Deep Dive

RedPine | Details

Full spoilers ahead — everything to expect from RedPine 2.0

RedPine | Chernarus PvP

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Why Play RedPine?

RedPine is built to feel like vanilla DayZ — even though, technically, it isn't. It's built to feel the way the Arma 2 mod did when we first found it: dangerous, new, tense, and sometimes completely insane. That chaos is where the excitement comes from, and we wanted that familiar feeling back.

Some background first. A few of us — Drown, Tom, Norse, and myself — spent years bouncing between official and community servers, and the cheating followed us everywhere. The last straw was a support ticket about an obvious exploiter that sat ignored for two weeks. So we built our own place, started hosting events, and after one of them a player told us that if our events were this good, our server "had to be awesome." She wasn't wrong to expect that. A couple months later, RedPine was born.

And here's the problem we set out to fix: on vanilla Chernarus, resistance only exists when other players happen to be around. On a quiet night you can sprint into NWAF, grab the best loot on the map, and jog back out without firing a shot. I've been playing since the mod, and that's not the game I fell in love with. Back then every military base was a commitment, every heli crash was a calculated risk, and crossing an open field made your heart race.

RedPine brings that back without losing the vanilla feel. Every base you push has defenders. Every reward has to be earned, not picked up because the server was empty when you got there.

If you remember when DayZ made you think twice before crossing an open field — RedPine was built for you.

What We Built:

First-Person Only — no peeking over walls. If you want to see what's on the other side, you stick your head out like everyone else.
AI that makes you second-guess — over a thousand hours of tuning, around a thousand hand-picked names. You won't always know if that's a player or AI.
A progression system with actual stakes — want the best gear? Fight for keys, push gas zones, get out to the island, survive the bunker. There's no shortcut around any of it.
A Chernarus that surprises you again — new military bases, new POIs, things worth finding offshore, and new reasons to get lost in the woods.
Weather and nights are brutal — storms show up without much warning and it gets properly dark. Both will kill you if you don't plan around them.
Tools for emergent stories — long-lasting radios, notes you can leave behind, dogtags that tell you how long someone survived before you put them down.
Streamer-forward community — strict anti-stream-sniping rules, so content creators and survivors can actually coexist here.

RedPine: Built for Stories

RedPine is a handcrafted take on Chernarus. Nothing on this server got changed just because we could change it — if it's different from vanilla, there's a reason, and the reason is almost always "this makes better stories."

RedPine is at its best when you call out, "Hi, are you friendly?" and actually get a reply. Anyone who's played enough DayZ knows the relief in that moment. A reply can lead to a rescue, a trade, an alliance, a betrayal, or a story you're still telling weeks later.

Some of our ideas were borrowed from roleplay servers, but we don't enforce any RP rules. Plenty of survivors here play a character anyway — a friendly merchant, a paranoid hermit, a blood-hungry cannibal. You never really know who you're going to run into on RedPine, and that's half the fun.

A lot of our survivors are content creators across Twitch, YouTube, and Kick, but nothing here is scripted. The best moments on this server are the ones nobody planned.

You Won't Know Until It's Too Late

AI out of the box is either an aimbot, or a stormtrooper. RedPine's AI feel like real players. We wanted something you could mistake for a person.

I've put over a thousand hours into building, testing, and rebuilding our AI, and the goal was never "hard." It was believable.

They move like players and loot like players. They wear partially damaged gear, carry half-empty magazines, and sometimes have a can of beans stuffed in a jacket pocket — because real survivors don't walk around with all pristine stuff. When you kill one, you pull a dogtag with a name on it, one of around a thousand we picked by hand. So when you drop "Carter" at 200 meters, you genuinely won't know if that was AI or a person.

None of this is meant to replace players — it's meant to keep Chernarus feeling busy even when the population is low. AI counts scale with the real player count, so the world stays balanced whether it's a quiet Tuesday morning or a full-pop Saturday night.

We wanted that old feeling back: you spot movement in the treeline and have half a second to decide — engage, or sit still and watch? On RedPine you never really know who, or what, you're dealing with until you commit.

