Dean Hall may eventually be leaving Chernarus for pastures new and hopefully less zombie-infested, but for the time being he's still committed to the game that finally allowed the internet to track down and kill PC Gamer like the dogs we are. His latest Weekly Report brings the news that DayZ's development team has been pretty much doubled, along with details of a new cooking system "heavily inspired by the outstanding " in Project Zomboid. Hey, zombie survival games need to stick together - it's a grim world out there. Details after the break.

Cooking in DayZ, unlike in the real world, will be a relatively simple process. Step one: switch your cooking implement, ie stove or fireplace, on. Step two: place food item in said cooking implement and wait a bit. Your food will either achieve 'cooked' status or be transformed into a new, related item (for example soup). Leave things heating up for too long and they can become overcooked, or eventually go cold. I haven't played Zomboid beyond the demo, but Hall's description reminds me of the cooking system in Monster Hunter, albeit (probably) without the catchy jingle and jaunty haunch-rotation animation.

You'll be able to discern the temperature of cooking implements and food by their redosity, which is a word that's totally in the dictionary and you don't even need to look. The image above helpfully explains that "more red = hotter", which in general is a good rule for real-world cooking too. Food preperation will arrive as "part of a wider push in March to focus on Survival aspects of the game in general", although no date was given in the post.

Food aside, Hall provides an update on the Standalone's animation system: two-handed melee animations and "stab attack with hay fork" are on their way soon, together with a new reload animation for the Ruger MKII. Also: bug fixes, which are always appreciated. (Cheers, Gamespot.)

The DayZ team have recently revealed some more planned improvements from their development pipeline. As the early access survival game progresses over the next few months, post-apocalyptic survivors will find themselves helped (and hindered) by adjusted lighting, lootable fridges, increased zombies, and - most terrifyingly of all - a physics system. Through the implementation of a middle-ware physics engine, players will be able to throw items and ragdoll about. I look forward to seeing how the game's community will warp these systems in the name of trolling and torment.

For lighting, torches will emit a proper light source, so that the beam will also exist during the day. The plan is that, by doing so, night-time play will also be more viable. As for containers, they're becoming full inventories, offering players the possibility of more loot in places where, contextually, it would make sense.

Also planned are bows and arrows, new buildings, hunting and cooking, and improved zombies. The team want to not just add more zombies, but also fix the existing issues, like their current ability to phase through walls. In addition, fixing server desync and improving stability remain primary targets, with the latter key to allowing persistent objects that aren't wiped during a server respawn.

For a full list of planned improvements, head over to the DayZ development blog. Alternatively, you can absorb its information through the audio-visual update below.

DayZ creator Dean "Rocket" Hall plans to step down as lead designer of the massively popular multiplayer survival game. Talking to Eurogamer, Hall explained his desire to leave Bohemia Interactive by the end of the year, to set up a new studio in New Zealand.

"I have a specific use, Hall said. "I'm really good at risk-taking and making other people take risks, I've always been good at that in my life. Like you say, maybe I've got the gift of the gab, so I can talk, I can explain something, I can talk people up to the ledge and get them to jump off it.

"Eventually, that's the bad person to have. Eventually, you don't want the guy telling you to go over the top and get through. So at some point I'll be a disaster for the project, at least in a leadership role."

Hall explained that he wasn't originally intending to be around for 2014, but claimed "it would be stupid not to, and it would be unfair to the community." On that note, he said that he would remain with the project as long as he was needed, either as leader or in a more creative role. "I'll always be involved," he stated.

Later in the interview, Hall reveals that he has a number of other multiplayer games he'd like to work on, saying that sees DayZ as a "fundamentally flawed" concept. "It's not the perfect game," he said, "it's not the multiplayer experience, and it never can be, the absolute spark that I want in it."

Of course, DayZ itself will continue to be developed, and, for all his recognition of its faults, it sounds like Hall is committed to leaving the project in good hands. This isn't an out of the blue decision. Last month, Hall told Edge that, "for me there ll be a time when my full-on involvement is finished, and I think a lot of the fans will agree with that.

