Servants of the Dark Lord

DayZ advertises itself as a zombie survival game, but any time you’ve actually played it, you know the real horror is other people. Somewhere in that world there’s a group that calls themselves Servants of the Dark Lord, and if the name doesn’t clue you in, their methods will. They run around half-naked with axes and if they catch you, they’re either hacking you apart while lecturing you about their dark lord, or leaving you bound and stripped down—a message for the next player who spots your corpse.

What makes it genuinely frightening is that the game doesn’t stop them. No systems, no safeguards, nothing between their intention and your character. They want to hurt you and the game lets them. That’s scarier than any zombie.

If you’re logged in and you see them on the horizon, you run. Probably won’t help, but you try anyway.