Quality of Life That Respects Vanilla

None of these are free wins. Every quality-of-life change on RedPine exists to support immersion and long-term play — if it would've made the game easier without making it better, it didn't go in.

First-Person Only — RedPine is played entirely in first-person. It keeps firefights fair, pushes you to consider your options, and makes the world feel more immersive.
Extended Radio Battery Life — Handheld transceiver batteries last much longer so survivors actually keep radios on.
Tip: Most survivors use 87.8 MHz.
Inkpens & Notes — Leave warnings, journals, clues, trade offers, jokes, or last messages. Notes become part of the world's story.
Earplugs — Vehicles and boats can be painfully loud. Earplugs help protect your hearing without muting the world entirely. Press P to insert/remove. These earplugs are also configurable in your settings.
Well Worn Chernarus Map — A rare weathered map with hand-drawn circles, trails, notes, and warnings.
7-Digit CodeLocks — Faster base access, less time exposed, and smoother day-to-day survival. Put in the wrong code though, and you are in for a shock.
Vehicle Camo Nets — Cover your vehicle with a camo net to help conceal it from other survivors. Whether you're hiding a long-term stash vehicle or parking a getaway car near a hot zone, concealment is now part of your toolkit.
Spawn Chemlight — You start with one, and on RedPine you'll want to keep it. Nights are dark enough that it's a real tool now instead of something you drop at the first house you loot. Just remember everyone else can see it too.
DogTags: Your Life, Your Story — Dogtags show the name of the survivor you killed and how long they lived:
- Under 7 hours → Silver
- 7–12 hours → Cobalt
- 12–24 hours → BDU
- 24–48 hours → Digital
- 48–96 hours → Pink Camo
- 96h+ → Mystery Dogtag

Survivor Inkpen Notes — Survivor Notes & Inkpens

Survivor Refuges

We created two unique meet-up locations on the map to encourage organic player interaction.

These are not safe zones. You can absolutely kill other survivors here. That is DayZ. But if you choose to do that, you are probably not making any friends.

Trade and meet-up spots that feel natural.
Places to leave items or notes for other survivors.
Good "start of the story" locations when you want to meet new people.

Custom Points of Interest

Chernarus is iconic, but after enough years it's almost impossible to truly get lost on it. RedPine brings that feeling back.

Every point of interest on RedPine was hand-placed by someone with 13+ years in this game. Nothing got dropped in at random — each addition was built to look like it's been sitting there since the outbreak, waiting for someone to stumble onto it.

New Military Bases — Installations that never appeared on the original map. Each one comes with its own patrol patterns, loot, and risk. Approach carefully.
Two New Permanent Gas Zones — Added to the two original zones. Four total pockets of high-risk military activity now reshape how you move across the map.
The Island — Off the coast, held by the HeatPackBandits, and gassed from end to end. Every punched card on the server comes from out there now, so it's the only way into the bunker.
The Oil Rig — Western Forces have been putting a helicopter down on a rig off the coast of Svetloyarsk. Whatever they're sitting on out there, they're not sharing it.
Lone Woodland Houses — Isolated structures tucked deep in the treeline, far from the roads. Perfect for a survivor looking to quietly turn a forgotten building into a home base.
Countless Hidden Additions — Small and large. Some are obvious, some are easy to walk right past twice. We've reworked the map enough that ten-year veterans regularly stop and wonder if they took a wrong turn.

All of it exists for one reason: we wanted survivors to get lost again. To walk out of the woods, see something they've never seen before, and actually stop to look at it. Chernarus should feel like a world worth exploring, not a map you memorized in 2014.

Airfield Containers — Northwest Airfield

Dynamic Bandit Camps — Dynamic Bandit Camp

A Map That Doesn't Sit Still

Convoys, heli crashes, police incidents, trains — those are the events most survivors think about. But RedPine has a quieter layer underneath all of that. Sure, there are supply ships and migrating bandit camps, but there's more going on than that.

The map itself shifts. Towns you knew become overgrown. A familiar street corner doesn't quite look the same. New points of interest appear where there used to be nothing but trees. Some changes are obvious — many aren't. They're the kind of thing you only notice on the second or third pass, if you notice them at all.

