DayZ Player Has No Idea What Universe He's Currently In

In game screenshot of DayZ

The popular PC game DayZ, despite a multitude of bugs in it's current early Alpha state, has been hailed as an immersive multiplayer experience like few before it. For most gamers this level of immersion has been a great thing, but to twenty-four-year-old David Simmons it has been more of a curse. 

As we speak, David has no idea if he is in a post-Soviet wasteland or his apartment in the real life wasteland of Detroit, Michigan. The confusion began just hours after the DayZ standalone was released last December, says the lifetime gamer.

"I could have sworn I logged off and stepped away from my computer," he told us in an exclusive interview earlier this week, "but when I went outside I was surrounded by zombies. In the distance I could hear people yelling that they were friendly and, before I know it, I was dead." Little did he know, he didn't actually log off his computer and he was still logged in and wandering around Chernarus endlessly looking for food and ammunition to fight off a zombie apocalypse and ruthless human controlled players.

He also explained another instance where he thought he logged off but was greeted immediately outside his apartment with several zombie-like creatures and threatened at gunpoint before even making it to a nearby grocery store. It wasn't until he got a call from a real life friend that he knew he did in fact log off and was wandering the streets of Detroit - but the confusion really messed up the rest of his day. 

"Sometimes I just want to reach the store without getting shot, and other times I want to relax and play some DayZ. It makes life really difficult not knowing which is happening," a tearful Mr. Simmons confessed. 

Several close calls have led to him always assuming he's in DayZ, being sure to carry around guns and food and forcing everyone he comes in contact with to declare as friendly before he'll approach them. Oddly enough, the weapon-brandishing Simmons doesn't raise alarms around Detroit. "There really aren't many cops around here and the ones that are around don't seem to care."

The developers of DayZ have been mostly quiet on the issue, declining a formal interview and only telling us via a short phone conversation "We are aware of some issues with the levels of immersion in DayZ and we are working to fix them. Our only suggestion right now is to move somewhere less desolate than Detroit so you don't get confused when you leave your house."