Project Zomboid

I've been following Project Zomboid since the very beginning, but after over 10 years in Early Access, I can no longer recommend or support this game. The developers have had more than enough time to deliver a complete, compelling experience, yet the game still feels like an unfinished skeleton held together almost entirely by the modding community. The base game has grown stale. Without mods, there's simply not enough meaningful content, depth, or fresh gameplay to keep it interesting long-term. The modders are the ones actually delivering what The Indie Stone promised years ago. Big modders have been punished or straight up banned for reasons that have not been made transparent. These are the very people who have carried the game on their backs for years, creating essential quality-of-life fixes, new systems, maps, mechanics, and massive overhauls that the official updates failed to provide. Watching the team alienate their most dedicated supporters has been incredibly disappointing. At this point, I can no longer support them. The modding scene is what made this game special, and the devs seem intent on killing the golden goose. If you're only playing vanilla, you're getting a shallow, dated survival experience that's been stuck in development hell. If you're relying on mods... good luck hoping they don't get targeted next. Not Recommended. Save your money and just play something that's actually finished.

As a former employee of The Indie Stone who worked on the game for 5 years, it appears this company is in the midst of a major restructuring. Several senior members of the team who have been present for years, and contributed major aspects to the game's current design, have been let go in quick succession, under the purview of a small group of recently-hired developers from the AAA industry that were brought on. I believe the purpose of this restructuring is to make the company leaner and more attractive as an investment to a potential buyer. There appears to be a major scaling back of planned game features, following the dismissal last year of a senior developer responsible for setting up several major systems for the game that lend it its current look and feel. Unfortunately it appears Project Zomboid is undergoing a transformation that may end up stripping away most of what gave it it's unique appeal. If you are a fan of this game, please be prepared to lower your expectations. The company's previous artisinal approach towards the game's design is being abandoned in pursuit of a marketable Minimum Viable Product.

lived through the toughest of times, killed thousands of zombies, made towns safe again. lost it all in a car crash. 10/10 experience

sitting in my lovely base in bunny lingerie. while looking at my photo of two men kissing. maybe the zombie apocalypse isn't so bad

in my first play, i fell off a 2nd story window out of desperation for my life, limped into a house and got eaten alive, downloaded 900 mods on my 2nd play and became wolverine, then i downloaded too much and my game crashed, so i turned back to vanilla, pushed a zombie on the ground, got ontop of it and started doing pushups ontop to assert dominance. 10/10 W game

ITs a fun game and the mods make it even better. WIsh i had friends to play with.

remember watching walking dead years ago and thinking to yourself, what would i do in that situation? well this is it. and its sick

This game was released in 2013, and it still feels empty. You're telling me there are still no NPCs after 12 years, with over 15 millions copies sold?

This game is good. It is fun, addictive, it's everything a survival game should be. However I can NOT in good faith recommend it. The last big update, build 41 was fully released in 2021 December 20. Before that, Build 40 released Dec 2018. It is now 2026 and Build 42 is only on the unstable branch. For a game that has reached such success, there is no excuse for such long periods of time without any actual updates to the game, not unstable updates, but ACTUAL updates. The ONLY source of content after playing for a while is the workshop. Until actual updates are released, I cannot recommend anyone buys it.

"This is How You Died." (No, Seriously, You Will) Recommended | Playtime: 12 minutes in this life, 400 hours total Welcome to Project Zomboid, the only game where your ultimate cause of death will be "I opened a bathroom door" or "I tried to eat a bowl of soup while mildly depressed." If you are a new player looking at this game thinking, "Oh cool, a fun little zombie survival game where I can build a base and smash some heads," turn back now. Or rather, brace yourself. This game doesn’t have a learning curve; it has a learning cliff, and it is covered in broken glass and zombies wearing high-visibility jackets. The New Player Experience (A Timeline): Hour 1: "Wow, the atmosphere is great! I found a frying pan and a cool jacket. I'm doing amazing." Hour 2: Steps on a broken window pane. "Why is my health bar dropping?" Bleeds to death in a suburban kitchen while trying to figure out how to rip up a bedsheet. Hour 3: "Okay, figured out bandages. Now I'm thirsty." Drinks from a river. "Why am I sick?" Dies. Hour 4: Opens a bedroom door. Seven zombies spill out like a clown car. Panic ensues. Why You Shouldn't Give Up Here is the most important piece of advice for beginners: Dying is literally the point of the game. The opening text literally tells you, "This is how you died." You aren't playing a story about a hero who cures the virus; you are playing a story about an average Joe who managed to survive for 4 days before accidentally burning his house down because he left a microwave running with a fork inside. Every time you die, you learn something critical: Don't fight more than two zombies at once. Always look behind you. Sneaking is your best friend. Seriously, check the bathroom doors. The Verdict It is brutal. It is frustrating. You will lose characters you spent 20 hours keeping alive because you misplaced a click or got too greedy for a can of beans. But when you finally clear out a police station, wire up a working car, and build a fortress in an isolated farmhouse? There is no gaming high quite like it. Rating: 10/10. I am currently terrified of cucumbers because I don't know if they're fresh or rotten. Don't give up. Grab a crowbar and get back out there.