DayZ Standalone is one of the most in-depth, community-driven survival games available on PC and Console. Nothing quite matches the scope and dread of DayZ. You’ll begin this little adventure at a random spawn location – usually near the beach to the extreme south. Equipped with nothing more than a single road flare, food, knife, a bandage/rag, and the clothes on your back, you’ll need to scavenge, evade, and survive the countless enemies of Chernarus. Those enemies? They’re mostly human. In the world of DayZ, it’s the player you must fear the most. A survival game like this brings out the worst of mankind. Bandits, raiders, and cannibals are the death of us all.
If you can manage to kickstart your journey, find a bit of food and water, and maybe even a working firearm, you’re already in decent shape. Of course, this world does feature perma-death, so don’t grow too attached to that wonderfully-pristine hunting rifle. You should know, a hunting rifle is just the beginning. It’s an early-game weapon meant for self-defense, not offense. The real weapons are only available at military bases, where bandits love to hunt.
If you’d like to survive the world of DayZ, you’ll want to move slow, perhaps even find yourself a partner or group. These tips should help you survive your adventures in Chernarus. If not, maybe it wasn't meant to be. This is a high risk, no fail, kill or be killed world.
1. Never be in a hurry to die. Be patient, take your time. Plan and think your movements out. Walk or jog everywhere you go, never sprint anywhere unless your life is in danger. When it comes to combat, it's import to take your time and identify the situation you are in before you make any decisions that can end your life. If you enter combat, it's better to withdraw and let the enemy funnel into your killzone than to funnel into theirs. Otherwise, you can withdraw and break contact and attempt to avoid the enemy. For high-threat, no fail clearing of buildings, it's best to take things slow and pie your threats before entering rooms or specific areas. If you have the initiative in a fight, a carefully placed shot that you're 75%+ sure will land is always the best bet rather than immediately spraying and potentially missing, giving away your position and losing the element of surprise.
2. Keep your cool Whenever it's down to the count, erratic behavior and acting out of emotion rather than logic only results in death. Keep calm, cool and collected throughout every encounter and have a backup plan. Avoid tunnel vision or excessive paranoia. Try not to stay holed up in an area too long, you will begin hearing things. On the other hand, don't run recklessly from place to place.
3. Manage Smart Only grab items that are of need. Water, food, weapons and medical items should be taken in that order. Establish a system of drinking and eating that conserves your items while making use of them. General rule of thumb for drinking water is that you should only drink when in the red and you should refill your bottles/canteens at every town that has a water pump, or every five miles. You should also only share one bottle of water with a person, to avoid running low yourself. Manage circumstantially.
4. Learn your locations Realistically, only a small bit of your time will be spent fighting anyone. To prepare for a fight, though, you’ll need better-tier gear.
Use a DayZ Interactive Map on your phone or computer and correlate where you are at with the map and figure out your cardinal directions. Once you get your bearing, start prioritizing areas with loot. Houses provide clothing and food, police stations and military bases provide high-end military gear, medical facilities provide medical items and so forth. Identify which nearest towns are important to you and go in and loot items you NEED. Towns with a police station, medical facility and food sources such as a market or a water pump are very vital but are also risky. You may not get lucky every time, but chances are high you’ll find something useful each time you visit a new spot. Alternatively, stake out one of these locations (like a police station) and ambush another player.
5. Items You Should Have • Knife Useful for quartering and skinning, opening cans, cutting, stabbing. Stone knives in particular have unlimited condition.
• Bandages and Rags Should be on the top of your priority list. Used to stop bleeding and to craft a fireplace kit in a pinch.
• Splitting Axe and Firefighter Axe Used to slaughter zombies that will annoy you on your journey, or to kill other players. Used to also cut down trees, cutting and opening. Take note that using your axe to cut down trees and open cans will worsen its condition, but killing zombies (or players) shouldn't. The fire axe is more effective against zombies and can be painted green versus the splitting axe.
• Matchbox or Matches An essential component to starting a fire and warming up. It's not as cold these days, but it's not exactly warm, either.
