The mod places the player in the fictional post-Soviet state of Chernarus, where a mysterious plague has infected most of the population, turning people into violent zombies.

Thirst and hunger must be kept under control by finding sustenance in either cities or the wilderness, with body temperature playing a key part in the character's survival.

[4] It has been proposed that DayZ provides some insight into people's motivations and behaviors when reacting to real crisis events, mirroring controlled experiments of a similar nature.

These varied approaches and experiences within the game suggest that even in a system that should theoretically promote rational behaviour, people act in unexpected ways.

[6] He has stated he was inspired by experiences during jungle training while on exchange with the Singapore Armed Forces in Brunei, where he was badly injured in a survival skills exercise.

[7] Hall has stated that what he had endured then directly affected the development of DayZ, and the creation of immersion through forcing the player to experience emotion and tension as part of gameplay.

[8] Hall believed that early rapid success of the mod was largely due to social media and consumers' desire for games that provided significant challenge.

[9] Hall has described the mod as something of an "anti-game" as it broke what he felt were generally considered to be basic rules of game design such as balance and not frustrating users.

[34] Eurogamer's Stace Harman suggested that the mod's designer Dean Hall might be responsible for some of the most emotive stories to come from playing a video game.

[35] According to bit-tech's Joe Martin, no other game in the genre has offered so compelling take on a zombie apocalypse and its impact of the mod on the industry might be similar to that of Defense of the Ancients and Counter-Strike.