That's the goal. RedPine is meant to feel less like a static map you've memorized and more like a world that hasn't stopped turning. That log right there — was that there when you passed through earlier? You don't remember seeing that cabin in the woods. Are you lost?

Some of it changes between wipes. Some of it shifts more often than that. We're not going to spell out exactly what changes or when — half the fun is the moment you stop and second-guess your own memory of Chernarus.

RedPine was built with veterans in mind. If you've got thousands of hours in DayZ, you already know the feeling we're chasing — that early-days version of Chernarus, before you knew every loot spawn, every shortcut, every tree line. We want you to get lost again. We want you to wander into something you don't recognize and actually stop to look at it. Exploration shouldn't end just because you've played the game for a decade.

RedPine is almost a living, breathing map. Pay attention. The world is paying attention to you.

Dynamic, Hand Tuned AI

RedPine's AI aren't static NPCs standing at their posts — they're survivors and factions moving through the world with their own routines.

And they're not just targets. You can knock them unconscious, restrain them, and test their blood. You can feed one raw chicken and watch him get sick. Here's a full breakdown of who's out there:

Survivor AI

Coastal Fresh Spawns — Spawn along the coast like you, with minimal supplies and a rough start.
Inland Survivors — Found deeper inland with gear that makes sense. A weapon, some supplies, maybe partially used items, a half-eaten can of beans, or maybe even a gas canister that explodes when you shoot them. They are fully lootable and often show up in small groups with matching armbands.

Law Enforcement

Left Behind Law Enforcement — Never friendly. Often guarding squad cars at dynamic accidents. Fully lootable with solid police equipment.

Bandits

Dynamic Bandit Camps — Bandits build temporary camps deep in the woods and relocate often. Finding them is never guaranteed. They often carry strong and exclusive hunting loot, food, and weapons.

Military patrol AI — HeatPackBandit patrols

Military Factions

Note: Many military AI have a chance to drop loot on the ground when they die, but they do not simply drop their full carried loadout. Our military AI use over a dozen dynamic loot pools. Different tiers of military AI drop different categories of gear, meaning the tougher the AI, the better the rewards. From basic military supplies to high-end weapons and rare gear, every encounter has a chance to pay off.

Western Forces — Most commonly seen securing western helicopter crash sites. When killed, they can drop western weapons and magazines. They've also been heard landing a helicopter on the oil rig off the coast of Svetloyarsk. That crew is dug in and watching the water, and they'll spot a boat long before it reaches them.
Eastern Forces — Tiered military progression across the map. Higher-tier areas contain stronger units and better weapons. NWAF can contain mixed tiers, with lower tiers on the edges and stronger units closer to the center.
The HeatPackBandits — A dangerous faction that has overtaken Tisy Military Base. They patrol the base and punish those who don't belong. These are some of the hardest AI in RedPine and they can drop some of the best loot outside gas zones, including the color-coded container keys needed for gas zone loot. Occasionally, HeatPackBandit patrols can also be found in select locations around the map as they search for supplies to bring back to their base. These roaming squads still have a chance to drop color-coded container keys of any color, but the odds are much lower than the squads defending Tisy itself. They've moved offshore as well. The island belongs to them now, and they gassed it so it stays that way.

Gas Zone AI

Eastern Military Gas Patrols — Patrol the mainland gas zones. Well armed and well protected.
Eastern Military Gas Officers — Command the mainland zones and guard the color-coded containers. Getting to them usually means fighting through defenders first.
HeatPackBandits Gas Teams — The hardest version of the HeatPackBandits. Sometimes hard to spot, usually harder to kill, often suppressed, definitely protecting the juiciest loot.
HeatPackBandits Island Command — The squads holding the island. They're the only source of punched cards left on RedPine and they're aware of what that's worth. Expect a hard fight on ground that gives you nothing to work with and no quick way off.

Progression That Punishes and Rewards in Equal Measure

Vanilla DayZ has a dirty secret: you can naked-run into a gas zone, grab the best guns in the game, and hand them off to a friend before the gas finishes you. Zero effort, zero resistance, and the best loot in the game changes hands.

