Despite DayZ's Early Access Steam page containing enough warnings to make even the most dedicated impulse buyers pause for thought, it seems as if PC owners really want to trudge through a grey field, before being held up by bandits and robbed of their shoes. A new post on the official DayZ blog reveals that the standalone alpha sold over 875,000 copies in the first three weeks of its release. That post also outlines some of the priority features that should see their way into the zombie sadistic jerk survival game over the following weeks and months.

"We didn t want to compromise on the brutal and unforgiving nature of the early days of the DayZ mod so we re very surprised to see such interest as this clearly is not a game for everyone," writes Bohemia's Marek Spanel, "especially considering that there are some radical changes under the hood in comparison to the mod."

"We re already seeing unbelievable player stories happening every day in the game even in its very limited Alpha and we re focused to make huge progress in 2014 on many areas of the game," he continues. "In the short term, we re going to focus on the most critical problems you re experiencing, and at the same time we re going to work on the road to the DayZ Beta."

That beta isn't due until much later in the year. In the shorter term, then, the team will be revisiting their roadmap towards the end of the month, but their top priorities are the following fixes and features:


Server performance, stability and security
Animals & hunting
Cooking & gathering resources
Playable user customizable vehicles
Player created constructions in the environment
More complex interactions with the environment and crafting options
Streamlined user actions and interface
Control and animations expanded and improved for fluidity
Upgraded graphics and physics engine (including ragdoll, etc.)
Support of user mods and more flexibility for user hosted servers and game types


Spanel wasn't wrong about the player stories that alpha DayZ is already producing. For examples, just see our round-up of the best DayZ videos so far.

DayZ has surpassed 400,000 sales after less than a month in alpha. That's enough players to generate plenty of horrifying and hilarious survival stories. Luckily for us, a few have been caught on camera. We've picked out a few of our favourites and gathered them below to offer a glimpse of the weirder side of Bohemia's survival horror sandbox. Read on to see one man's grand quest for a DayZ high five, and an encounter with a nightmarish musical killer.

The quest for a high-five in DayZ

Some have entered DayZ determined to survive at any cost, others just want to spread happiness up high, down low and on the rebound. 1TimeGames posted his attempt to high five a guy coming out of Grishino. The response was non-violent, but predictable, and perfectly timed.



Fortunately Koto and Sen picked up where his predecessor left off, and traveled the island recording the varying reactions to his quest for a high five. A noble cause in a post-apocalyptic world.



The Gentleman Bandit

Banditry is a way of life in DayZ. The best way to stay in supply is to take what you need from other players, but there's no need to be a dick about it, as Joab Gilroy demonstrates. His methodical robbery of a poorly armed player is so reasonably executed that his victim asks to team up.



An Agonising Execution

You've encountered a man with a broken leg dragging himself across the road in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Do you A) laugh at him and run off or B) put the poor guy out of his misery so he can respawn and play again. Lir Ik makes the humane decision in the end, but his well intentioned attempts to axe murder a wounded and immobile man is more horrifying than it ever needed to be.



Dean "Rocket" Hall ambushed by a bandit

Not even DayZ's creators are safe from other players. In the middle of a livestream DayZ designer Dean Hall and his pals are ambushed by an unseen bandit in the dark. They hole up in a building, panicking, enjoying the same fear that all DayZ players have felt at some point in their careers.



An encounter with a psychopath

There are lots of murderers in DayZ, of course, but they're ordinary murderers who kill others for understandable reasons with conventional weaponry, like axes and assault rifles. It's rare to find a killer with a theatrical knack for menace, but this player did on one dark, quiet night.



Survivor Sonic

Also some players have started doing this. Nobody knows quite why.



The Wiggle Cultists

Is the collective raving of the Wiggle cultists some form of defence mechanism, like the squid spraying ink on predators? Or do they believe in the dark power of wiggling? It's impossible to tell, and nearly impossible not to giggle at the ranting and raving that greets this group of bandits.



More will surely surface in the months to come as DayZ grows and grows. Got some favourite DayZ videos and moments of your own? Share them in the comments.