DayZ inexplicably achieves its highest player count, over ten years after releasing

When it comes to open-world zombie survival experiences, many can’t claim to be as brutal and unforgiving as DayZ. Bohemia Interactive’s dystopian food scavenger simulator is still going strong, but recently it hit its biggest player count on Steam.

As spotted by PC Gamer, data from SteamDB shows that the game recently hit an all-time peak of 69,449 players. That’s an impressive number for a relatively small game that’s been around since 2012.

Beginning life as a mod for Arma 3, DayZ was launched as a standalone title in 2018, envisioning a cruel world. A world in which the dead that roam the land are the least of your worries when you can’t find food and are being shot at by trigger-happy players.

So why the increase in popularity now?

A lot of games experience peaks and troughs in terms of concurrent player counts. However, for something that’s over a decade old to reach a new peak is an interesting one.

As the PC Gamer article notes, DayZ‘s most recent update could be a large factor as to why more people have started playing. Version 1.23 launched just over a week ago, bringing with it some new items, such as headgear and padded gloves, and a new skybox.

That might not sound like reason enough for nearly 70,000 people to want to jump into the game. However, what you might not be considering is that this is a title all about embracing the tiny things; the dirty trousers with the extra pocket space, a rotten pear that could save you from starvation, and, in this case, a different sky to look at.

In any case, it’s inspired me to reinstall DayZ, because nothing relaxes me more than outrunning zombies as I frantically seek out a zucchini.