Namalsk
is a lore-heavy unofficial map and mod solely made by respected ArmA modder and now Creative Lead of Bohemia Interactive, Sumrak. Originally a personal project for Sumrak, Namalsk's age outdates the Arma II DayZ mod entirely, created in 2008 as a modded campaign for Arma I called "Namalsk Crisis" with an additional mod named Nightstalkers: Shadow of Namalsk. It was fully rereleased for Arma II in 2011, and for the third time rereleased for the DayZ Standalone in 2020.
Namalsk is a fictional island presumed to be set in the Russian Bering Sea. Intended to be a hardcore map, it's a mostly barren wasteland with little life. Namalsk is covered mainly by coniferous forests while mountains in the South are covered by permanent snow cover. A very large portion of the map is covered by desolate ice sheets. It has only one major city, located in the central North, Vorkuta. Spawn zones are spaced out on the Northern coastline, and following any road South will take you to the bottlenecked crossing of where the map is split North and South. The Sebjan marsh crossing is to the east, while the Sebjan dam crossing is to the west. The dam is considerably more dangerous than the marsh crossing, with many more zombies - and more military loot. The marsh crossing is a single military guardshed and tower with zombies on a long road surrounded by water that's commonly sniped upon due to high traffic.
Namalsk is an absolute homage to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (2007). Home to an extremely perilous mission to reach the Alien planet of Lantia, I've spent countless hours studying vague knowledge on what seems to be a 50-step process of going there. 95% of Namalsk playtime is freshie fun and getting shot in Vorkuta, while the adventure down South can take a turn at any time due to the dense population of predators and zombies around military areas, not to mention geared players with the same mission as you. The journey to Lantia can take days to weeks to accomplish fully and it's widely considered to be one of the most perilous missions ever created in DayZ.
Choosing a Server
I. Basics of Namalsk
So, you've woken up on the coast. What now? You always spawn facing North, so you can always use this to orient yourself a little. The sea will be on your right if you're going west. The sea will be on your left if you're going east. Your very first line of action is to use some of your starting rags create face, hand, and head wrappings to prevent one of Namalsk's unique features: frostbite. It's a permanent health debuff depending on which part of your body receives it. Keep in mind it will also permanently give you the sick symbol, so don't waste your pills on it. While you need rags to bandage yourself if you get cut, zombies will never cut you if you're blocking their attacks. Getting shot by someone is a different story of course but what can you do really? Once you find a knife, you can cut up anything for some rags for the future. But for now, your first thoughts should be to warrant frostbite the moment you spawn in, by mouse-wheel scrolling through the rag's crafting options while it's in your hand to make different wrappings. You can see the progress of frostbite in your inventory by looking at your clothing slots. White at first to show you your skin is exposed, and bluer means further progression, but you do have time if you don't spawn with rags automatically - it's ultimately up to the server owner what you spawn with.
Another extremely important Namalsk starting point is to find shelter to make a fire. This will often be a house with a fireplace, or a fire barrel in industrial areas. Usually you'll spawn with a heat pack. The sooner you use this the better, because they aren't that powerful and the 2 slots should probably be taken up by something more useful since you have no inventory space as a freshie. You will need at least a few sticks to fuel your fire, and something sharp to gather a single dark bark from a tree for your tinder. You only need one tinder per fire. Use your starting flare to light the bark of your fire, put your sticks in the fire, and stay within 10m to slowly gain the heat buff (the ++ on your temperature stat is the buff). Don't forget to defrost any frozen food or drinks.
Depending on what time it is, and what weather, being able to see Vorkuta should be another goal, it's extremely hard to miss on a clear day with the tall apartment buildings and cranes. If you see a large water tower, and/or a large farm-type building, that's Jalovisko. If you're still near the coast and you see cargo crates by the sea, that's Lubjansk. If it's a military with a single house nearby the sea, this spawn is above Jalovisko, so you can travel straight into the woods with the sea to your back to find Jalo. Nemsk is a small town by the sea, and the dirt path leading out will eventually take you to Jalovisko. If you've spawned next to a few broken buildings with a fenced-in area, you're near Lubjansk. If you spawn in with nothing around you, just head straight into the woods, you'll come across a point of interest at some point. Roads and powerlines will lead you to civilization. If you see anything up on a hill, it's usually a good bet to get a bird's eye view of the area if the weather permits.
TLDR: Prevent frostbite by making hand, face, and head wraps. Keep yourself warm by using a heatpack or making a fire to prevent getting the flu (recently, the flu was given a third stage - pneumonia. Preventing sickness as a fresh spawn will make your life much easier). If you spawn in a blizzard, you have to dry off or you will start to freeze to death.
Find a town and get food, water, clothes, and guns.
The only towns in the north are Lubjansk to the northwest, Jalovisko and Nemsk to the northeast, and Vorkuta Outskirts, right outside the city. Northern military zones are scarce, two are far east near Lubjansk, while Vorkuta is lined with military checkpoints offering very few tents. There is one base up the hill and down the road from the eastern side of Vorkuta Outskirts.
