DayZ's September dev video outlines usability upgrades, less braindead zombies

While the DayZ team wait for that "core network architecture" to hurry up and finish, they've turned their attention to the smaller stuff: stuff like the inventory, the animation, and whether or not the game features handcuffs. (You'll be pleased to hear, 50 Shades of Grey fans, that the answer is now yes.) Some of the changes have been outlined in this post-Gamescom ' devblog ', which also reveals that the zombie A.I is being totally redone (and will likely deploy after the alpha has eventually launched).

You'll find the video after this giant paragraph, but if you don't have 21 minutes to spare here's a list of the salient enhancements in the process of being implemented into the Standalone's alpha version. More user-friendly inventory! More animation transitions! New item degradation system! Player restraints (handcuffs)! The video also contains the revelation that Dean 'Dean Hall' Hall and co. will be replacing the current zombie A.I system, which they've been on working on for the last year, with an entirely new one. Thankfully, this won't affect the Standalone's alpha release - expect it to be patched in further down the line.

But enough talk - here's some more talk, only in video form.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.