DayZ Europa – Mod server will be shut down after more than nine years

The end of an era for DayZ veterans: The server project DayZ Europa closes its successful DayZ mod server after more than nine years and retires.

DayZ Europa says goodbye

After the server had gone through a new wipe in spring, operator Vinyl Junkie announced the imminent closure of the server in the official Discord at the end of June.
There should be one last wipe on DayZ Europa before the lights go out at the end of July.

The reactions of the community were mixed, so some groups did not make a last attempt to build something new after the wipe. For many others, however, it was a last chance to get back into the nostalgia and visit the original Chernarus.

Last weekend there was a kind of “closing party” in the community discord, where many people told stories of the server and thanked the team for their longtime work.
In a Q&A session afterwards, leader Vinyl Junkie commented on the circumstances for the end of the project and gave a little outlook on the future.

As reasons for the shutdown, the Swedish server owner gave, among other things, the high amount of time that the administration of such a server project entails.
So often the first and the last look of a day was the server logs and the news of the community and a lot of time and energy went into further development and maintenance.

In combination with the unstable player numbers over the years, the decision matured to let it go and end the project.

A look back

But first a short look back: Originally DayZ Europa was founded back in March 2014, when Vinyl Junkie actually only wanted to have a server with the original mod version of DayZ for himself and his friends.
Since these were scarce at the time, a separate server was opened without further ado, which then lasted for over nine years.

Over the years, both the server itself and its operator developed into permanent fixtures within the DayZ community, standing for integrity and knowledge transfer instead of competitive thinking towards other server operators.
At times, DayZ Europa even topped the server charts for Arma 2 and was able to show for a long time that the DayZ mod was anything but dead.

Recently, however, even DayZ Europa felt the declining player numbers and the pressure from other games in the survival segment.

The end for the DayZ Mod?

For many survival veterans, DayZ Europa was a remnant of an era that the DayZ Mod had started in 2012. Now that the server wanted to shut down, the question naturally arises: Is that it? Is the DayZ mod at the end?

So much in advance: You should not completely write off the mod for Arma 2. Because in the background a small team is still working on the development of version 2.0.
However, it is no longer a team led by Bohemia Interactive, but volunteers who push the development in addition to their everyday lives.

At the end of the server, Vinyl Junkie announced some significant changes for the mod. The team has decided to completely rewrite the mod – to escape the script salad of the many mod versions.
So higher player numbers should be possible as well as basebuilding without any restrictions everywhere on the map.

A responsible person of the DayZ mod team recently commented on the question of the development status: The development continues, but the progress is deliberately kept under wraps, in order not to raise false expectations or to put themselves under pressure.
Also, the modification will probably not be released via Steam, as this would require the cooperation of Bohemia Interactive, but the developer studio is not budging on the topic.

So it might take quite some time until the release of DayZ Mod 2.0.
You can stay up to date on the official DayZ Mod Discord server – or follow our coverage on the topic.

Until then, DayZ veterans can only fall back on one of the few remaining DayZ mod servers – or hope for a restart of another project soon.