The first ever dev blog for DayZ Badlands is officially here! Before we kick off, we'd like to introduce what dev blogs are, what you can expect from them, and how often we’ll be publishing them.
Dev blogs are essentially articles, accompanied by various visual aids, to give you, the community, a glimpse into our development process. Everything you’ll see in them is a work in progress and subject to change. While the primary goal of the dev blog is to foster trust and transparency between the development team and the community, it can also serve as a means for us to collect feedback and insights. The blogs will be written directly by the developers themselves, with the editorial support of our marketing team. It's important to keep in mind that what you are going to see in these dev blogs is only a taste of the DayZ Badlands expansion. That’s because we’d like to keep some things under wraps before it becomes available. The dev blogs are scheduled to come out once a month until DayZ Badlands is released, though the frequency may change if we have more topics to cover. Without further ado, here is our Creative Lead, Adam, ushering in the DayZ Badlands dev blogs with "A Glimpse into Nasdara."
Disclaimer The information shared in our development blog reflects a work in progress. The details discussed are subject to change before release. We intend to share these progress updates to provide some insights into the development process and foster community trust. Thank you for joining us on the road to Nasdara!
The crown jewel of our upcoming expansion is a new terrain called Nasdara Province. A land-locked region, the province is part of a much bigger country some players may recognize - Takistan. While it firmly sits within the terrain of Takistan, this isn't the Takistan you may know from Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead, but a brand new one. From a narrative point of view, having Nasdara positioned within Takistan means we have a solid background to build the environment’s storytelling on. Neighboring Chernarus also offers a familiarity that otherwise wouldn't be possible.
Located at the western border with Ardistan, Nasdara Province has had a turbulent history. Stuck between British and Russian empires, it was annexed by the USSR, ruled by a dictatorship, then taken down by western coalition forces. This was followed by years of various militant groups fighting PMCs and each other before the infection knocked everyone down.
We have done our research and explored Nasdara from all angles to ensure the experience is as fresh as it can be. This means animals, clothes, infected, and a variety of new items, including regional firearms. Stay tuned for future dev blogs!
There were two main streams of inspiration while building Nasdara:
Real regions within Central Asia (think Afghanistan), as well as countries in the Middle East (think Iran, or even Turkey)
Work done by the Arma team during Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead
Overall, Nasdara will feel very different to seasoned players of DayZ. Typical landscapes with tall forests and rolling hills have been replaced by sparse vegetation, along with deep valleys and sizeable ridges. The landscape’s general openness will certainly challenge anyone who chooses to travel carelessly. Settlements will also feel very different as most are composed from mud, while stone houses will often have their lines of sight interrupted by tall walls made of the same material. But the overall density of settlements (and other points of interest) is similar to what you are used to in Chernarus.
With the Dasht-e Sarman desert creeping in from the east, and border mountains splitting the two countries in the west, the landscape is generally considered very arid, with greenery mostly present around the major watercourses of the Sefid Darya and Siyah Darya rivers.
We also wanted to finalize the "cycle of seasons" by introducing the last missing season which hasn’t been covered in any of our terrains - springtime. We like that the spring season brings a lot of interesting colors in an otherwise same-ish looking desert environment. Nasdara Province is our largest terrain yet, spanning over 267km2. We chose this size for two main reasons:
Arid landscapes are generally vast
Any landlocked landscape requires a natural transition into the outside landscape to ensure players won’t easily go outside the playable area
Speaking of the outside landscape, we wanted to avoid situations like the ones that are present in Livonia, where a lot of the environment’s features (roads, powerlines, etc.) lead to the edge of the landscape and confuse players who follow them. In Nasdara, you will encounter the buffer zone before you reach the actual edge of the landscape. If you follow a road, it may be buried within the sand, a broken bridge, or a landslide. If you follow powerlines, you will see them destroyed as you get closer to the edge. Finally, object density will slowly be reduced as you travel over the border mountain ridge or through the eastern desert. This will give you enough time to realize there’s nothing in this direction.
As we mentioned in the beginning, Takistan has a very rich history. Players will get to discover ancient ruins, leftovers of monarchies, derelict Soviet installations, wounds of recent battles, signs of a careless oil industry, and even investment projects from western countries like a massive highway running across the entire southern section and crossing the Takistan-Ardistan border, where a massive Dar-e Ardis border crossing is located.
The Takistani population speaks Persian (Farsi). We are aware that this is an added complexity for most of our playerbase (even when compared to Chernarus or Sakhal). That’s why we integrated a multilingual approach that includes both English and Farsi for any important navigational signs.
A lot of time was invested in making sure the environment has many interesting places to explore. The result is 400% more new custom assets than the DayZ Frostline expansion. We will do a deeper dive into environment assets in future dev blogs, so be on the lookout for that!
With Sakhal we explored the means to stay warm. Players will have to change their mindset in Nasdara, however, as the days are warm. Your choice of gear, as well as its prolonged exposure to the sun, will also have to be considered. And unlike the usual spring times in Nasdara province, the combination of a strong drought, a damaged Sadd-e Marek reservoir, and the general lack of maintenance has led to a serious lack of water within the province. That means players will need to figure out new ways of getting to the water. This includes reviving some of the old ways of getting water in arid regions around the world.
We hope that Nasdara will provide a nice alternative experience to what the base game and DayZ Frostline offers. Stay tuned for more details on individual survival elements in future dev blogs.
That's all folks! Hope you enjoyed what you've seen here. Please try to wishlist to show your interest in DayZ Badlands. It really helps us out. Wishlist below!
Since we primarily talked about how vast Nasdara is this time around, for next month's Dev Blog, we will go over some of the obstacles you have to keep in mind with every playthrough while traversing this massive terrain.
Thank you and see you next month.
The DayZ Team