DayZ 1.28 Experimental Release

DayZ 1.28 Experimental Release

DayZ is about to enter the public testing phase of DayZ 1.28 Experimental Release on Steam and Xbox! Lets talk about what is coming, and what to keep an eye on during your experimental adventures. As usual, if you’d like to get spoiled with everything, head to our forums to see the change notes (PC, Xbox).

One of the biggest changes in this update is the introduction of vehicle synchronization. The goal was to make the driving experience more pleasant, allowing you to keep things under control, even during high latency conditions. Vehicle bouncing and a floaty feel should no longer be present during your driving. Since it was quite a fundamental change, there may be a few side-effects beyond what we’ve already found. We encourage you to try it on the experimental servers (we even have a dedicated cars server for you to play on) and tell us about your experience. We’ll be watching the feedback closely. If you are interested in learning more about what was changed and why, check out this detailed blog post from Arma Reforger, as we are using the same approach for DayZ.

It’s been a while since we looked at the gunplay in our game, so we decided to give it some attention by updating the weapon lifting mechanic. Ever since it was introduced years ago, we felt that close-quarters combat often ended in a frustrating experience, as your gun could move up at any point. Last year, we made a number of tweaks to improve the experience, but we ultimately had only two states: normal or lifted. With update 1.28, we’re introducing a gradual pullback to all of our firearms. This means your character now tries to pull the firearm back (if there’s enough space) before lifting it up. As you can imagine, this has major implications for indoor combat, as well as in cases of infected overwhelming you at close range.
 

Another thing we focused on was scopes. We’re introducing 3 new scopes for our firearms:

• – With its 2x zoom, the Sportpoint sight will be filling a gap in low-tier civilian scopes, making the hunting scope a lot more rare in the world
• – PSO-6 is a brand new variant of the well-known PSO scope; it brings a 6x zoom to all eastern firearms, including VSD
• – The rail-compatible Marksman scope, with its variable 3.5x-10x zoom levels, will be the new top-tier choice for all long-range engagements

Coupled with these new additions, we are also bringing much needed improvements to scope overlays. Damage state is now visualized on the overlays and support for illuminated reticles was added as well. Binoculars, NVG scopes, and the rangefinder have received visual updates and fixes to the overlay. And keep an eye on your Night Vision goggles – they may become more difficult to use when damaged!

Their audio team brought in a huge batch of sounds for the firearm overhaul, updating the shots and tails for all non-automatic rifles. They also looked at vehicles and balanced their audibility from inside, around, and from a distance. The goal was for players to be able to communicate easier when sitting inside the vehicles, while also making sure the vehicles are more audible from a distance. Feedback on the footsteps tweaks from update 1.27 was also taken into account. We separated the configuration of player character and infected steps, and slightly lowered the audibility of both. Lastly, the Sakhal caves received a brand new soundscape to get immersed in.

Speaking of Sakhal, a major focus of this update is on introducing new dynamic events to the environment. So make sure you go out there and explore!

If you’ve never used Dayz Experimental before, here’s how to access it:

DayZ 1.28 Experimental Release

PC Experimental 1.28 Update 1 – Version 1.28.159768 (Release on 15.04.2025)

NOTES

• Consider using the Steam client option to verify the integrity of the local game cache to avoid corrupted data after downloading this update.
• Consider de-fragmenting your HDD after downloading large updates.
• In case of problems, please check the Bohemia Interactive support F.A.Q., DayZ F.A.Q., or BattlEye F.A.Q.
• You can help us to further improve the game by posting your feedback on the Feedback Tracker.

FROSTLINE EXPANSION – DayZ 1.28 Experimental Release

ADDED

• Heli crash event 
• Crashed Patrol boat event 
• Crashed Fishing boat event 
• Medical event 
• Geysers added to hot springs
• Ambient sounds added to caves

FIXED

• Dead fallen trees would rustle like bushes when walked over 
• Missing sound on submarine tower

GENERAL GAME

ADDED

• RAK-37 
• PSO-6 scope 
• Leupold Mark 4 scope
• Sportpoint Sights
• New music track added to the in-game credits
• Updated weapon obstruction system 

CHANGED

• Updated weapon obstruction system
• Updated tail sounds for hunting and sniper rifles
• Tweaked tail sounds for SMGs
• Upgraded the networking for Cars, improving most situations when driving at higher ping
• Automatic gearbox simulation has been improved, affecting Humvee
• Rebalanced firearm damage against infected
• Tweaked bandaging animations
• Reduced optic edge distortion on hunting optics
• Added damage visuals for 2D optics
• Reworked range finder optic view
• Adjusted teeth clattering sound
• Disabled Gamepad in Server Browser 
• Decrease weapon sway in the prone position
• Global weapon sway speed decrease
• Slightly increased weapon recoil for most rifles
• Dispersion increased weapons by moderate amount
• Adjusted sway and recoil values for several weapons to improve consistency across categories
• Reduced muzzle flash size to improve visibility while shooting
• Slightly reduced player footstep volume and restored infected footstep range
• Improvised clothing could be repaired with rags
• The fire geometry of the static road barricade was reduced to better match the actual shape of the object