That's a loophole, not survival — and RedPine closes it.

The best loot here is earned. You fight for keys, push gas zones under fire, cross open water to a gassed island, breach locked containers while AI hunt you, and then you still have to survive long enough to walk out with it. And if you die on the way? Your gear stays where you dropped. That's DayZ.

How It Works:

You will need to find and fight the HeatPackBandits at Tisy Military Base. They've taken over the base and they don't negotiate. Kill them and they have a chance to drop color-coded container keys. Not all squads have access to all keys. If you want them all, you'll need to clear the entire base. Tisy isn't a quick loot run anymore. It's a gauntlet.
Take those keys into permanent gas zones. Color-coded shipping containers are hidden inside. The keys open containers of matching colors. But gas zones aren't undefended. Eastern military gas patrols are waiting. Full NBC gear and working filters are mandatory. Sloppy pushes get punished.
Cross to the island for punched cards. The HeatPackBandits took an island off the coast and gassed the whole thing, and that island is the only place punched cards come from now. Cards are what open the bunker. You'll need a boat, full NBC, working filters, and people who are alright fighting somewhere they can't retreat from.
Take that card into the bunker. One of the most heavily defended locations in RedPine. The loot inside is worth the fight, assuming you live long enough to walk out with it.

Bring full NBC and working filters. If you show up unprepared, your trip will be short and expensive.

You will have to fight for it. Gas zones don't reward luck. They reward preparation, teamwork, and the willingness to commit.

That's the endgame loop. Keys unlock containers, containers give you an edge, that edge is what gets you onto the island, and the island is what gets you into the bunker. There's resistance at every step of it, which is exactly what we wanted.

Taking a military base should feel like an accomplishment. Hearing a heli crash in the distance should make you excited and a little terrified at the same time. That's the feeling we built RedPine around.

Four container key colors — Four Container Key Colors

Dynamic locked containers — Locked Gas Containers

The Island

There's an island off the coast now, and the HeatPackBandits have it. They gassed the entire thing, which should tell you how badly they wanted to keep it.

We moved punched cards out here on purpose. Gas zone captains used to carry them, and that worked fine, but it meant the bunker was just another stop on a route you were already running. You were in the gas zone anyway. Now getting into the bunker means leaving the mainland entirely, and that's a completely different kind of trip.

You'll need a boat to get there. Same story as the supply ships — inflatable, spark plug, gasoline, and an engine that cooperates. You'll also need full NBC and working filters, because the gas out there doesn't lift. Bring spare filters. If your suit tears halfway through the fight, you're not finishing it.

And once you're ashore there isn't much to work with. It's an island. You can't back off into the treeline and reset, you can't come at it from a better angle, and the squads holding it have had a long time to figure out where people come in.

Then there's your boat, sitting there the whole time you're inland. Whoever finds it gets to decide whether you make it home.

If you want into the bunker, you're getting on the water. There are no cards left on the mainland.

The Oil Rig Off Svetloyarsk

Survivors on the east coast keep radioing in the same thing: rotors somewhere out over the water past Svetloyarsk, and then nothing.

Western Forces have been landing a helicopter on the oil rig out there. We're not going to tell you what they're bringing in or how often. Go find out.

What we will tell you is that these aren't the guys you pick off at a crash site. They're set up on a platform in open water with nothing blocking their view in any direction, and there's exactly one way up onto it. They'll watch you cross the entire way in, and they will not go down easy.

That's not us telling you to stay away. It's us telling you not to go casually. Bring people, bring ammo, and figure out how you're getting back off that thing before you're standing on it.

Listen for the rotors. If you hear one settle out past the coast, somebody just got a delivery.

A Colder, Wetter, Less Forgiving Chernarus

Chernarus weather on RedPine is unpredictable, and that's intentional. Clear skies turn on you without much warning, rain is common, thunderstorms roll through regularly, and the whole thing sits a couple degrees colder than vanilla.

