[Review] Project Zomboid

Project Zomboid is an isometric zombie survival game with an emphasis on player freedom, RPG elements and simulation. Developed by Indie Stone, released in early access in November 2013.

This is a review for the beta build 41, accessible via the game properties beta tab on steam.

Build 41, released in November 2020, is the largest update the game ever received, with a complete overhaul to the base code. Facilitation modding, multiplayer net coding, and several new features that were lacking before it. Work on this build began in 2015, developed simultaneously to other builds that shipped to the public in the meantime.

/// Premise

Set in Knox exclusion zone, Kentucky 1993, after the initial zombie outbreak caused by a disease of unknown origin. As a customized survivor with its profession and traits, your goal is to survive this evolving world and the ever-growing hordes of infected.

/// Structure

The game doesn't have a fixed structure outside of the basic survival loop. It falls to the player to set their own goals, be it base building, scavenge hunts, leveling up skills, explore mechanics, survive as long as possible. Standard sandbox game stuff. And of course, it all leads to inevitable and permanent death.

The Knox exclusion zone is not just a static backdrop. Day 1 in Knox is completely different from day 30, which is completely different from day 60. It is ever-changing with time. Buildings decay, seasons change, food spoils, zombie populations grow and migrate, public water and power sources shut down.

You can create a new character in the same world you died, and you might even find your zombie-self wandering around, carrying your belongings. But a new untrained survivor, weeks deep into the apocalypse, will have a harder time.

There is also an AI director that causes ''meta-events'' like gunshots, screams, helicopters. Loud sounds can happen any moment, suddenly shifting the movement of hordes, making things unpredictable, and ensuring no area will be 100% clean of infected for too long.

/// Playstyles

Before starting a new game you have to chose a ''Playstyle'', these will adjust world settings and difficulty. You can pick between:

•Apocalypse

Zombies are deadly, items rare, combat is best avoided if you find yourself unprepared. The expected player lifespan is short. It is considered the default world settings.

•Survivor

Combat is a little easier to handle. Zombies are still dangerous, the expected lifespan is longer. Experience closer of older versions of the game. Easier than Apocalypse, but not by much.

•Builder

Significantly weaker Zombies, survival needs are reduced. More freedom to build bases and seek resources, but item rarity is increased to compensate. Easier than Survivor.

•Sandbox

It allows for complete customization of world settings, zombie behavior, loot rarity, XP multipliers, character fragility, infected population sizes, etc. It enables the creation of a very specific experience, tailored to your taste.

Want lots of slow zombies and plentiful guns available?

Maybe a ''28 days'' later experience with running zombies and barely any weapons?

Start a full year after the initial outbreak with extremely rare loot for a hardcore run?

Want to become an absolute demigod that levels up 5 times in a second just to mess around?

All of it is doable with sandbox. Almost everything you can think of can be customized to your heart's content. This brings a surprising amount of replayability to the game. And if what you want is not on sandbox, there's likely a mod for that.

Bonus challenge scenarios are also available to spice things up, like winter apocalypse, permanent fog, never-ending rainstorm, and survival wave defense.

/// Character creation

After picking your playstyle and starting city, it's finally time to create your survivor!

You can customize its appearance and some basic clothing options, but first, we have to pick the interesting stuff, Occupation and Traits.

Occupation

In this screen, you will select what was your character's job before the outbreak. It grants you some bonuses, pre-leveled skills, and how many Trait points you get (or don't) to spend on perks.

Pre-leveled skills also mean that your character is ''familiar'' with it, receiving a permanent XP boost based on their starting level for the rest of their life.

•Level 0 +25% (default)

•Level 1 +75%

•level 2 +100%

•Level 3 +125%

So for example, when selecting the Police Officer occupation, you start with Nimble level 1, Reloading level 2, and Aiming at level 3. Leveling these skills will be faster than average thanks to their respective XP bonuses.

Traits

Then we can pick our traits. These are (mostly) permanent modifiers that will change how your character interacts with the world. There are two types of them, Positive Traits and Negative Traits.

Positive Traits grant useful bonuses. A few examples are Thick-skinned, which makes you more resistant to bites and scratches. Inconspicuous, you are less likely to be spotted when sneaking around. Brave reduces the chances of panicking in stressful situations.