• Morphine Auto-Injector Take as many of these as you can find, simply because the act of making a splint requires more items, and fractured limbs can be temporarily fixed with morphine. They are extremely rare, but as is often the case in DayZ, when you break your legs in a gun battle it will come in extremely handy.
• Canned Peaches/Tree Food/ Peaches are life in DayZ. They provide a food and good hydration source. They are fairly common and they will refill you almost instantly. Conversly, you can find "tree food" such as apples, plums and pears that give a smaller effect but are more common and easier to fit in your inventory.
• Leather / Standard Sewing Kit / Weapon Cleaning Kit The Sewing Kit serves to sew your skin shut after it gets sliced open by that Improvised Knife or desynchronizing zombie. The Sewing Kits can also be used to fix clothing items such as things like assault vests and boots. It will wear down with each use, however. The weapon cleaning kit is used to clean and fix your weapon when it wears down from use. The kit will also wear down.
• Alcohol Tincture Sewing your wounds shut with the Leather Sewing Kit can lead to infection, and to fix that, Alcohol Tincture is used. It can also be used on Rags that are worn or worse, returning them to pristine condition.
• Lockpick/Key Both the lockpick and keys have two similar functions that are necessary. The first use is to lock any form of door to prevent anyone from entering. The second use is to unlock any form of door to allow access into whatever you wish to enter. Ultimately, this helps ensure that you're safely hidden from sight if you're looking to lock it down for the night.
• Hidden weapons Besides fending off the occasional zombie and ambushing players in close-quarters, a sawed-off shotgun is useful if you have been ambushed. Most bandits will request you drop your weapons and gear immediately. They may not check your backpack, though, which will fit a sawed-off shotgun if it’s the right size. You can then pull it quickly and blast away. You’ll first need the shotgun itself and a hacksaw to saw off the barrel, though. Finding both can be troublesome.
11. Avoid The Roads Take the path less traveled. Many common routes are picked through or camped. While all roads in this game lead to either a town or a city filled with loot, you’ll want to avoid using them at all costs as they are common access routes that most players tend to follow. Do yourself a favor and stay off of them. It's basic common sense, but there are many players out there that sprint down roads that connect popular locations or ambush players on the road. Quite frankly, if you're doing this you likely deserve to be shot by a bandit, which lucky for you will almost certainly happen. Orient yourself and start taking the back woods when you need to travel around Chernarus.
Furthermore, the roads in Chernarus were meant for vehicles. Cars generally indicate a well-armed player or a group who have survived the game world for an extended time.
12. Don't Wear Bright Colors Hunters wear orange so other hunters can see them. Construction workers wear reflective vests so motorists can spot them. You're not wanting for others to see you, in any regard. Wearing bright colors is more likely to make you the prey. Wear clothing that easily blends with your surroundings, and even consider using a can of spray paint to camouflage your weapons. No one can kill you if they can't see you.
13. Stay Out of Sight The best way to avoid being killed on sight is to remain out of sight and avoid contact as much as possible. If you want to survive, your best bet is to make sure that other players don't know where you are. To do this, approach towns from forests and bushes, using backyards and fences for cover. Make a habit of cover and concealment.
14. Reconnoiter Everything Take a few minutes to investigate an area before moving into it. Find a spot that gives you a good vantage point and study the lay of the land. Are the doors and gates open? This can tell you if the area has been or is being looted. Are there sedentary zombies? This would indicate there is nobody around to cause them to enter an aggro state. Spend a few moments to get a feel for the situation. It will save your life. If you’re lucky enough to have found a pair of binoculars, recon is a little easier to accomplish. If not, simply find yourself a nice bush or tree, wait a minute or two, and scope the entire area. Scan tree lines, watch the top floor windows, scan common access areas and strategic locations, and note the locations of any wandering dead before you make a move. For the most part, most players grow tired of sitting in one spot for too long. If you detect any movement, examine it for a moment, survey the surrounding area. If you have a weapon and can get the drop on another player, do so from behind or the flank – never the front.
15. Stay Perfectly Still Make sure to stand perfectly still when you're trying to spot movement. This is by far the easiest way to peep anything out of the ordinary. It doesn't hurt to hold down your aim button as well, allowing you to zoom in for a closer look. If you're lucky enough to have them, think about using a pair of Binoculars, or look down a Long Range Scope to get a more clear view.
