I’m a little confused.
Back when I last played the game, the developers and the DayZ Standalone community as a whole were constantly thinking of ways to try and reduce the Kill-On-Sight mentality.
However, the other day, after a lengthy break from the game, I came back and discovered that they had decided to introduce cannibalism as a feature.
Really? Have things changed that much since I left?
I have absolutely no moral issues with the feature at all. It’s a post-apocalyptic survival game that contains flesh-eating zombies and players that hack each other to death with hatchets.
Complaining about the moral implications of being able to eat a dead body seems a little ridiculous, all things considered.
My problem with this new cannibalism feature is that it effectively turns unarmed players into walking meals.
Or human steaks, to be precise.
Before this feature was implemented, killing an under-equipped player was of little benefit to somebody that was fully geared up.
I mean, what were you going to gain by killing a new spawn? A flashlight and an extra t-shirt? A baseball cap?
However, there will now be a bigger incentive to kill other players, even if they possess little-to-no gear. The likelihood of people turning on each other will increase, especially in the larger cities where loot can be sporadic.
If a player is low on blood and in need of a meal, he will be far more likely to shoot on sight, even if the person he is shooting at is fresh off the beach.
It might even reach the point where resorting to cannibalism is easier and less time-consuming than scavenging for food the old-fashioned way.
Honestly, to me, this new cannibalism feature just doesn’t make any sense.
And I will not be surprised if it has a negative impact on DayZ Standalone as a whole.