DayZ Badlands maps out Nasdara’s long shots, rooftops, and market streets
Week 73's dev blog also says the SCR-17 will hit the Experimental branch of Road to Badlands on July 1, with another dev blog planned for July 17.
DayZ Badlands used Week 73 to ask players to wishlist the expansion while Bohemia Interactive’s environment team walked through how Nasdara is being built for long-range fights, close-quarters pressure, and rooftop movement. The studio also repeated that the details are still work in progress and can change before release.
For the bigger map context, the earlier DayZ Badlands reveal lays out the 267 km² desert map and its 2026 window.
Nasdara is built for distance, then for trouble up close
The environment team said DayZ still thrives on those moments where a shot cracks overhead and everyone scrambles for cover. Nasdara keeps that feeling, but it does not lean only on open desert. The map mixes wide sightlines with farmland, settlements, larger towns, and city blocks that push players into interior spaces, tall housing, and rooftop routes.
Bohemia said the terrain is meant to reward movement and decision-making instead of letting the high ground do all the work. Rocks, foliage, walls, fences, and the dried-up rivers of Sefid-Darya and Siyah-Darya all give players ways to move, hide, and flank. In the cities, the clutter gets heavier. Street vendors, vehicles, narrow alleys, and packed market areas turn the urban sections into places where line of sight can disappear fast.
The bazaar work goes deep into the details
A large part of the blog focused on the Bazaar set, a modular market system built from six pieces that can be mixed into different layouts. The assets include an entrance, straight sections, turns, and a corner, plus shopfronts, arched walkways, domed ceilings, hanging signs, carpets, and scattered goods. One shop type is a fortified gun store that can spawn military loot.
To build that look, the team studied places across Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Istanbul, including Muy Mubarak Masjid, Haji Bahudin Market, Taktak Street Bazar, Marko Bazar, Dara Adamkhel, and Turkish street bazaars. The blockout process also covered practical questions like corridor width, arch height, entrance placement, and how players would read each piece once it was placed inside different towns.
Bohemia said an early courtyard concept was dropped because it felt too much like a palace rather than a rough marketplace. Final blockouts were then built on a grid so artists could reuse the same-sized pieces, and the team later added windows in the domes and a few enterable interior apartments to open up more tension and movement. Feedback also pushed the assets toward stronger consistency, barricaded doors, broken or blocked windows, believable architecture, and cleaner player paths.
The blog also said the team widened the bazaar’s loot focus after an internal playtest, adding more deliberate shop spaces alongside the existing gun stores. Generic shops carry general loot, gun shops carry military loot, and some items also spawn along the corridor for players who keep searching.
The next near-term date is July 1, when the Experimental branch of Road to Badlands will include the SCR-17. Bohemia Interactive also said a new dev blog is planned for July 17, and that community members were invited to Prague this week to try DayZ Badlands in person.
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Source: Steam
DayZ
Developed by Bohemia Interactive
DayZ is a hardcore open-world survival game with only one rule: stay alive, no matter what. How long can you survive a post-apocalyptic world? A land overrun with an infected "zombie" population, where you compete with other survivors for limited resources. Will you team up with strangers and stay strong together? Or play as a lone wolf to avoid betrayal? This is DayZ, this is your story.
- Genre: Shooter, Role-playing (RPG), Simulator, Tactical, Adventure, Indie
- Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5, Xbox One
- Modes: Multiplayer, Co-operative, Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO), Battle Royale
- Release: 2018-12-13
- Publisher: Bohemia Interactive
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Age Rating:
PEGI 18 / USK 18 / GRAC 15+ / ACB MA 15+ / ESRB M
- IGDB Rating: 50.1/100