There are currently 25 Positive Traits to pick from. However, they cost between 2 to 10 Trait Points.

Your starting Points are defined by your Occupation, simple jobs, like Burguer Flipper, give you 2 points, while stronger ones like Burglar will even start you with negative 6 points instead.

''But with some Traits having a hefty price and starting with a point debt how am I supposed to get more?''

Negative Traits. They offer disadvantages in exchange for more Trait Points. The bigger they are, the bigger the point gain. Some of my favorites are Smoker, long periods without smoking will raise your stress level. Deaf, perception and hearing range is permanently reduced. Fun stuff.

This system creates interesting trade-offs that allow for the creation of unique and flawed characters. They may excel in some aspects but fail in others. And as usual, it's modifiable in Sandbox settings.

/// Gameplay

From an isometric perspective, you will spawn at home with no items. So get looting!

At the top of the screen, you have your inventory tabs. The left one shows items carried. On the right, it displays what's in your immediate area. Picking up items is as simple as approaching a container, and dragging from the right tab to the left one. They also have subdivisions located on their right side, separating items from different containers.

Interaction with most objects and items is done by simply Right-clicking them, opening a context menu with options. That eliminates the time-consuming item juggling found in certain survival games, and once you've become used to it, you can pretty much guess how to do most interactions.

Crafting is about what you expect, open the menu, have the necessary items and tools within arms reach, click craft, done. Recipes come from leveling relevant skills or reading magazines.

Vehicles dot the map and finding a working one with a key (or hotwiring if you have the necessary Skills) can be valuable asset, not only for mobility, but double-up as an offensive tool. They are also simulated down to many individual pieces that can be exchanged and fixed with Mechanical skill.

Skills

On your status window, you can see progress towards your Skills. From base building, straightforward combat, or more elaborate ones that span a mixture of mechanics, almost all in-game activities are tied to their relative Skill.

The more you do them, the more XP you get, the more efficient you become. Be it Fishing, Running, Sneaking, Electronics, First Aid, Tailoring, etc.

This wraps up the gameplay loop neatly; you're no longer just a zombie-killing nomad; it gives you a long-term goal to actively seek out materials that can help you improve your skills. Like books, they take a significant amount of in-game time to read but yield an XP multiplier that makes the time investment worthwhile.

The only gripe I have with the Skill system is that (even with books and trait bonuses) the XP gain can be dreadfully slow after a few levels. I can forgive it as gains can be customized via Sandbox settings. So if you fear the game is too grindy for you, it can be changed easily.

Melee Combat

Infected in Zomboid are not to be messed with. Their senses are precise and can spot you from a distance if not careful. An ill-prepared survivor will struggle fighting anything more than three zeds at once, maybe even less with low stamina.

Zombies tend to migrate towards cities, aggregating into groups over time. Facing a relentless horde of 30 infected can be a deadly task.

But with a bit of luck, a witty survivor can learn ways to manipulate a horde, even exterminate it with a well-crafted plan. But the danger is always there, all it takes is one mistake, one overconfident move to slow you down and be overwhelmed.

Players have three basic melee attacks:

•Swing

Drain a bit of stamina, hit zombies, deals damage, simple. What makes it engaging is timing and spacing. When done well, it's more efficient than burning energy by blindly swinging at them. Special moves can happen with certain weapons like the knife jaw stab or the bat's over the head hit that knocks them down. A melee weapon efficiency depends on its stats and the player's relevant Skill level. The more experienced you are with that type of weapon, the more extra damage, defense, crit, and attack speed you get.

•Shove

Performed by pressing the spacebar, shove does what you expect, pushes up to three zombies off you, deals no damage. While it's a lifesaver, it does burn a considerable amount of stamina, and if used frequently could be detrimental during a pressing situation, once you can barely run away. Calculated of strength skill, it can also knock down zombies.

•Stomp

Once downed, crush their skull. When standing on top of a fallen infected you can press the spacebar to perform a stomp. If your feet connect to their head, it does significant damage. It is the most efficient way to kill infected in smaller skirmishes, but finding an opening to stomp can be hard when engaging large numbers.

Firearms

Guns in Zomboid were meant to be a rare ''Get out of jail free card'', at the cost of generating A LOT of noise, a powerful tool to get you out of a sticky situation. But as it stands with the current balancing they are largely useless and nothing more than a dinner bell for zombies. 

