don’t start, they dive through the floor and map, bugging out my character, they fly out of nowhere, or they just explode. I have to admit; the car bugs were funny, but they get old at some point, and it messes with the overall experience.

Sometimes character models bug out rapidly and have their bodies, arms, legs, or even heads formed weirdly, messing with your accuracy and experience. This can make shootouts, ambushes, or zombie attacks a lot harder. One of the bugs that I really hate to experience is when you shoot someone, and you know it didn’t miss, but it doesn’t get registered.

This bug killed me so many times because I meet people that just survive my attack and kill me easily even though I had a gun, and they had nothing. Overall, the game has a ton of bugs that need fixing, but the developers are taking care of them gradually.

The main reason why most players just gave up on DayZ is because of the bugs that never got fixed. However, what I found out about this game is that it’s about betraying the people you meet before they betray you and take your loot. It’s a sad and frustrating fact, but players can be mean most of the time.

For instance, I hooked up with a lot of groups, and sometimes we spend hours exploring, but then suddenly they just backstab me and take my stuff. I personally hate backstabbing people, but the game makes you have trust issues because of bad experiences with mean players.

I guess this is what makes the game unique and fun because you never know what’s going to happen, and it adds more of the thrill factor to it. You can’t be too sure if the person you bump into will be nice, team up with you, or just kill you on sight. I guess the choice is up to the players and how they want to play the game.

The developers are slowly turning the game around with new designs, bug fixes, and server stability. I feel like this game deserves a second chance with the recent patches, and it can be more entertaining. The game won the “Better with Friends” reward in 2019, and it does deserve it, but the game can be fun when you solo it too.

The interaction with players and the bonds you form, friends you make, enemies you fight, or backstabbing moments make this game memorable and immersive.

I had a lot of fun playing it, and I do recommend it because it is worth trying out. I’d give this game a 7/10 just because of the immense number of bugs, but the game is rather enjoyable still. Just be prepared to have lag or random bugs that may mess up your gameplay sometimes.

If you love exploring, surviving a zombie apocalypse, and interacting with players in a large open world, then DayZ is the right game for you.