II. Blizzards and EVR Storms
Another one of Namalsk's unique features are cold weather events, and any blizzard can turn into one of these. A good rule of thumb is to try to think out where you can hunker down if it begins to snow lightly. During light snow, you should know the sooner you get to a high place to see out the better. Namalsk's snow can turn into a blizzard very fast, and the visibility gets terrible ontop of your clothes getting freezing wet, making travelling very dangerous at times. Fires will blow out if you don't tuck them in a tree or in a building with wind resistance. Cold weather events can be visibly seen, turning your vision tinted blue. It's just an event that makes the global temperature drop even more during a blizzard. These aren't an automatic death sentence, but for a new player, it definitely could be one.
X. Lantia
You'll find the EVR sequences originate from the anomaly Object A1 in the far South of the mainland. If there's no EVR activity occuring, the Object will not be present. But during an EVR storm, rocks will start to float around the zone. If the button in Athena-2 has been pressed, it becomes filled with toxic gas, requiring a filtered gasmask and an NBC suit to survive. Object A1 grows in size gradually, and if you wait until it's big enough, you can jump through, and it will instantly teleport you in the middle of nowhere on the ice sheets, or, if you travel to Athena-2 in advance and start the FLAX reactor in the 3rd underground floor Beam Room, you can stablilize the Orb to teleport you to Athena-3. The run from A2 to Object A1 requires at least 2 or 3 epi-pens, the knowledge of what direction to run, and the underground portion of Athena-2 is also PITCH-BLACK. You will need a glowstick, a flashlight, or night vision goggles. Keep an eye out for other survivor's lights, and turn yours out if anything sketches you out.
Once again, you'll need to wait until Object A1 is large enough to jump through. If you don't jump far enough, you can very possibly fall off the bridge and break your leg and then die from the EVR event, or be attacked by wolves due to the close-by spawn at Object A1. If you break your leg, there are no nearby buildings to take shelter from the event. The best thing to do is log out until the storm is over, and if you don't have enough rags to make a splint, you aren't in luck. The closest area is down the road - Norinsk, an industrial area that barely spawns anything to cut into rags, but it does have a water pump. Your leg will heal itself over time eventually, but wolves spawn extremely frequently at Object A1. Try not to run up the hill, as there's a permanent Helicopter crash with many Infected, and nothing to jump ontop of to save yourself. You'll need to sprint and jump before your feet leave the bridge to prevent all this.
To know when the sequence is about to happen so you can time the Reactor correctly, you'll need to take a visit to BK-L01 (known as "Candycane" or Seraja) and loot the main building for a chance to get a Muon detector. It will start beeping before the EVR sound cues start happening for everyone else, letting you know in advance when you'll need to visit the Beam Room. It needs a battery to operate. You can also find it in the submarine on the ice sheets (SKAT-12), underground A2, and Athena Research Institute.
If you make it to Athena-3 after all of this, you can then use an NAC access card found anywhere from SKAT-12 to BK-L01 to enable the FLAX power supply to send you to Lantia. If you run out of time, or someone else is down there and trying to murder you, you can either jump back through the Anomaly, or take every ladder and staircase down to escape into the pitch-black railroad tunnel. Lantia is an Alien planet that has dynamic Sand-storms, and you can only stay there for a certain amount of time, depending on what you put into the Beam room. There are multiple modules that extend this time, but they are extremely rare, and once again can only be found in Candycane, underground Athena-2, or the safe-zone of Lantia. In this safe-zone, you can walk around without any gear necessary, until you hit the lines. If crossed, you will start to suffocate and slowly die, but only if you're still outside the safe zone. Loot inside the safe-zone is good, but even better loot is found outside of the boundary.
To pass over the lines, you'll need to make the extremely elusive LEHS Mk3 Suit, commonly known as the Spacesuit. To make the suit, you'll need to collect all three red, yellow, and blue filaments, aswell as the LEHS Mk3 Blueprint found exclusively on the East coast of Tara island, a sister island connected by two bridges to the mainland. The filaments can spawn across so many areas that it may take you DAYS of loot cycling the same areas to get them all. They have only one use, and you can find them at BK-L01, BK-L02, BK-T08, ARI, A2, A3, Phoenix, Traincars in the South, Nemsk Factory, Tara Harbor, and Tara Sawmill. You'll need to start the 3D printer located in the Phoenix Oil Rig to create the suit, and the Phoenix Oil Rig is home to permanent toxic gas. While you only need a gasmask for the Object, you'll need the entire NBC suit and gasmask to survive on the Oil Rig. You can't wear a backpack while in the hazmat suit, and it's a cold swim to the Oil Rig's ladder, so you'll need to make yourself fires and drop your stuff in an area you can come back to. Lantia is home to the best loot on the entire map, and the amount of effort required to make it there is outstanding. This goes without saying that on populated servers, a lot of people will kill on sight in the South due to the need to stay alive with the rare items needed to make it to Lantia, and the general attitude on Namalsk is survival first, even in the North.
