DayZ Standalone Developers Considering Addition of Ragdoll Physics

Ragdoll physics is one of the most requested features for implementation into the standalone edition of DayZ. The game, which had previously seen release as a mod for Arma II, is currently in development as a standalone title with its own feature set, which is largely based on features requested by the game's community over on Reddit.

At the moment, the highest voted topic on the reddit subforum is one requesting that ragdolls be added for increased immersion. Many users complain that the biggest thing for DayZ that breaks their immersion is when the Arma II engine attempts to do (failed) physics.

"Seeing a zombie stuck in the standing position fly into the sky when I hit it with a car makes me cringe," writes one user, warranty45.

Another user, redumbdancy, responded: "how about when you are in the grocery store and a fucking zombies walks through the glass and starts whoopin your ass."

Such moments are not uncommon in Arma II's version of DayZ, and it's for these reasons that users are highly requesting for the standalone version of the game to feature proper ragdoll physics.

Dean "Rocket" Hall, the creator of DayZ, has since responded to the thread with the statement that the request for ragdoll physics is one they're well aware of and that they've placed it extremely high on their features-to-review list.

"The official stance is that ragdoll, which was extremely high on my requested features list, has been tabled for review at a later stage," wrote Hall.

Hall explained however that implementing it isn't as easy as simply putting it in.

"I discussed this at great length when I was a designer on ArmA3, as the studio went through great pain implementing ragdoll in singleplayer only to find multiplayer was going to be even worse. Full credit to the team delivering that, it was very hard for them," wrote Hall.

"When we review what to do what ragdoll, we will have to consider all these options. Certainly, we don't want to delay the release of the alpha just for ragdoll."