16. Invest, Listen, and Prepare Invest in a good headset, crank up the volume and listen for threats. This will help you prepare. Investing in a high-quality headset can make a significant difference. Sure, you could buy something from Walmart, but that headset will last a month or two, tops, and you won’t hear nearly as much.
With a good headset, the world of DayZ comes to life. You can hear footsteps, gunshots in the distance, zombies moaning down the road, etc. Furthermore, if you’re close enough, you can even hear players moving or chatting. In the survival genre, being able to hear your opponent before you see them is a matter of life or death. Being able to hear is right at the top of the list of things that will keep you alive. Your ears are equally important as your eyes.
17. Travel Very Lightly With a heavy load, a large stamina decrease, slower speed, and slower movement and reaction are more consequential especially in a high risk, no fail environment. Otherwise, the most likely reason someone will murder you is because you have something they want. If at all possible, travel lightly in order to minimize weight, stmina and movement reduction as well as the risk of being shot out of jealousy. Most people are still going to shoot you, but this gives a few extra seconds for someone and gives you a fighting chance. Find contentment in your gear, don't carry around 4 pistols and 2 rifles just because you can, it will only make your life more complicated. If you don't need it, don't take it.
18. High-Threat Environment Just like every game with a heavy emphasis on violence, everywhere you go there is a high chance of threat around every corner. There are several threat conditions that have been crafted for this form of environment.
• Threat Condition 1 - No current or expected threats, weapons low. It is for rare or less-than-likely areas such as small unnamed hamlets or after an area has been cleared.
• Threat Condition 2 - Expected or probability of threats, weapons ready. This is for operating a small to medium sized area where the area has not been cleared, this is the default setting.
• Threat Condition 3 - Current and certain threats, weapons free. This is for operating in a high-threat environment such as a large city or when having spotted or heard a potential threat within the area.
19. Finding A Firearm A melee weapon is an excellent tool, especially if you’re fighting zombies. If you’re against another player, though, you’ll want a working firearm with ammunition to hold your own. Finding a gun in Chernarus is not an easy task, though. Sure, you could head up to the Northwest Airfield in the hopes of finding an automatic weapon, but you’re likely to be shot in the process.
There are a few familiar locations in the game that regularly spawn firearms. Gun houses, for example, are small, wooden cabins that usually generate rifles, shotguns, and a variety of pistols in the far corner. Police stations, on the other hand, sometimes spawn an SKS, AKs, or even the famous MP5-K. Finally, factory rooftops occasionally feature shotguns, SKS, Mosin 91/30, or the Repeater, among others.
The M4A1 is currently the most coveted weapon in the game and, as such, it is also the most difficult to acquire. A few years back, finding an M4 was easy. They were literally scattered about the map in the most mundane of locations. Today, things are different. There are now two known methods to acquire an M4: kill a player wielding one or search military bases. Obviously, the latter is the easier of the two.
Unfortunately, military bases are a considerable risk and little reward loot spot. You’ll either find something useful (like an M4), or you’ll discover absolute shit.
20. Building A Fire Hypothermia is one of the worst killers in DayZ, but you can avoid the issue altogether with warm clothing. Or, better yet, you could build a fire in a secluded location and warm yourself thoroughly. A fireplace kit allows you to cook meat and heat yourself up a little.
Unfortunately, building a fire isn’t a simple task right now. First off, you’ll need a single stick, then rags, bandages, or paper. Combine the two to craft a fireplace kit. If it’s raining, place your fire pit somewhere indoors. A building with limited windows and visibility from the outside would work wonders.
21. Avoiding or Killing Zombies Zombies are agile, fast and deadly but are not a large threat if you know how to avoid them. That means crouching and staying low and out of their sight. If you have to kill zombies, you should do it one at a time, having too many zombies pile up and get alerted to your presence leads to nothing but your death. The best way to kill a zombie is to aim for the head with a sharp melee weapon such as a knife. If you have a gun (your best option), use a suppressor to muffle the shot. Try to remain at a distance, too. If possible, fire from above or from behind low covers, such as a stone wall or picket fence.
