The first DayZ update of 2021 went live today, bringing a new rifle, stabilization fixes, and a complete wipe of all official servers. Bohemia Interactive hopes this will give players a fresh slate for the year ahead and allow the team to easily monitor changes made to the in-game economy in previous updates.
DayZ rolled into the new year by setting a new record for the average Steam player count. The community is clearly alive and well, but Bohemia wants to make sure it stays that way in the coming months. At the end of the Update 1.11 blog post, the team mentioned its reasoning for the massive server wipe.
"One final bit of news – paired with the update, we had a complete wipe on all official servers. The wipe is meant to compliment the update 1.11 for a fresh start into 2021. It also secures us a clean foundation to monitor the changes made with previous economy updates."
While the server wipe is probably the biggest news from the update, Bohemia Interactive also worked on massive stability fixes. DayZ should now run better on all platforms, and many existing collision issues have been fixed. The patch wasn't all about stability, however, as you'll also find a new "badass" rifle at helicopter crash sites near Chernarus and Livonia called the SVAL.
DayZ's 1.11 update is now live on all consoles, giving the survival game a fresh start for the year ahead.