Day Z Video Diary -- Emotional Rollercoaster

Day Z does something novel and counter-intuitive that I love: it makes being victimized exciting. You feel a lot when you're face-to-face with permadeath—when you're being bandited, zombied, starved, or dehydrated.

SETUP: It's night. I'm looting a particularly dangerous area of Day Z with a guy named Vipeaxe, the one in the ghillie suit. He happens to be a server administrator for Day Z, and he's survived for an incredibly long time with his current character.

SETUP: 13 minutes later, I cruise along toward the southern barracks in the Northwest Airfield, hoping to find rare loot and end my hours-long session.

I drew this up to try and summarize the arc of things I felt through this sequence. Man, I still can't believe that the shock of simulated death got to me so much that I couldn't figure out if I'd acted in self-defense . Why the hell was I apologizing to the guy who'd clearly tried to kill me? Anyway, keep an eye on my Twitter page for more livestreaming.

PRODUCTS

Evan's a hardcore FPS enthusiast who joined PC Gamer way back in 2008. After an era spent publishing reviews, news, and cover features, he now oversees editorial operations for PC Gamer worldwide, including setting policy, training, and editing stories written by the wider team. His most-played FPSes are Hunt: Showdown, Team Fortress 2, Team Fortress Classic, Rainbow Six Siege, and Counter-Strike. His first multiplayer FPS was Quake 2, played on serial LAN in his uncle's basement, the ideal conditions for instilling a lifelong fondness for fragging.