FIXED

• Weapon and magazine could desync when picked up near distant players
• Base building kit folding produced no sound
• Mini sight reticle visible without battery
• Reload through the dedicated reload key could occasionally be non-functional after relog (T158378, T164601, T173603, T177030, T179279)
• Jumping sound in deforested areas was too loud
• Various clipping issues
• Incorrect wood grain on house pillars
• Splint action shown on seated player with broken leg
• Night vision reticle still worked visually after battery was removed
• Unable to throw items when another player was checking pulse
• Vehicles could become partially stuck in terrain after falling
• Infected could clip through floors
• Visual issues with some bushes
• Explosives couldn’t be disarmed right after arming
• Missing collision on lockers in power generator room
• Flash of white screen when falling unconscious from shock
• Shock effect not visible when regaining consciousness until standing animation finished
• Various duplication exploit mitigations
• Mitigated item teleportation exploits
• Freeze when spamming filters in server browser
• Server browser sort by map caused freeze during server load
• Some indoor sounds were incorrectly played as outdoor
• Some glasses invisible in 1st person
• Player could see through walls in 3rd person
• Camera twitching when walking on rails
• Knife could fail to open food can in inventory (T189714, T189784, T190046)
• Plants in garden plots seeded before a server restart could not grow after the restart (T189434)
• Sones with trail markers were unusable for crafting
• Missing windowsill in Tisy barracks
• Ruined suppressors could still partially mute gunshots, making distant shots inaudible even when the suppressor was destroyed (T188571 – private)
• Exiting a boat as a driver could teleport the player to an unintended location (T189750)
• The ChemGas grenade could sometimes fail to explode on impact or detonate mid-air immediately after being thrown (T189998, T190002 – private)
• The contaminated area created by ChemGas grenades was invisible from a distance, while still cause a disease and produce bleeding cuts on a player
• Players could move while exiting the server under specific input conditions
• Damaged glass on pistol optic attachments could appear overly bright during nighttime
• The Steyr AUG scope reticle changed color depending on what it was aimed at
• Leaning before using binoculars  causes rotated mouse movement (T174629)
• Visual damage states now appear correctly on various weapons including AKM Assault Rifle, CZ 75 Pistol, FNX-45 Pistol, Flare Gun, Izh 18 Rifle, Makarov IJ70 Pistol, P1 Pistol, VSS Vintorez, Winchester Model 70 Rifle (T174894)
• The map category label in the server browser was not properly localized across all supported languages
• Game could crash after reassigning an emote key following a keybinding reset without applying changes first (T186108)
• Damage on reflex optics was not visible when aiming through them
• Grey background behind inventory and vicinity tabs was misaligned with the rest of the UI
• The sound of washing hands continued after canceling the action
• Failed engine start due to missing battery did not play the correct sound
• Heat buffer icon could flash and show the breathing animation incorrectly
• Light melee attack chains could randomly break and not continue as expected
• Item held in hands would levitate when the player became unconscious while seated in a boat
• Players could swim while holding heavy items, enabling unintended transport across water
• Dragging and dropping items into the vicinity bar failed unless dropped on a specific area
• Vehicles no longer get partially stuck inside the terrain after falling from a height
• Opening/closing car door would sound like it was coming from the center of the vehicle instead of the door

SERVER

• Added: spawnabletypes.xml now supports quantmin and quantmax like types.xml (0-100%) (T178206)
• Added: spawnabletypes.xml now supports nested item cargo and attachments
• Added: spawnabletypes.xml now supports nested damage min max
• Added: spawnabletypes.xml now supports nested presets through equip=”true”
• Added: weapons spawned through spawnabletypes.xml and randompresets.xml can now have a chambered bullet
• Added: weapons spawned through spawnabletypes.xml and randompresets.xml can now have bullets in internal magazine
• Added: randompresets.xml can now be appended to with cfgeconomycore.xml
• Fixed: Random damage from spawnabletypes.xml had more chance to be the maximum or minimum value than a value in between
• Fixed: “[CE] :: WARNING :: Preset “…” is EMPTY.” message now correctly reports empty presets instead of always the first attachment and cargo presets even if they were not empty
• Removed: “Flags reset for type:” redundant message which was being wrongly displayed