"It s dangerous, because I like to push for a lot of things that could become bad for the project. Development will need to transition through to someone who can maintain that, and can open it up to the community."

It seems that stepping back from the frontline of DayZ is something that Hall's been contemplating for a while, and sounds like he sees the eventual move as a decision that's not just beneficial to himself, but also to DayZ.

Every week, DayZ Diaries recounts Andy's adventures in post-apocalyptic survival sim DayZ, where beans and friends are frequently in short supply. This week, Andy looks to the future of DayZ.

I ve logged 98 hours in the DayZ alpha since it was released in December, and I think I ve finally bled it dry. When I start a new life I have a routine. I hit the nearest town to my spawn point, scavenge as much food and drink as I can, then head inland. Here I pick the towns that everyone ignores clean until I have a backpack, a fire axe, and maybe a weapon if I m lucky. Then I ll hit an airfield or military base and, providing I survive, pick up a tactical vest, ammo, weapon attachments, and other military gear. I m so familiar with the map now that I can do this in as little as an hour. Then I reach the point that every geared player in DayZ has experienced at least once: what do I do now?

This is a common question on Reddit and the DayZ forums, and the responses are always the same. Use your imagination. Get into adventures. Meet people. I agree, because this is a true sandbox game in which you have to set your own objectives, but the hurdle here is other people. Whenever I head to the coast after gearing up to help bambis or interact with other players, I m usually attacked or killed on sight before anything interesting happens. It s difficult to use your imagination when trigger happy bandits have none of their own. Stories seem increasingly hard to come by in Chernarus these days.



But it s an alpha, and far from content complete. It s incredible that I ve managed to squeeze almost a hundred hours out of something that s barely finished and incredibly broken. Bohemia have big ideas about the future of the game, including hunting, player-made structures, underground bases, and even laboratories for researching a cure for the virus. Yes, really. You can read about all of this, and more, in our latest issue. Some of this probably won t make it into the game, but whatever does is all leading to one important goal: giving DayZ a legitimate endgame. Then players will have something to strive for other than finding an M4 as quickly as possible and shooting new spawns with it.

When I think about DayZ s future, I imagine groups of players working together and establishing Mad Max-style shanty towns in the wilderness. Bandits will attack in vehicles they ve salvaged, and the inhabitants will have to take up arms and defend their homes. Hunters will leave the safety of the town on horseback with bows and rifles to hunt deer, but could be ambushed by hungry bandits and never return. Communities could form alliances with their neighbours, or even go to war with them over limited resources. What we see in DayZ now is only a fragment of its potential.



I d also like to see more story elements in the world. The Green Mountain radio transmissions in the mod were an enticing glimpse at the events behind the fall of Chernarus. Narrative should never be at the forefront of DayZ, but I d like to see subtle details in the environment, and maybe things like audio logs and notes, that add a little more colour and detail to the setting. The crashed plane in Chernogorsk and moored cargo ship on the eastern coast are a step in the right direction, because you feel yourself making up your own tales about what could have happened to them. Chernarus is already a rich, atmospheric setting, but I want to know more about its past, and what caused the outbreak.

Of course, for now, this is all just a distant dream. Similar ideas are no doubt scribbled on notepads and whiteboards all over Bohemia s offices. I m confident they ll take the game in the right direction, even when Dean Rocket Hall eventually departs. He said in a recent Edge interview that there ll be a time when he moves on to do other things, but that development of DayZ will continue without him. The Early Access release has been an incredible success, with 1.5 million survivors to date, so it ll be around for a long time, mutating and evolving with each update. For now, though, I feel like I m close to reaching the limits of what DayZ has to offer, at least in its current form.

Andy is documenting his every death in DayZ on dayzdeathdiary.tumblr.com, and has continues to collect Polaroids of his adventures.