2022 note: this has changed since the official release of Build 41, guns are more viable now and their noise radius has been reduced. So this next section is kinda out of date.

While the leveling system works flawlessly for all other skills it does not for Aiming. The only way to gain Aim XP is by hitting shots, but because the starting accuracy is low, you can barely hit zeds at point-blank range. Add that on top of panic inaccuracy debuff, and you will likely run out of ammo and amass a gigantic horde before you can hit Aiming level 1. You can make them work, but this renders rifles and pistols useless until you hit at least level 5, and it's a resource and time sink to get there.

Or you could just grab a shotgun. It's not only a powerful gun but also ammo efficient, easily multi-hitting four zombies per shell at Aiming level zero, mopping the floor with zeds. An absolute street cleaner, with no need to farm XP to use it reliably.

There is no reason to pick a rifle or pistol other than being less noisy but lets be real, if you are going to fire a gun, caution about noise is long out the window.

So to make guns viable Indie Stone needs to either buff the base accuracy for the Aiming Skill or bring the other firearms in line with the shotgun. That or they can nerf the shotgun to the ground and make it just a glorified noise maker like the rest of them.

Either way, it needs some changes. This is why many players prefer to utilize Brita's weapon pack mod, which fixes these shortcomings and makes weapons worthwhile despite the noise risk.

Moodles

On the top right of your screen is where you will find your moodles, these display information about your character's current physical and mental situation.

Hunger, Thirst, that sort of thing. It is what you would expect from an open-world survival game. But it goes beyond just simple ''Hunger Meters'' that decrease over time. Zomboid commits to simulation, and along with it, Moodles come with distinct situations to when and how they quick into action. It forms a web of interactions between them and the world around you. To list a few of twenty-three of them:

•Nausea

Might not come only from disease or zombie infection, but also from food poisoning or even hanging around a pile of rotting corpses for too long.

•Panic

Will rise when caught off guard or surrounded by zombies, negatively affecting your overall combat effectiveness, and in extreme cases narrowing your field of vision. Over the first in-game months, your survivor will gradually get used to the presence of the infected, reducing the speed at which Panic builds up.

•Boredom

Caused by standing in the same place for too long and performing repetitive tasks, prolonged boredom causes Unhappiness, that if left unchecked for too long can lead to Depression, severely slowing down all your actions.

Not even part of moodles but since we are talking about the simulation aspect.

•Nutrition

Carbohydrates, calories, lipids, and proteins are all simulated for each food. Their consumption is used to determine the player's weight, which has an impact on fitness experience gain, endurance, movement speed, and physical fragility. Nutrition is distinct from Hunger, you can still combat starvation by eating food with poor nutritional value, but in the long run, you can't maintain a healthy weight by living solely off junk food. It is all surprisingly well thought out and incredibly detailed.

All Moodles have different severity levels, remaining hidden until relevant, displayed as a red indicator on screen. The first level usually serves as a warning with no practical consequences.

For starting players, this is straightforward, Hunger icon shows up, time to eat. It creates an illusion of simplicity to what's a deceptively deep system.

I do think that the lack of more detailed information is a bit detrimental if you are an info freak, as you can't be 100% sure if a debuff is creeping up until the first warning shows up. I understand why, as it builds up some tension and unpredictability, but if you so desire, there's a HUD mod called Minimal Display Bars, that provides information more clearly.

Multiplayer

It is a thing, PVP and everything. It's a fun time, and with mods and server plugins it gets even better. It's also amazing to see the elaborate zombie traps and bases players can cook up when working together. Unfortunately, for now, it's disabled on Build 41, as the feature is still not up to Indie Stone's standards. It should see a release soonish.

/// Conclusion

Project Zomboid is a tremendously fun time and a challenging survival experience.

Zomboid aims to be the most detailed zombie apocalypse simulation out there and I think it achieves it. The sandbox aspect is a gift that keeps on giving; just when you think you've figured out everything, you discover fresh interactions.

While many would frown upon the long early access, without it the game wouldn't exist at all. It is a massively ambitious project, the type of project that destroys a dev team six months into development. But Indie Stone stuck with to fulfill their vision. They refine and polish each update to a tee. Actively worked on to this day, with weekly news updates, even seven years after launch.

''These are the end-times. There was no hope for survival. This is how you died.''