DayZ Badlands brings Nasdara, motorbikes and sandstorms on 15 October

DayZ Badlands, the expansion that adds the desert map Nasdara, releases on 15 October. Bohemia Interactive confirmed the date in a dev blog recap on 22 September and wrote that every core feature planned for the expansion is still on track. The studio calls Nasdara “the largest and most ambitious terrain we have ever created for DayZ”.

The recap lists what that covers:

• sandstorms
• rebuilding mechanics and houses you can rebuild
• motorcycles with their own physics
• radio gameplay, including Morse code signals that lead to underground shelters
• new regional firearms, clothing and loot
• new regional wildlife
• underground facilities built on a new terrain-hole system

The wildlife will not make things easier. A dev blog from 25 September introduces the mouflon, the desert monitor lizard and dogs. The dogs, Dobermans and German Shepherds, are DayZ’s first territorial animals. They stay in packs at fixed locations, mostly military zones, and attack when you enter their ground. You cannot tame them. The monitor lives mainly in the Dasht-e Sarman Desert, runs when it spots you and can be hunted for food.

Motorbikes are already playable. Update 1.30 entered the Experimental branch on Steam on 16 September, and Bohemia describes it as the start of the Badlands release. Most expansion content is held back until launch, but the bikes went in early because they need more testing. There are two: a moped in blue, red or yellow, and an enduro in four base colours with plates you can swap and mix. Both use a new two-wheeled simulation that leans into corners, plus ragdoll physics for crashes. You will not see your own ragdoll, since you are knocked unconscious, but every other client sees your body in the same spot. Bohemia is running “Many Motorbikes” servers on Experimental for testing.

Update 1.30 also redraws more than 150 inventory icons and reworks infected attacks. Infected now pick upward, centred or downward strikes depending on where your head is, so crouching, lying prone or fighting on stairs and slopes plays out differently. They also get a new running heavy attack.

For anyone running a modded server, the announcement comes with a warning. Bohemia put significant work into its animation systems and told modders they might run into problems with animation-related mods. If your server uses any, check that their authors have updated for 1.30 before you move the server over. The terrain-hole system behind Nasdara’s underground facilities will also be available for other maps and to the modding community, so underground areas could turn up on community terrains as well.

Work does not stop at release, Bohemia says, with performance monitoring and terrain optimisation planned based on player data and feedback. Dev blogs on terrain holes and music are still to come, though the studio cannot say when the next one lands during the final stretch.