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www.thegamer.comProject Zomboid Is The Greatest Survival Game Of All Time
BY
HARRY ALSTON
PUBLISHED 3 DAYS AGO
There is nothing else like Project Zomboid.
project_zomboid_720
Survival Week Brought To You By Nightingale logo
My character’s name is Richard Becker, a distant relative of my previous Project Zomboid character. He woke up in his RV on a fishing trip in the countryside of Kentucky, a weekend away from his home Louisville - just the RV, a fishing rod, and a few beers. It’s July 1994, and the summer heat is intense. As he pulls out of the campground, he notices that it’s eerily quiet. There are no kids running around the lake, and no cars on the road leading back to the highway. When he reaches the highway, he’s met by a wave of acrid black smoke - the road is on fire, the grey asphalt is littered with burned out cars, and a horde of shambling undead shimmer through the tyre smoke.
This is Project Zomboid, the greatest survival game ever made. A labour of love for small studio The Indie Stone for over a decade, Zomboid is one of those truly timeless games. Its ongoing development might last a lifetime, and I’ll be there every step of the way. Two years have passed since the last significant content update, but Build 42 is just around the corner, slated for release sometime in 2024.
The Most Anticipated Survival Games Of 2024
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Back to Richard Becker. My character might live for the next six years, or he’ll die in the next few days on a routine supply run. Maybe he’ll be looking for antibiotics, or another bottle of bourbon. He might make a fatal mistake, like eating poisonous mushrooms, or not checking a bathroom door before entering. Zombies in Project Zomboid just love bathrooms, which makes sense - where do you go when you’re feeling unwell?
The life of a Project Zomboid character is full of pitfalls. You’re either ripped to shreds by a horde of zombies, or die to a lonely undead, in a warehouse you’re sure you cleared earlier, as it slowly and silently sneaks up behind you and takes a gnash out of your neck while you’re pulling more canned goods from the shelves. Don’t put your tinned carrots in the microwave. It will explode, and kill you. Make sure to keep your generator maintained, otherwise it will explode, and kill you. Definitely don’t start the generator inside, because you’ll inhale carbon monoxide, and it will kill you.
A screenshot from Project Zomboid showing the player character with a dark blue flannel shirt and faded black jeans stands next to a campfire a short distance from a house
But out of the chaotic death spirals comes the occasional moment of peaceful reflection. Projec tZomboid is inherently a lonely game. There are no NPCs - not yet, anyway - and the multiplayer functionality is just that: functional, but not optimised. You’re on your own out there. If you do manage to survive long enough to have a functioning stronghold - a gas generator bringing the lights back on and plumbed water collectors so you can still have a bath, albeit a cold one - the game essentially becomes a violent and bleak version of The Sims.
Like The Sims, the story the game writes is of your own making. Richard Becker begins to lose his sanity somewhat around day 80 (he can’t really be blamed, can he?) and starts to collect mannequins to bring back to his home. He dresses them up and poses them around the kitchen table. This one is called Susan. Richard collects every houseplant in Louisville, as much as he can fit in the trailer attached to the back of his trusty Jeep, because they’re the only things left alive in the city. The idea of leaving them to slowly wilt in dusty old houses leaves him with an unbelievable sadness.
A screenshot from Project Zomboid showing a compost bin with different foods next to it like butter, milk, ice cream, sausage, other meats, and more. There's also a player in jeans and a red plaid shirt.
You form a connection with your character in Project Zomboid like no other game. Every night Richard Becker puts on a comfortable robe and a pair of slippers, eats home-cooked meals, and slowly works his way through the two hundred or so VHS tapes he’s (I’ve) scavenged from shops in the city. His home is fully fortified, with a thick wooden wall and watch towers. No zombie wanders anywhere near the base - he’s slaughtered them all with a machete he found in an army surplus store - but the wall is there for psychological reasons anyway. He is safe behind the wall.
In the morning, he sets off on another supply run across the city. He clears building by building, block by block. Richard Becker is not looking for anything in particular - he has everything he needs, and enough food to feed himself for several lifetimes, but he also needs a purpose. When he is done with the city - collecting everything, from priceless art from the Louisville Art Gallery, to military supplies from the overrun military quarantine zones - he’ll pack it all up and move on to pastures new. Project Zomboid is, afterall, a story about how your character dies. It doesn’t tell you when, or how, but Richard Becker will eventually perish. That is the way things are.
When he does, I’ll load up another run, with a new character, in a new pocket of Knox County, Kentucky. I’ll install fifty new mods from the plump Steam Workshop and try something new—maybe permanent winter or maybe a mod that turns the zombies into horrific fiends at night, faster, smarter, more dangerous. Whatever it might be, the sandbox of Project Zomboid is waiting.
Survival Week at TheGamer is brought to you by Nightingale - available on PC in early access February 20
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Survival Week
Welcome to the home of TheGamer's Survival Week, a celebration of all things, well, survival. Here you'll find features, interviews, and more dedicated to this popular genre, brought to you by Inflexion Games' upcoming open-world survival crafter, Nightingale.
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About The Author
Harry Alston
(1250 Articles Published)
Writer based in Glasgow, UK. Several years writing guide coverage for some of the largest video game launches, with a focus on MMOs.
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