Every group of buildings, whether it’s a sprawling city or a remote village, will have a sign on the road running through it telling you what its name is.

Then get everyone to locate the nearest town to where they spawned and find out its name.

First, set up a voice call with Skype, or use a program like TeamSpeak or Ventrilo, to talk to the player(s) you’re trying to meet up with. Instead, you’re going to have to do some orienteering. The problem is, there’s no in-game contacts list or ability to teleport to another player. You can play DayZ as a lone wolf, but it’s a totally different – and in many ways better – experience with a group of friends. Finding your friendsĭiscovering where friends have spawned will be frustrating at first, but as you become more familiar with the map it gets much easier Photograph: Bohemia Interactive With a backpack containing something to eat and drink and an axe, you’re ready to head inland. If you’re lucky, the server you’re on will have recently reset, which refreshes all the loot drops on the map. If there’s nothing to be found, try the next town. If a veteran player comes through town they’ll leave a lot of items that are useless to them, but valuable to you at this early stage. If you enter a town and all the doors are open, chances are the place has already been cleaned out by other survivors.

They’ll both take a zombie down with one clean swing to the head and deal significant damage to another player if you’re forced to defend yourself. Find an axe – either a red firefighter axe, or a wood-handled splitting axe. Forget about crowbars, fire extinguishers, and other blunt weapons, as they do very little damage. When you get there you need to prioritise food, drink, a backpack, and a melee weapon. There’s always one nearby just follow the nearest road or railway. Your first port of call should be a town. All you have to survive is a flashlight and a battery. When you start a new life, you spawn randomly along the coast of Chernarus. Get out of there fast Photograph: Bohemia Interactive The coast is the most populated and therefore the most dangerous part of the map – especially for new players.

How to play dayz single player