1.29 Experimental Release (2026)

Hello Survivors! We hope you are having a great start to the year. We are happy to announce that update 1.29 is now re-entering the experimental phase on PC. The Xbox version will not be entering experimental this time, and we’ll expand on the reason below.
We reverted this update last year to further improve and focus on the stability of the build. The long delay was unprecedented for us in recent years, and we appreciate all your patience and support during this period. But now that update 1.29 is back in the experimental cycle, let’s jump into what you can expect. Here are some of the notable improvements, changes, and additions to the game:

• 
  Torso wear with color variants: Long Coat, Military Sweater, Gulag Jacket, and Pilot Jacket
  
  
• 
  Long Haul Backpack with variants
  
  
• 
  Animal headwear: Fox Hat and Bear Hat
  
  
• 
  New footwear: Traditional Boots and Cold Operation Boots
  
  
• 
  Extension to the bunker on Sakhal and an additional entrance into the bunker
  
  
• 
  Better blending of terrain surfaces across all maps
  
  
• 
  Audio overhaul for assault rifles and pistols
  

You can read more about this in the experimental release article we published last year, written by our creative lead, Adam.

There is some outdated information that we need to update regarding the central economy (CE) changes we tested last year—specifically for 1.30 and DayZ Badlands. In short, we were experimenting with a different approach to CE that was focused on the scarcity of firearms and gear. Thank you to everyone who provided feedback. These changes will not be present in the 1.29 experimental or stable release. However, if you would like to see these changes revisited in the future, please let us know via DMs on our socials or, even better, through the feedback tracker.

We tackled the aspects of the game that cause performance issues, especially on high-population servers. The main problems were with how the game handled physics and player data; both were inefficient and heavy on performance. To fix these, we extended the experimental period to over two months. Thanks to our team and extensive, large-scale playtests, we identified key issues and implemented impactful optimizations that increased the servers' performance by 400%. In the beginning, servers under heavy stress tests were running at just 9 FPS. By the end, they reached 50 FPS (see the graphics below). You should now notice significantly less lag, fewer performance warnings, and smoother gameplay overall. If you’d like to learn more, check out this stream highlight with our programmer, Filip.

The group respawn system has been updated, so spawning in the same location should happen less often and spawning will be more random. This is still a work in progress and we plan on making further balancing changes in the future. Your feedback is greatly appreciated, so please let us know your thoughts. In addition, there are several measures to address various exploits, some of which you can find with the changelog.

Speaking of Xbox, we have good news to share. DayZ has been running via backward compatibility on the current generation of Xbox consoles. Alongside the 1.29 stable release, we will be launching a native version for Xbox Series X|S. While this update will not bring immediate improvements to the current experience, it is a necessary step toward future enhancements. The upgrade will be free for all existing DayZ owners on Xbox One, which will continue to be supported via its own separate build. Unfortunately, this will not come to experimental, as we need a few more weeks to work on the submission. Have more questions? We have answers here with FAQ.

Rejoice, Modders! We have added significant updates to our modding tools, specifically to our animation editor, as well as many more changes and improvements for the modding community. One important thing to address is that with the release of 1.29, some of the changes we’ve made to the game will affect mods and framework mods. This means many of them may not function properly at first. We are in close contact with several mod owners, and there should be test versions of their mods available on the Steam Workshop that are compatible with the experimental version. For server owners, we highly recommend reviewing your dependencies and checking in with the respective mod authors. This experimental period will serve as a buffer for the PC modding community, giving everyone time to identify and address any issues with mod compatibility.

As with previous update cycles, the stable release is expected to follow 4–6 weeks after the experimental build's launch. We will communicate with you if there are any changes. The DayZ in 2026 article will come with the stable release, and we are planning to put out the DayZ Badlands Dev Blogs by end of March at the latest. In the meantime, we cordially invite you to test the experimental branch and share your feedback.

Once again, we must extend our apologies for the long delays, periods of silence, and changes to our plans in recent months. This level of unpredictability has been unprecedented for DayZ and for us in the past few years. It has served as a much-needed reality check as we address technical debt, upcoming platform support, and, most importantly, the game's stability. We will try to do better and to communicate better.

We love you and thank you for your continued support and infinite patience.
On behalf of the DayZ Team,
Lynn

Continue reading...