Well it's only backwards if you think DayZ had nothing to do with the start of the Arma modding craze. The Battle Royale mod you're talking about was literally

Well it's only backwards if you think DayZ had nothing to do with the start of the Arma modding craze. The Battle Royale mod you're talking about was literally called "DayZ: Battle Royale", and was based largely on the DayZ mod. The random spawn point with no gear, and gearing up by scavenging random loot was directly ripped from DayZ