While there still isn’t a nailed-down release date for Badlands, DayZ‘s upcoming expansion, the dev has been keeping us up to date on what big changes will eventually take center stage when the update comes. This week, it’s a pretty huge change to base building and official codelocks (finally).
The new map is called Nasdara, and it’s kind of a middle ground between Chernarus and Takistan. Mainly desert, the area features open space and mountainous regions, with plenty of built-up, now-abandoned residential areas in between. To take advantage of these new buildings, DayZ is revamping how base-building works and how players can take over an existing structure.
Badlands will allow you to build onto existing residential houses – crumbling walls can be replaced and patched, provided you have the materials to do so. Gone are the days of wonky-looking gates covering doorways and gaudy fences trying to cover points of entry. Now, a base will look like a base, and not out of place.
The image above shows a few examples of how this will look, with patchwork masonry shoring up defenses. The dev blog goes into some detail about how these houses were designed, with Bohemia showing us just how deep you can go when revamping a house. Building materials can be scavenged from the process, too.
I love the idea of integrating myself into a town and not sticking out like a sore thumb; having a proper home. Admittedly, my base building skills don’t amount to much – my limits are basically just one large cube with stuff in it. In theory, I could have a home in Nasdara with a proper interior, and for only half the work. Perfect.
Aside from the rundown on base building, there was an update on codelocks. You might be forgiven for thinking these have been in the survival game forever, but that’s just because of the incredibly modding community. The ever-present base protection item on community servers is now coming over to official unmodded servers, so throw away those flimsy combination locks and get with the times.
I can’t wait for Badlands – it’s a nice change of scenery, and the tidbits from the developer look extremely promising. Base building has always been a bit of a necessary evil on some servers, but now that I can be a part of the scenery, I can see it being a legitimate aim every time I start fresh. If you want to get involved with base building before Badlands, check our base guide here, and if you want to find the ideal environment, we have a best DayZ servers guide too.
