Coming Soon
RedSand Nasdara
Everything we learned in the pines, moved to the desert.
RedSand Nasdara
"You will find my body when the dust storm settles."
I don't know how long I've been out here. Long enough that I stopped counting in days.
They'll tell you the desert is empty. It isn't. Everything out here has something to tell you, and none of it is on your side.
The war came through this province four or five times before the infection did. Every army that held it left something behind. A checkpoint with nobody in it. A road built by a country that doesn't exist anymore. You can feel the history just walking east across the land.
Water is what people die for here. Half the wells are broken and the ones that still work are being watched. You'll figure that out fast or perhaps you won't figure it out at all.
There's no treeline to slip into. You cross open ground and the ground remembers you did it. Dust behind your boots. A tail behind your truck that hangs in the air long after you're gone. Out here moving is like talking, and somebody is always listening.
The wind comes up in the afternoon and takes the horizon with it. When it does, you find four walls or you become part of the landscape. People think they have a plan when they attept their first dust storm. If there is a next time for them, they have a different one.
I've heard voices on the highway at night. Surivors calling out on the radio. The hum of an engine somewhere behind the next dune. The clicks of a magazine being loaded. Sometimes it's survivors. Sometimes it's something else. You don't get to know which until you are checking their pockets.
There are still places worth going. The old refineries. The bases the Soviets walked away from when the money ran out. The Bazar, when it's busy, which is either the safest place in the province or the worst call you'll make.
The buildings will come back to life if you work them. Patch a roof. Fix a well. A dead place turns into something people will kill over. Nothing stays abandoned long out here.
If the wind changes, get low.
If you see dust on the ridge, they've already seen you.
I will be here a while
I'll share the canteen until the sun takes us both.
What RedSand Is
RedSand is the second survival server we're building. It goes up on Nasdara when Badlands launches on October 15.
And while its all new to all of us, there is still the same problem we set out to fix on RedPine: resistance only exists when other players happen to be around. On a quiet night you can walk into a town or a military base and not hear another soul. You can take what you want and leave without any resistance. Nasdara doesn't solve that on its own. A bigger map with the same number of people on it just means more ground where nothing ever happens to you.
RedSand puts something in that ground. Every base, depot and refinery worth visiting has to feel dangerous. We all agree that rewards have to be earned, not picked up because no one was around. And out here it's a different fight than in the pines. More open land means there could be a hundred meters of open sand between you and the door you were counting on.
The AI comes over with us. That's thousands of hours of building, testing, tearing it apart and starting again, and it's the part of RedPine I'm proudest of. But it doesn't get copied across and left alone. They will be completely overhauled for Nasdara, giving them what they need to belong. What they look like, what they carry with them, and where they go will all be reworked from the ground up. They will contiue to evolve as time passes, learning new tactics and showing up in places you might not expect them.
They're going to understand that terrain before you do, and I'll be honest, I'm looking forward to watching people learn it the hard way.
This isn't RedPine with sand on it.
What Badlands Brings
Badlands is the third paid DLC for DayZ and it's the biggest thing Bohemia has built for the game. Here's what's been confirmed so far, and why it changes how RedSand is going to play.
The Biggest Map DayZ Has Ever Had
Nasdara Province sits on the western edge of Takistan, just past Chernarus. 267 km², which makes it the largest official map in the game. Bohemia built it from scratch instead of porting something out of the Arma catalogue, and you can tell. Dense cities, Soviet military bases left to rot, oil drills and refineries, old historical sites, and highways running the full width of the map. Sand on the east side, mountains on the west, and about forty years of somebody else's war in between.
Water Is What You'll Fight Over
Heat and drought are real mechanics here, not set dressing. Water is scarce, a lot of the sources are broken, and staying hydrated costs you constantly. Here's why that matters more than any gun they add: it puts everybody in the same handful of places at the same time. On RedPine people fight over gear. On RedSand you're going to be fighting over a well that still works.
Dust That Gives You Away
Badlands adds dust that actually does something. Boots kick up plumes on sand and dry dirt. Vehicles throw a trail that hangs in the air and can be spotted from a long way off, so taking a truck across open desert tells everyone with a scope where you're headed. Then there's wind pushing dust across the province on top of all that. Visibility stops being something you hope for and becomes something you plan around.
Rebuilding A Dead Province
Nasdara ships with structures you can repair. Thousands of broken buildings and wells that can be put back into use. A ruined street becomes a position worth holding. A dead well becomes the reason your group owns a valley. This is the mechanic I'm most interested in and I don't know yet how far we'll take it. I'll say more once I've had my hands on it.
New Guns And Motorcycles
Region-specific clothing, new firearms with the Lee-Enfield finally coming back, infected and wildlife variants you won't find on any other map, and motorcycles coming back for the first time since the ARMA2 DayZ mod. A bike on a map this size with no cover is a real decision. Fast, loud, and trailing dust the whole way.
Badlands isn't out yet and Bohemia has been clear that plenty of this can still change before release. I'll update this page as things get locked in.
A Map That Won't Sit Still
The thing I want most out of RedSand is a map that keeps changing on you after you think you've got it learned.
RedPine players already know this feeling. Something's in the road that wasn't there last week. A route you always take is closed today. We still catch ourselves arguing about whether that plane crash has always been there. RedSand takes it further. New dynamic events go in over time instead of all at launch, and the ones already out there will pick up and move somewhere else. A site worth a full squad push last month might be stripped and silent when you come back for it.
So the map you memorized is never quite the map you're standing on, and whatever intel you're passing over the radio has a shelf life. Nobody gets to farm the same loop forever. Nasdara is big enough that we can keep it moving for a long time, and that's the plan.
None of it gets dropped in at random. Same rule as RedPine. If it doesn't look like it's been sitting there since the war ended, it doesn't go in.
What Carries Over From RedPine
We're not starting from nothing. Everything that works on RedPine comes with us and gets adapted for the desert.
- AI you can't write off. Named dogtags, believable kit, real tactics. Thousands of hours behind them already, and a full retune for open ground.
- First-person only. No peeking around corners from safety. If you want to know what's out there you have to show yourself, same as the other guy.
- Loot you have to earn. Military sites, crashes and convoys are contested. Nothing good is sitting out there unattended just because the server is quiet.
- Tools that turn a kill into a story. Radios that last, notes you can leave behind, dogtags that used to belong to somebody.
- Every shot costs you. Gunfire pulls in infected, players and AI. Out in open desert with dust hanging in the air, it costs you more.
- Same crew, same rules. Hard line on cheating, stream sniping and harassment. Not because we like rules, but because that's what protects everything else.
Between Now And October 15
This is a teaser, not a spec sheet. Badlands isn't out. I'm not going to promise you details I can't stand behind yet.
What I can tell you is this. RedSand is happening, it's Nasdara, and it's built on the same AI work that made RedPine what it is. Once the DLC is out and I've had real time on the terrain, this page fills in. POIs, events, base building, progression, all of it.