In vanilla you can wear whatever looks cool and mostly be fine. On RedPine, your outfit is a real decision. Hypothermia is a genuine threat and wet clothes will wreck you. Get caught soaked and cold with no shelter nearby and you'll be sick before you find one — it happens a lot faster here than you're used to.

So carry a raincoat. Keep track of where the nearest roof is. Get a fire going while you're still just damp instead of waiting until you're shaking. None of that is difficult, it just means paying attention to the sky instead of your compass.

We're not trying to make Chernarus artificially hard here. We just want it unforgiving the way nature actually is. Dress for the trip, not the screenshot.

Supply Ships Beyond the Breakers

We thought it would be cool to put something worth finding out at sea. So we did.

Military supply vessels anchor beyond the breakers. You'll know one is out there before you ever reach the shore. At night, watch for blinking red and green navigation lights on the horizon. During the day, the ship is visible from the coast if you know what you're looking for.

The swim is long and dangerous. The water might take you before you get close. You want an inflatable boat. And those don't often come ready to go — you'll need to find a spark plug, maybe gasoline, and hope the engine fires when you need it to.

The loot on deck is worth the crossing. But just like military convoys and heli crashes, the boats don't stay forever. Every second you spend deciding is a second someone else is already on the water.

How to reach one: Spot the lights from shore → find an inflatable boat → find a spark plug → get the engine running → move before it despawns. Sounds simple. Except for the part where it's not.

Offshore supply boat — A shape beyond the surf

Approaching supply boat — Approach by boat

Military loot aboard supply boat — Worth the crossing

AirDrops During Peak Hours

When RedPine is busy, the sky gets interesting.

During peak times — when enough survivors are online — you might hear the drone of an airplane somewhere overhead. That plane is hauling desired supplies into Chernarus, and they belong to the first survivor who can find the drop and escape with it.

Everyone else hears that engine too. Expect company.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

Helicopters

The original DayZ mod had helicopters. Do we have helicopters? Maybe.

You'll have to find out for yourself.

But let's say — hypothetically — they were out there. A helicopter would be a double-edged sword. Sure, you and three teammates could move across the map like gods. But everyone would know where you are. Rotor noise carries a long, long way. You'd become the most wanted target in Chernarus the moment you lifted off.

And finding one would only be the start of your problems. Think about it — how often do you stumble across working aircraft parts in real life? If a bird like that existed on RedPine, the parts to get it running would be scattered and rare enough that finding even one would feel like fate. Assembling the whole thing would take a crew, patience, and probably more chaos than anyone planned for.

Then imagine the moment that engine finally cranks. Whole towns would hear it. They would come. Count on it.

If it existed, it could fly. Whether you'd live long enough to enjoy that is a different question entirely.

We're not confirming anything — or telling you what you'd need. Good luck out there.

Streamer-Forward by Design

RedPine is built for survivors who want to tell stories. Many of the players on RedPine share their adventures on platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and Kick. The world is tuned to create moments worth sharing, whether it's a quick clip or a full night of natural DayZ.

We welcome streamers and content creators to join the server and share their journey with their communities. If you are a creator and have questions, concerns, or need assistance, feel free to reach out to Rapture or any of the HeatPackBandits on our Discord.

RedPine enforces strict rules against harassment, meta-gaming, and behavior that ruins the experience. Stream sniping is only allowed if the streamer gives clear consent. Some creators may choose to run special stream sniping events where viewers are invited to hunt them. These events are allowed, but the streamer must clearly inform their audience that stream information may only be used against the consenting streamer.

Viewers may not use stream information to gain an advantage over other survivors who are unknowingly part of the stream, nor use it to hunt or kill players who have not agreed to be part of that event. If you want to interact with a streamer in-game, ask first and be respectful.

Restarts, Darkness, and the Day/Night Cycle

RedPine runs on a four-hour restart cycle — and when the sun goes down here, it actually goes down.

3 hours 15 minutes of daylight — roam, scavenge, build, and travel
15 minutes of night — short, tense, and genuinely dark
One night per restart, roughly three hours in — then a fresh morning before the server cycles

Nights are dark now. Properly dark, not the kind you can squint through. That's the whole reason you spawn with a chemlight — it isn't a throwaway item anymore. If you've got nothing else on you when the sun drops, that chemlight is what keeps you moving.