If trapped in a building with zombies outside, another method that works is to have a buddy open the door, lock in one zombie at a time and kill it. You can do it by yourself, but it's not as effective.
22. Don’t Knock Fishing Fishing has become a viable source of nutrition in Chernarus. If you can manage to fend for yourself near a lake, river, or ocean, you can succeed into the late-game with ease. First off, you’ll need a fishing rod, fish trap (optional), a fireplace, and cooking implements.
To craft a fishing rod, you’ll require the following materials: a knife, rope, long wooden stick, and a fishing hook. Combine each item in your inventory to craft a makeshift fishing pole. Secondly, a fishing trap can be fashioned out of a plastic bottle and a knife. This is an effortless way to catch fish passively. To cook your catch, you’ll need a fireplace and a knife to slice the fish. A frying pan or cooking pot will be useful here.
23. Curing Sickness The disease mechanic, which is rather simple, has various stages (itchy wounds, infected wounds, severely infected, and recovery). Each stage lasts for between 10 and 40 minutes, depending on the severity of the injury and the particular stage your character is at. It’s important to eat and drink during each stage, as you’re more susceptible to starvation and dehydration while your wounds are infected. On top top that, there are various other forms of diseases that exist such as Cholera, which can be gained from drinking water while your hands are contaminated.
Curing sickness, on the other hand, is quite simple and straightforward. You can use either antibiotics or alcohol tinctures to clean the wounds. Upon applying the makeshift medicine, you’ll immediately be granted Stage 4, which is the recovery phase. From there, you're no longer a dead man.
24. Always Stick With A Buddy Survival is name of the game, so having someone to watch your back is a worthwhile endeavor. When it comes to making friends in-game, don’t. Partner with a buddy from outside the game that you've known for a while and make sure you two trust each other, eventually develop a larger group but never ever go at it alone unless you have to. If you decide to solo DayZ, then form a quasi-coalition with another player or two in-game, you’re going to have a bad time.
The player community is pretty hectic. There is no reason not to kill an opposing player the moment you see them. Without a karma system or any penalties for killing-on-sight, you’re left with an environment that rewards bandits and sociopaths. The thrill of the kill and the potential for loot – even just for a can of peaches – is omnipresent. You’re better off going at it alone.
If you intend to be friendly, announce your presence asap and don't point your gun at them. Instead of telling them you're friendly, actually be friendly and offer an item to establish trust. If you come across as genuinely kind instead of paranoid and shifty, they will be far less likely to kill you. This isn't recommended, but the option is there. Every situation is different, always remember that. As a friendly player you will sometimes be forced into difficult situations in which you may have to act quickly in your own self interest at their expense. Whenever given the opportunity, bandage and tie someone up rather than killing them, especially if you don't know if their intent is ill or you don't wish to harm them.
25. Avoiding in-game Communications If you're playing this game by yourself, don't worry about getting in a party chat. If you're with friends, do everything in your power to communicate outside of the game. They will save you from having to communicate in-game, something that is way up on the list of things that will get you killed. Just as we told you to listen out for in-game chatter, you want to avoid being that chatter. This is a solution that will let you laugh it up with your friends while not alerting the enemy.
26. Logout in the Wilderness When your adventure is finally over, try to avoid logging out in high-traffic areas. There is a chance someone could walk up and kill you while you're logging out, so be sure to log out in area where death is least likely. Head into a wooded area, then spend a solid minute making sure no one followed you before leaving the game.
27. Learn to trap infected inside of buildings. Run in, let them follow then slow down as you leave through the door and close it. If an infected is chasing you, run into a building with windows and shut the door behind you trapping them outside. Move to the window and they will follow, you can almost always hit them with an axe through the window.
28. Loot slowly and stop at every house and listen. Crouch run and always look around before going into an area. If you are careful you'll often hear nearby players before they know of your presence. Always take time to stop and listen for peculiar sounds. Always tend to hear them first before they can hear you when going to very dangerous places.
And most importantly, you tend to get out of DayZ what you put into it. The more you care about your life, the more meaningful the game will feel for you.
Congratulations, you survived another adventure in Chernarus.