When the Patch Notes Fairy visits, she often provides precious accidental humor. The Sims 3 has consistently delivered this ( version 1.4 , from 2009: “Sims can no longer 'Try for Baby' with the Grim Reaper”), but today's DayZ patch notes produced a few incidental laughs at the PC Gamer office. In addition to adding complexity to DayZ's infection system, 1.7.5.1 includes gems like “Cutting down trees now attracts zeds,” a change that may endanger the livelihoods of apocalyptic lumberjacks everywhere.
Really, though, this is a great-looking and fairly comprehensive update. There's new content, new or modified mechanics in play, and fixes to long-standing issues. All of these only affect the mod version of the game, but some of the improvements made may creep into the retail version.
A notable adjustment is that—if I'm interpreting it correctly—all weapons will now spawn with a limited amount of ammunition when you find them, slightly mitigating the tedious hunt for ammo players often have to perform after finding a weapon. A handful of new guns and vehicles are in, including variants of the Sa-58 and G36 assault rifles, pulled from Operation Arrowhead . ATV riders will be happy to know that the vehicles can now be set back on their wheels if you've ever (as I did in our weekend Arma 2 event ) flipped one of the four-wheelers while cresting a hill at full throttle.
Eating and drinking has also gotten more dangerous, because DayZ. Animals no longer give the same generic “raw meat” item when butchered, and you can also eat uncooked animal meat, though it restores less blood and has the chance of giving you an infection. (And hmm, I wonder what the food item labeled "HIDDEN" refers to?) Drinking water will also need to be boiled to eliminate the possibility of contracting an infection. Also under the umbrella of "unsafe liquids," blood transfusions—the quickest way of restoring life—now have a chance to cause infection.
A run-down of the dozens of fixes, updates, and new stuff is up on the DayZ forums . If you're looking to play the mod for the first time, DayZ Commander is the best current auto-updater utility.
