There’s a new breed of sandbox coming, it’s the zombie survival sandbox that we’ve come to know and love with DayZ and now The WarZ. At the core, both games offer the same experience – survivors are thrown in to a large open world where they must scavenge for supplies to survive, fighting against zombies and other players in a world where people make their own rules.
When you look a little deeper however, each g ame offers its own unique differences that change the experience as a whole. This constantly brings up the question, what’s better – DayZ or The WarZ? I don’t think the answer is which is better, rather which is more suited to your style of zombie sandbox. As a new style of game, there’s plenty of room in this town for more than one game – but which is for you?
In order to decide, we’ve broken down each area of both games and compared them. Please note that both these games are in early stages and are constantly changing. This isn’t intended to be a definitive comparison, but instead an informative article to help you decide which is game is better suited for you.
DayZ features one official map, Chernarus, a 225km2 post-soviet state that features cities along its southern coastline, lots of farmland and villages – with military bases to the north. As DayZ becomes a standalone game, it will continue to use a revamped version of Chernarus – making all the buildings enterable and expanding the playable area.
Besides the official map, the mod also has many unofficial maps that are constantly growing in number. Currently survivors can visit Lingor Island, Utes, Takistan, Fallujah, Panthera, and Zargabad – check out our DayZ Map List to find out more about all currently available maps, including reviews.
WarZ initially supports one map, a re-imagining of Colorado that comes in just a little smaller than DayZ’s Chernarus. Featuring Cities, towns, forests and rivers that sprawl across the map, Colorado is one of many locations that the WarZ will offer. Future locations are said to include places like California.
Players will be able to travel between locations, maintaining their currently equipped gear. This is a feature DayZ does not have, however it’s something the community is working on supporting with the mod in future. Either game offers or will offer multiple locations for their survivors to explore.
Additionally WarZ also supports stronghold maps, small 4-5km2 maps in which players can shape their own world. Building a few towns, or a massive farm – anything the player wants. Some players built large gladiator arena’s and trapped hundreds of zombies inside, others set up marketplaces.
DayZ’s Chernarus features a wide variety of locations, cities, towns, tiny villages, farms, military bases, airfields, and lots of lots of mountainous forest-filled landscape. The cities are scaled down in size compared to a real life one, opting to spread out across more land with low-lying buildings.
Other maps feature a wide variety of terrains, from desert to jungle and even a recreation of the city of Fallujah – featuring over 3,000 buildings. Players will find themselves visiting towns and cities for food, medical supplies and other civilian loot before heading to the airfields and military bases for high-end weaponry and military gear. Most of the DayZ maps are based on areas in Europe or the Middle-East.
WarZ’s Colorado is a mixture of towns and cities, much more closely populated than the marathon simulator that DayZ has come to be known. With less running, players reach their destination faster and unlike the European setting of its counterpart, survivors will visit traditional American diners, trailer parks and lake-side villages.
The cities in WarZ feel a lot smaller in in DayZ however it is more densely populated with large buildings and skyscrapers. From the outside you can see how small the area actually is, but when inside one of the cities you get the feeling of being in a large city – aimlessly wandering the streets. WarZ also features safe settlements, areas in which PvP is disabled.
DayZ doesn’t have any zombies, instead they are the infected. While quite blind, the infected still move quite fast and have great hearing. Not currently considered a threat to players, if attracted zombies cannot catch a player who keeps running, and can be lost by running through a building or bush.
WarZ’s zombies are a lot slower than the ones in DayZ, however they are much stronger and can only be killed with a blow/shot to the head, unlike DayZ where a shot to almost anywhere in the body will result in a kill. While players can rush through zombies, they have limited energy which when depleted will allow the zombies to catch up. Players can run through buildings or jump on top of cars to escape.
DayZ is a mod for military simulator ArmA II, so naturally it has brought across a lot more realistic gameplay mechanics. Players have to worry about eating and drinking regularly otherwise they may starve or dehydrate and die. Additionally players have to worry about staying warm or else they may catch a cold, you can break your leg or begin bleeding – all requiring medical supplies to heal.
With the standalone DayZ hopes to offer diseases, from malaria to the infection itself – players will have to be careful not to spread diseases to other players. This will add a whole new level of gameplay, sometimes you may not want to play with your friends if they are sick, requiring healing first.
WarZ is a lot simpler than DayZ, with players only having to worry about a few things. Hunger and thirst must be cared for, but medically players can only bleed or catch the zombie virus – requiring medical supplies to treat bleeding or to fight off the zombie infection.
DayZ’s arsenal is primarily focused on guns, everything from pistols, to assault rifles and sniper rifles. Players can find many weapons from ArmA II in DayZ, some favourites of players are the M4A1 CCO SD and the AS50 Sniper Rifle. For those unfortunate enough not to have guns, there are hatchets and crowbars to pick up and fight with.
Firefights are semi-realistic with almost everything you would expect from a military simulator except for wind deflection. Ballistics, bullet drop and steady aiming are all things players have to worry about. It doesn’t take many hits to die, so players must be careful when encountering players with guns. Shooting in DayZ plays much like a military simulator, with more advanced features and a ton of assigned keys.
WarZ has spread its weapons pretty evenly across both the melee and gun categories, offering things like bats and pickaxes for melee combat and pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles, assault rifles and more for the gun nuts. There is a much heavier focus on melee combat in WarZ, with guns being extremely rare to spawn and ammo being almost the rarest item in the game.
The combat is a lot more fast-paced in The WarZ, and feels more like playing Left 4 Dead. The guns feel a lot more like an arcade game, with some weapons performing unrealistically, rather than how they do in real life. An example is the shotgun, which has a ridiculously wide bullet spread at an incredibly short range – making it pretty near useless.
DayZ has no real missions, and the only objective is to survive for as long as possible. In the sandbox, there’s something we like to call emergent gameplay, and that’s when an unpredicted way of playing the game arises due to the way players interact with each other using the tools available in the game.
Players create their own stories, their own things to do. Initially the DayZ experience was only intended to last a few hours, or two days at most – now players have survived for months on end and are still finding new ways to play and new things to do.
WarZ does actually feature missions; however they are created by users themselves rather than NPCs. Players can put up a notice stating details of a task that must be completed, and the reward they are willing to offer. The task can be anything the mission giver wants, and the reward can be anything too.
Whether you need more medical supplies, or need protection while travelling – players can create any mission they want and then decide on the reward. Players aren’t bound by any rules though, so that person seeking a highly-geared bodyguard may turn out to be a bandit waiting to steal your gear.
DayZ spawns a wide range of vehicles on its maps that players can repair and drive. Vehicles include bicycles, motorbikes, ATVs, Tractors, Cars, Trucks, and Buses. The ultimate vehicle for players however is the helicopter, the only (non-modded) aircraft available in DayZ. Players find vehicle parts around the world they can use to repair vehicles, and must also keep them fueled.
In the standalone, the creator hopes to offer the ability to salvage parts from other cars and to craft your own cars with parts you find. Examples he gave would be cars having different motors, some more powerful than others and different parts resulting in different performance results. Imagine repairing your truck with a tractor engine.
WarZ will include cars; however they are not currently implemented.
As you can see, both games are relatively similar – each with their own pros and cons. Hopefully this article has given you a better idea of what each has to offer for the aspiring zombie apocalypse survivor. Both games are still under heavy development and are being shaped with the help of their communities, whichever side of the fence you sit on there’s plenty to look forward to.
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