You may have heard of Project Zomboid by now. The hardcore survival role-playing game in the zombie apocalypse has been in Early Access since 2013 and has always thrilled a lot of undead fans. As early as September 2021, colleague Christian Just reported on the growing success of The Indie Stone’s insider tip.
At this point, Project Zomboid was already adorned with around 5,000 to 8,000 simultaneous players on Steam – there are now around 50,000 simultaneous players in the top – and blame
In addition to increased awareness on Twitch, this is mainly due to the new and largest update to date.
What is Project Zomboid?
Before we get into the update, let’s just briefly recap what kind of game Project Zomboid is. As already written at the beginning, Project Zomboid is a survival role-playing game in the zombie apocalypse. Similar to DayZ, you try to survive in a world overrun by zombies by picking up vital materials, building fortifications in the sandbox and, best of all, not letting the undead eat you for breakfast.
The best thing to do is just watch the latest trailer to get your own picture of the survival insider tip:
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Project Zomboid – New trailer introduces you to the survival insider tip
Although the iso perspective and the pixelated graphic style may not directly reveal it, Project Zomboid is committed to a realistic survival experience. This means that you not only have to struggle with hunger, thirst and injuries, but also have to deal with dangers to your mental health in the form of depression and boredom.
You don’t have to face the horror of the zombie apocalypse all by yourself, you can arm yourself against the zombie hordes together with your friends. This can be done either locally in 4-player split-screen co-op or via online multiplayer. The latter has been heavily revised with the latest update.
What will change with Build 41?
According to the developers themselves, Build 41 is the largest update to date for Project Zomboid and thus a large and important milestone towards the release. We have listed and translated all patch notes for you on page 2, but now we have summarized the most important new features for you:
- Big graphics update: In addition to new animations, graphic updates for water and battles and visible damage to your clothing and your character, you now have a whole lot of new character adjustments. In addition, a blood and dirt system has been introduced so that you will look exactly the same after several days in the apocalypse.
- New in-game map: From now on you can keep track of which areas you have already explored.
- New multiplayer build: The multiplayer has been fundamentally revised and improved so that you can expect lower latencies.
- Lots of new content: In addition to new weapons and battles, there is a new city, a new system for body temperatures, foraging and tailoring, as well as 3 new gameplay modes with different focus (sneaking, fighting, building).
Of course, a lot of existing systems were screwed and overhauled. There is a new injury system, the search for food now works differently and the driving and shooting experience has been improved. As mentioned above: all patch notes can be found on the following page.
Despite all the improvements and changes there is Project Zomboid noch im Early Acess. When the survival role-playing game will go into full release has not yet been determined. The latest update should have taken a big step in this direction.
Incidentally, Micha, Dimi and André are discussing whether games can take too long in their development in a plus podcast episode based on the examples Camelot Unchained and Star Citizen:
Podcast
Are there too long development times?
Are you already playing Project Zomboid? Or will you give the zombie apocalypse a chance after the new update? What do you think of the numerous changes and what things do the developers have to address before the release? Let us know in the comments.