Thirteen minutes of daylight for every one minute of dark, and it lands at the same point in every cycle. You are never caught off guard here unless you choose to be — there's more than enough runway to get where you're going, get a fire lit, and decide how you want to spend it.

We kept night at fifteen minutes for a reason. It's long enough to actually get something done — a stash run, a quiet reposition, a raid on somebody's base while they can't see you crossing the field — and short enough that you're not sitting in a bush for an hour waiting it out. Plenty of crews plan their night around it.

And it isn't all working against you. Infected and AI both have reduced vision in the dark, so darkness cuts both ways. Night is the cheapest cover you'll ever get for a base approach, a town run, or crossing open ground you'd never risk at noon.

If running the treeline at night isn't your thing, that's fine too. Fifteen minutes is a good window for the housekeeping that otherwise eats your daylight — cook a meal, repair gear, sort your inventory, patch yourself up. Log a fire, hold a treeline, wait it out. Nobody's making you go anywhere.

But you do have to plan. Sort out your light situation before it gets dark, not while you're standing in a field trying to work out which way is north.

Before sundown: flashlight, headtorch, chemlight, batteries, NVGs if you've earned them. Whatever you're carrying, decide early.

Just remember that anything helping you see is also telling everyone else where you are. A chemlight carries a long way in the dark. Sometimes the smarter move is to sit down, shut up, and wait for the sun.

Server Wipe Schedule

RedPine wipes approximately every two months. Each wipe resets the economy and base claims so both new and returning survivors begin on even ground.

Tip: Watch our Discord for wipe announcements and event tie-ins.

Base Building With Real Stakes

Your base is your story's home — and on RedPine, defending it actually means something.

Claim a Territory with a limited crew of friends and lock down the ground you call home. Raiders can still come for it, but a well-planned base buys you the time and firepower to make them regret it.

Flagpole First — You must build a flagpole before you can claim your territory, place walls or start construction. No flag, no fortress.
Claim Your Territory — Build and claim territory with a limited number of friends to keep your base protected from raiders.
Tons of New Territory Flags — A huge variety of flags to mark and personalize the land you hold.
Modular Construction — Walls, floors, ramps, stairs, and roofs let you design bases.
Custom Placement — Don't want to make a stand alone house? Press X to free place your walls elsewhere, like in your favorite building.
Vicious CodeLocks — Codes up to 7 characters long, and a wrong guess injures whoever's trying to crack it. Brute-forcing your door is going to hurt.

Before you build: Read the Rules page so you know exactly what is and isn't allowed when it comes to bases on RedPine. Building outside the rules can cost you everything.

How Expansion Base Building Works

RedPine uses Expansion Base Building for bases — a territory-based system, not just freeform walls.

Getting your base up and running takes a few steps in order. Here's the process:

Construct a Flagpole — this comes first. No flagpole, no territory.
Attach a Flag — put a flag on the pole before you can claim anything.
Create Your Territory — before you raise the flag, use the scroll wheel on the flagpole to create your territory.
Choose a Flag Texture — pick the design that will represent your base.
Raise the Flag — once the territory is created, raise the flag to activate it.

With your territory active and your flag raised, you can start building base parts — walls, ramps, floors, stairs, roofs, windows, gates, doors, and more.

Adding players to your territory: Press B (book) to open the Territory Management tab. You can add up to two additional players who'll be able to construct base parts alongside you. Anyone added beyond that can still access the base with the code, but won't be able to build.

Want to see it in action? Here's a great guide covering some of Expansion Base Building's key features:

Raid Windows: 16 Hours of High-Stakes Survival

Four days a week, the walls of Chernarus stop being safe. During a raid window, base parts can be damaged and defenses can be breached.

Worth keeping in mind: every restart cycle has fifteen minutes of darkness in it, and a lot of crews time their approach around that. If you're the one defending, know when your night lands.

Click here for the current Raid Schedule

Reminder: Raid times are subject to change - Keep an eye on this page for updates. Outside these windows, structures cannot be damaged. Your base is safe at all other times.