MODDING

ADDED

• Documentation for Environment class API in script
• Documentation for PlayerAgentPool and AgentBase API in script
• Model optics will now partially support hidden selections
• Physics: In Contact class, variables ‘ShapeIndex1, ShapeIndex2, VelocityBefore1, VelocityBefore2, VelocityAfter1, VelocityAfter2’
• Cars: ‘wheelHubFriction’ config variable to define axle drag when no wheels are attached 
• Cars: ‘useNewNetworking’ config parameter, default 1. Mods that modify the vehicle physics outside of the ‘SimulationModule’ config may need to disable the reconciliation system
• Enforce Script: ‘sealed’ keyword
• Enforce Script: ‘Obsolete’ attribute for functions and classes
• Enforce Script: Compiler error when script methods exceed the maximum amount of parameters: 16, buffer overflows and randomly crashes 
• ‘vector Object.GetSelectionBasePositionLS(string)’ to get selection position without animations applied
• Gizmos to the script API, enabling interaction through the context menu in Inventory. Available only on DayZDiag
• Functions to get the user animation source names by index for Entity ‘int Entity.GetNumUserAnimationSourceNames()’, string Entity.GetUserAnimationSourceName(int index)’
• vector Object.GetSelectionBasePositionLS(string)’ to get the position without animations applied 
• WeaponObstructionData settings to CfgGameplay

CHANGED

• Physics: Bullet Physics updated to the latest Enfusion version
• Physics: ‘PhysicsGeomDef.MaterialName’ now takes .bisurf (e.g. ‘DZ/data/data/penetration.bisurf’) or CfgSurfaces (e.g. ‘#cp_concrete1’ where the config path is ‘CfgSurfaces cp_concrete1)
• Physics: Terrain intersections are now extruded one meter down to improve collision detection against large fast moving objects
• Physics: In Contact class, ‘Material1’ and ‘Material2’ have changed from type ‘dMaterial’ to type ‘SurfaceProperties’. which is now the base class of SurfaceInfo
• Cars: Suspension is now always active while the vehicle is awake, even when there are no wheels attached
• Enforce Script: Improved ‘Multiple declaration of class’ error
• Enforce Script: Parser now contains more FIX-ME warnings
• ‘CGame.OnPostUpdate’ event is now executed after the camera has been updated, ensuring ‘CGame.GetScreenPos’ uses the correct transformation to prevent UI elements from being positioned based on the previous frames camera data
• ‘SoundObject.SetParent’ now takes in the pivot index, allowing attachment to an animated component
• GameplayEffectWidgets manager inits to help facilitate modding

FIXED

• Physics: Various fixes to dBodyCollisionBlock/dBodyRemoveBlock
• Cars: Brake/Handbrake was being applied twice, please update the ‘maxBrakeTorque’ and ‘maxHandbrakeTorque’ for your car mods by doubling the values in config
• Enforce Script: Script USER define will now correctly reflect the active user name
• Crash when using ‘SoundObject.SetParent’
• Spawning an object outside of the world via ObjectSpawner no longer causes a stack smashing detected crash on Linux servers.
• Infinite stamina mods could prevent jumping or holding breath after 1.27 Patch 1 (T190645)
• Crash and restored functionality of ResourceBrowser.GetCurrentFile workbench module script API 

REMOVED

• Physics: In Contact class, variables ‘MaterialIndex1, MaterialIndex2, Index1, Index2’
• Option to change rangefinder color in config (use layout)

TOOLS

ADDED

• Script Editor: When using the floating ‘Find Symbol’ window, the Escape keypress or submit via Return will now close the window
• Script Editor: Debugger watch search bar
• Script Editor: Context Menu: Methods: “Overrides” and “Overridden by”
• Script Editor: Context Menu: Types: “Base Classes” and “Derived Classes”
• Script Editor: Scrollbar will now draw cursor, break points and bookmarks positions as well as scope and lines with changed/saved changes. Option to toggle this added
• Script Editor: Search/replace now supports current selection only
• Script Editor: Lines can be moved in the Script editor via Alt+Up Arrow/Alt+Down Arrow key combinations
• Script Editor: Status bar info for viewing scope, line and column
• Script Editor: Selecting symbols in script files will highlight them in the Outline
• Script Editor: Split view for viewing two script files at one time
• Script Editor: Reopen last closed tab (Ctrl+Shift+T)

CHANGED

• Workbench: Updated splash screen and icon to reflect the new Enfusion visual identity
• Workbench: Double-clicking ‘.layout’, ‘.imageset’, and ‘.styles’ files in Workbench no longer opens them in an external application; a new “Open file with” option is available via right-click context menu
• Script Editor: Improved breakpoints window search, enable/disable/remove all breakpoints options

FIXED

• Workbench: Frequent crashes on widget text field changes
• Workbench: Frequent crashes on widget property changes
• Workbench: Crash when clicking into widget viewport while editing a property
• Workbench: A crash when clicking outside a text field after editing it without pressing Enter 
• Script Editor: ‘super’ keyword syntax highlighting

KNOWN ISSUES

• Updated firearm sounds are not as audible as they should be on long range, will be tackled in a future experimental release