There are many different items that can spawn in lore buildings to help your long journey. Lore buildings include BK-L01, BK-L02, Tara Sawmill, Athena Research Institute, Athena-2, Athena-3, Phoenix Oil Rig, and SKAT-12. Flow Controllers can go into the Beam Room control panel at A2 to increase the time you can spend in Lantia by a few minutes each. Wearing an APSI helmet will let you stay awake, and you'll visually see the Reactor Link status and the location of A1 from you. APSI helmets are only found at Athena-3.
ITEMS NEEDED FOR FULL EXPLORATION OF LANTIA
A1 = Object A1. A2 = Athena-2. A3 = Athena-3. A4 = Lantia. ARI = Athena Research Institute.
1. Muon detector to predict the EVR storm. Found at BK-L01, SKAT-12, A2, ARI.
2. Epi-Pens and glowsticks to fuel the run from A2 to A1. Found at any medical area. OPTIONALLY - a friend! They can press the button for you, but they won't be able to join you due to the time constraint.
3. Gasmask and filter for jumping through the Object.
4. NAC access card to activate the FLAX reactor at Athena-3. Reuseable. Found only at SKAT-12.
5. Lantia Pulsar Locator to activate the FLAX reactor aswell. Found at BK-L01, ARI.
6. Success! You're ready for Lantia.
BASIC JOURNEY
1. Spawn in the North and immediately make a fire, loot every town (Lubjansk, Vorkuta, Jalovisko, Outskirts) and especially every military area you can (2 by Lubjansk, a few in outer Vorkuta, one by Vorkuta Outskirts), and hopefully you find guns, enough food, water, glowsticks, and bring sticks and bark for the ice sheets.
2. Head for Nemsk, make a fire and get the heatbuff, then swim Northeast across the icy sea to find SKAT-12. Watch out for bears, walk Northeast and bring enough bullets for the zombies, and enough sticks and bark to make fires because not every ice sheet is crossable without swimming.
3. Make a fire and swim back once you HOPEFULLY find the NAC access card, and maybe the Pulsar locator in SKAT-12.
4. Travel South across the crossing, and visit ARI, BK-L01, BK-L02, Athena-2 and Tara hospital. If you don't find enough loot on your first go, loot these places for a few (IRL) days and be a cunt.
5. Now, from a while of loot cycling these places, you hopefully have that NAC access card, Lantia Pulsar Locator, a few epipens from ARI or Tara Hospital, a Muon detector and battery, Gasmask, a filter, and maybe even some Flow Controllers to extend your time in Lantia.
6. Wait until your Muon starts beeping, and press the button at A2 (3rd floor Beam Room) and epi yourself to the Object. Try throwing an object into the Orb to check if it's stable, and jump.
7. Welcome to Athena-3. Use your NAC access card and Lantia Pulsar Locator on the FLAX reactor and wait for the orb to generate. Jump in.
8. Success! Lantia. Leave within 5 minutes. If you stay past this, a deadly sandstorm will kill you.
LEHS MK3 JOURNEY
1. After a successful time getting previously mentioned items, search for the filaments in the same lore buildings aforementioned (BK-L01, BK-L02, BK-T08, ARI, A2, A3, Phoenix, Traincars in the South, Nemsk Factory, Tara Harbor, and Tara Sawmill).
2. Search Tara's east coast beach for the LEHS Mk3 Blueprint, it's a dynamic event so it is always spawned somewhere on the beach, next to a beached boat.
3. Full NBC suit. You'll need to have been collecting this from any town you've been in the North and the South. Tara hospital will also spawn some. Gasmask and filters also spawn in hospitals and military areas.
4. Wear your suit and swim to the Oil Rig. Put your filaments and Blueprint in the printer and press the button.
5. Success. Enjoy your spacesuit.
Instructions and Keybinds: an O2 Tank will feed your suit oxygen, allowing you to survive past the lines in Lantia. Mk3 Battery will power your built-in flashlight, Nightvision, and pressurization system (turn it on to survive outside the Lantia safezone, and turn it off to save the oxygen in your O2 tank.) Press K to put up/down the suit visor to access the APSI button. Press K again to turn on your built-in APSI. Hold K to enable your O2 supply, this saves you past the lines in Lantia, and also works against toxic gas. Press L to turn on/off your built-in flashlight. Hold L to enable your built-in night vision. A LEHS battery is required for your night vision and flashlight.
Namalsk Soundtrack by Bubson
III. Food & Water 
IV. Points of Interest 
V. Player Interaction 
VI. Loot Runs 
VII. Traps 
VIII. Vehicles 
IX. Ice Sheets 
Island of Namalsk, Bering Sea 