Project Zomboid will soon get a massive update that will revolutionize its already extremely deep gameplay with plenty of new features.
If you’re unfamiliar with the game, it’s a massive open-world sandbox survival RPG featuring a massive zombie outbreak, with systems and emergent gameplay so deep that it can absolutely be defined as a “zombie outbreak simulator.”
These systems have been built over a whopping 13 years of early access on Steam, since 2013.
That being said, while this may make some lift an eyebrow, the game has been feature-rich and extremely enjoyable for many years, so many of its fans don’t really mind the “early access” label persisting for so long.
The new update, Build 42, has been available as an unstable release in various stages of completion for a while, so its features won’t be new to dedicated fans, but it’s now being adopted as the stable build.
It’ll happen on July 29, marking a very relevant milestone for the game.
Among its many features, players can expect the following:
- A heavily evolved Knox Country, expanding and overhauling the game’s Kentucky setting with new and reworked areas
- Deeper crafting and building systems, giving players more ways to create, maintain, and improve their long-term survival setup, from short-term fixes to more ambitious attempts at self-sufficiency
- Animals and animal husbandry, adding new layers to wilderness survival, farming, food production, and the fragile dream of building something that lasts
- Improved lighting and atmosphere, making homes, towns, forests, roads, and the dark corners between them feel more grounded, readable, and dangerous
- Expanded lore and environmental storytelling, offering more texture to the world before, during, and after everything went extremely sideways
- Quality-of-life improvements and system updates across inventory, interactions, UI, and more, supporting one of the broadest updates in Project Zomboid’s long development history
The introduction of animals and animal husbandry is likely the biggest milestone of the update, as it marks a shift from a world in which everything that moves (at least in single player) is hostile and wants to kill you, to one in which we can finally have some friendly and living company.
It’s a stepping stone to Build 43, when we’ll finally be able to meet human NPCs for the first time.
Below you can check out a new trailer.
The press release was accompanied by a statement from Christian Allen, Design Director at developer The Indie Stone.
“Build 42 has been a huge undertaking for the team, and we are all incredibly grateful to the community for sticking with us: testing, surviving, dying, and then doing it all again, while providing valuable feedback all along the way.
Project Zomboid has always been about creating a world where the player tells their own story, and this update gives them even more areas, systems, and tools to create the memories of How They Died.”
If you’re wondering, Project Zomboid is available in early access for PC, Mac, and Linux on Steam and GOG.
