DayZ Review: A Czech Survival Game Players Rate Far Higher Than Critics

DayZ is a hardcore survival game from Prague-based studio Bohemia Interactive. On a map with up to 60 players you survive among the infected, wildlife and, above all, other people. The full version came out on Steam on December 13, 2018, and on October 15, 2026 it got the Badlands expansion with the biggest map in the game’s history. In this review we tell you what DayZ does well, where it stumbles and why its score ends up so low.

What DayZ is about

DayZ has no missions or quests. The goal is to survive. You spawn on the map and have to find everything yourself: food, water, clothes, weapons and medicine. There are no map markers or minimap, your character’s condition is shown only by a minimal interface, and even that can be turned off. You keep an eye on hunger, thirst, body temperature and diseases, which you have to recognise by their symptoms and treat with the right medicine.

You’re threatened by the infected, wolves and bears, but mostly by other players. A server can hold up to 60 of them, and every encounter can end in friendship, a firefight or someone tying you up. You talk through voice chat and gestures. You can build a base, farm, hunt, fish or repair a car. How to survive your first hours is in our beginner’s guide.

Maps and expansions

The base game has two maps. Chernarus covers 230 km², and its post-Soviet landscape is based on real places in northern Czechia. Livonia is a densely forested map that has been part of the base game since May 2024. The paid Frostline expansion from October 2024 added the frozen Sakhal archipelago, where the cold is the main threat. Badlands, released on October 15, 2026, brought the 267 km² Nasdara map, the largest official DayZ map, with sandstorms, heatstroke and water shortages. It came with update 1.30 for the whole game, which added motorbikes. Both expansions are covered in our DLC guide.

What critics praise and what bothers players

Critics and players disagree here more than for most games. On Metacritic the PS4 version has the most reviews, scoring 31 from 6 reviews written in 2019. Push Square gave it 20 and called it a complete and utter disaster, outdated and with a horrendous frame rate. GamePro Germany, at 48, wrote that the catastrophic technical state hides the game behind glitches, bugs and infected without hitboxes. The best score came from PlayStation Universe at 70: under the need to polish almost everything, it found a deep and ultimately ingenious game built on player-made stories.

On PC in 2018 things weren’t much better. PC Gamer gave it 69 and wrote that DayZ can create incredible stories, but the twitchy, weightless combat and buggy zombies let it down. Polygon found the game breathtakingly beautiful at times, but after more than five years of early access called it only barely playable. These critic reviews are seven years old, though, and many big updates have come out since.

Players rate the game much higher. On Steam DayZ has 77.9% positive out of 471,982 reviews, which is Mostly Positive. The 5/10 score therefore mostly reflects old critic reception, not how the people playing it see it today.

Servers, wipes and playing solo

DayZ has no offline single-player mode. You play on official or community servers, which you find in the launcher and filter by name, for example vanilla, PvE or RP. On PC, community servers run mods from the Steam Workshop, and since 2018 anyone can host a server. Bohemia wipes official servers with big updates, most recently with version 1.30 and Badlands. There’s more in our servers and offline play guide and in our wipe overview.

Price and platforms

On Steam DayZ costs €47.99 / $49.99, the Deluxe Edition €57.99 and the Cool Edition with the Frostline expansion €67.99. Frostline on its own costs €26.99 and Badlands €24.99. Since April 8, 2026 the PC version is also in Game Pass, but the expansions aren’t. On PlayStation you need PS Plus to play online. Prices and editions are in our editions and price guide.

The game runs only on Windows and is unsupported on Steam Deck. On PC plan for 8 GB of RAM and a GTX 760 as the minimum; the details are in our system requirements.

Who DayZ is for (and who it isn’t)

It’s for you if you enjoy slow hardcore survival where you take care of everything yourself and the best moments come from meeting strangers. You’ll get the most out of DayZ with a group on a well-chosen community server.

Skip it if you want clear goals, fast action or a game without technical flaws. You can’t play without internet, and on PlayStation you also pay for PS Plus.

Verdict: Is DayZ worth it?

For hardcore survival fans yes, for everyone else probably not. We’re giving it 5/10.

The score is low mainly because of critics, who in 2018 and 2019 reviewed a game full of bugs and a very weak PS4 version. Players on Steam are much more forgiving, and after seven years DayZ still gets new maps and updates. Points come off for the technical state, the combat and the missing offline mode.

Playing DayZ? All our guides are on the DayZ hub. Start with the beginner’s guide, and our DLC guide covers what Frostline and Badlands add. You can find people for your server on the GamersTogether Discord.

FAQ

This review is based on player ratings on Steam and critic scores on Metacritic, on reviews from PC Gamer, Polygon, Push Square, GamePro Germany and PlayStation Universe, and on official information from Bohemia Interactive. Information verified on October 21, 2026. All our guides to the game are on the DayZ hub.