Skip to main content

Frequently Asked Questions

General Questions​

What is DayZ Legacy?​

DayZ Legacy is a project to port new content and features to an old version of DayZ Standalone. Our strategy is to use a combination of the old engine and new scripted assets, as well as custom designing functionality and providing QoL/bugfixes as needed.

The project started with just one person making developments and our team has since grown to over 5 people dedicated to making the best version of old-world DayZ out there.

How do I play it?​

danger

You will need your own legitimately obtained Steam license for DayZ Standalone. DayZ is quite affordable on Steam and while we don't require you to have to download the Steam version of the game, having Steam open and signed in is a requirement.

You must use our launcher which handles the process of updating and launching the game for you. You can download the launcher from our homepage.

We supply some basic instructions on how to get started with the launcher that you can reference.

What are the minimum requirements?​

These are the minimum requirements for DayZ Legacy at the time of writing:

  • An operating system that we support
    • Windows 10 / 11
    • If you're using Wine, we will only answer support requests on Ubuntu/an LTS kernel
    • The game may work on Windows 8.1/7/Vista, but we will not support these clients.
  • x86-64 dual-core CPU with SSE support
    • Most, if not all, 64-bit CPUs should work. DayZ Legacy has a very large CPU footprint, so while this is the minimum requirement to get into game, you will notice stutters and performance issues on weaker CPUs.
  • Graphics card that supports Shader Model 3 and has 512MB VRAM at the very least.
    • If you have an AMD Radeon card, updating your AMD drivers to at least version 22.7.1 is recommended. Older driver versions or other AMD cards will be running at a disadvantage.
    • Anything older than a 700-series NVIDIA GPU will experience significant performance issues.
    • Integrated graphics cards such as Intel HD 3000 are not supported and we will not provide support for these hardware configurations.
  • At least 2 GiB of available RAM for the game is required, but 8GiB or more is highly recommended.
  • You will experience much slower loads with a hard drive compared to an SSD.

How close is DayZ Legacy to the actual pre-alpha experience?​

We like to say that DayZ Legacy is a "best-of-both-worlds" type of experience. The look and feel of the game should be a pretty close match to how the game played in pre-alpha stage, with select improvements, new features, or modifications to improve playability.

We've added lots of new content to expand on the traditional gameplay loop. This includes things like working land, air, and sea vehicles, traders, base building, new weapons, AI bandit patrols, missions, and more. We've also fixed and expanded upon many of the mechanics that were present in the base game, including hunting, cooking, horticulture, and dynamic server events like helicopter crashes.

Much of our focus has also been on delivering critical quality of life fixes for the game, which resolve some of the most infamous issues like duping, or improving existing systems such as the save hive (now updated to save vehicles, base parts, etc.) "Under-the-hood", the game remains technically the same as DayZ Pre-Alpha versions 0.28-0.60 (think 2013-2015 era). We still depend on the SQF scripting system that was present in these versions and and other technology like the legacy animation and player character systems.

Will you let us host our own servers or play in single-player mode?​

For security reasons and to protect the anti-cheat routines we have developed from scratch for this project, players will not be allowed to host their own server. Instead, several servers will be provided via our dedicated, high-performance hosts, with servers available in North America, South America, and Europe. The server browser will automatically populate with these servers instead of defaulting to Steam matchmaking.

Will there be support for additional maps?​

In short, maybe.

I have experimented with Namalsk, Taviana, Altis, Klurs, Fallujah, Napf, and Clafghan. they load and look great! But they will require some significant changes before they could be used to host a DayZ mission (loot, zombie, event spawn reworks).

I don't expect additional maps to be added anytime in 2023.

Will you fix x issue or add y to the project?​

Start a new question post in the #help-and-questions channel on Discord to leave feedback for us about new content you'd like to see added or content you'd like us to prioritize fixing.

We have our own schedule for fixing and improving various gameplay mechanics but we can certainly shift priorities as needed.

Are you accepting donations for this project?​

We will not accept any kind of financial incentive for our work. While there is operational cost to keeping this project running, we front that cost out of our own pocket and will never ask players to contribute for these.

When will DayZ Legacy be finished?​

DayZ Legacy's scope is already very large and expanding quite frequently.

The project started in 2021 and will take some time to be "feature-complete".

There is no ETA on a final release but I expect it to take multiple years.

A public client is available for interested users to download and a server is hosted 24/7.

Please keep in mind that we are very much still an "early access" project just like the original DayZ Standalone was. You'll experience bugs, crashes and all sorts of broken behavior for the foreseeable future.

Why are you working on this project?​

This project was started as the result of research into old builds of the game I had been archiving as they were released.

I have previously created script features and frameworks for other projects starting as early as 2014.

Research and goal-setting for this project started around 2017. My original intention was to keep this project for personal purposes, to familiarize myself with commercial development lifecycles and project management tools, but I have since decided to release the project to any players who may be interested.

Bohemia Interactive has effectively abandoned these older versions of the game and does not seem willing to publish an official legacy branch of the game available for players to use. Considering the game has been almost completely transformed in the wake of the 1.0 release, we feel for the sake of preservation and nostalgia that this project is worth pursuing, lest it become abandonware.

How can I follow this project's progress?​

You're in the right place! We post quarterly status updates on the main page and we are also quite active in our development Discord. Feel free to drop in and say hi!