Community and Events

The server is only half of it. The other half is the community — players who explore together, trade, help strangers, form alliances, and turn random encounters into stories that get retold for weeks. Events started HeatPackBandits before RedPine even existed, and we still run them.

Manhunt

Manhunt is a live-world RedPine event that drops directly into the normal server. No separate server. No special sign-up. You play with whatever gear you already have.

A hostile operator is somewhere in Chernarus. He is heavily armed, extremely dangerous, and carrying a locked high-value briefcase. Your job is to find him, put him down, and figure out what is inside.

GhostEcho & Ashfall

We host seasonal events like Ashfall and GhostEcho where teams compete in high-stakes king-of-the-hill battles for bragging rights. We fold what we learn from those events back into how we build survival maps.

Lore

The HeatPackBandits

They didn't call themselves the HeatPackBandits. That name came later.

They showed up in the summer. Back when there were still supply routes. Military shipments. Some kind of structure left. They were part of that system — moving supplies, handing things out, helping where they could. People trusted them.

Then the outbreak got worse. Convoys stopped coming through. Routes went quiet. Whatever they had left… was all they were going to get.

They held on longer than most. Rationed. Stretched it. Tried to keep things together.

Then winter hit.

It was a bad one. The kind of cold that doesn't care how prepared you think you are. People started showing up again. Cold. Hungry. Desperate.

At first, they helped. Then they couldn't.

The rumors started not long after. Small at first. Easy to dismiss. People saying they'd kill you for something simple. A heat pack. A bit of food. Whatever you had.

It sounded ridiculous. Who kills someone over a heat pack?

But it kept coming up. Different places. Different survivors. Same stories.

The truth is, by that point… it didn't matter what you had. They needed supplies. Any supplies. And if you had something they didn't — that was enough.

That's when the name stuck. Not something they chose. Something people started calling them after hearing the stories.

The HeatPackBandits.

If you heard it, you knew what it meant. And if you were carrying anything worth taking… you stayed quiet.

Tisy wasn't the end of it. They found the island sometime after, took it, and gassed it. Nobody's been out there to argue with them since.

Lore

The Exiled

They left as soldiers. They came back as something else.

It started as a two week supply run. A small squad pushed out from Tisy when the routes dried up, heading deeper into Chernarus looking for anything they could carry back. Medicines. Food. Fuel. Whatever the group needed to survive.

Then the storms came.

Contact went quiet. The group at Tisy waited.

It had been four months of heavy snowfall. At times, the snow was taller than the roofs of the houses. When the squad finally came back, something was different.

Nobody said it directly at first. But there had been five of them when they left. There were four when they returned. And one of the soldiers they'd passed on the way out — a man who hadn't made it back to base — was never found.

The rumors spread fast. Whispers about what they'd done out there to survive. About what had really happened to the missing man.

The squad never confirmed it. They never denied it either.

That silence was enough.

The group at Tisy made a decision. You don't let cannibals back through the gate. Not when people are already scared. The four were given what they could carry and told not to come back.

That was the last time they saw their team.

Since then, they've been out there. Moving through the treeline. Setting up fires in the woods. Hitting quiet towns when they need to, disappearing before anyone can track them. The military fatigues fell apart long ago — patched until there was nothing left to patch. Now they wear whatever they could scavenge. Hunting gear. Civilian clothes. Layers that don't match.

They look like lost survivors. Like hunters. Like nobody worth worrying about.

But they haven't stayed four.

Since the exile, they've been picking people up along the way. A drifter here. A scared civilian there. Exactly how those recruits were brought in — and exactly what was promised to them — is harder to say. Maybe they needed extra hands to build a proper camp. Maybe they wanted people who could work, forage, fight. Maybe, after what happened in those storms, they'd learned something about the value of having enough meat around.

Whatever the reason — they're not four anymore.

They know Chernarus better than almost anyone still breathing. They're patient. They're hungry. And whatever line they crossed out there in the snow — they crossed it a long time ago. If you stumble across their camp and they invite you to sit by the fire… think carefully before you accept.