You’re trapped in a quarantined city with a million zombies. There is no escape. There is no cure. The end is coming, so get used to it.

Project Zomboid is about the choices you make, and how you choose to live your last days on Earth. As a hero who goes out in a moment of heroic self-sacrifice to save a defenseless family? Or a callous coward who saves his own skin and leaves his companions for dead?

It’s these choices, and the story you weave in your adventure. That is what Project Zomboid is all about. Not saving the world with some pie in the sky cure, or flying away in a helicopter where everything will probably be okay. This is the apocalypse.

The World

As Project Zomboid develops, we will be adding new areas to the world, so that eventually you will have a huge city and surrounding suburbs and countryside to explore. Any building can be used as a safehouse, and any building can be looted for equipment to help you survive. You can hunt out weapons at the local gun shop, anti-biotics at the pharmacy, and food at the local market. But at a pinch raiding people’s fridges, sheds and medicine cabinets will keep you going.

The Story

Right now, the outside world knows nothing about the zombie threat. The government has quarantined the city, and cut off all communication with the outside world. The news is rife with speculation about the events that are occurring in the city borders. Soon they will know, and wish they didn’t. The quarantine can’t hold forever, and just outside the exclusion zone lies the still operational local power plant. Once that goes, batteries and canned food will be worth more than their weight in gold.

As you play Project Zomboid, the longer you survive, the game-world changes around you as the apocalypse develops. You can keep up on current events by turning on a radio, and those events will affect your situation as time progresses. You may even be able to influence them.

The People

Surviving is easier when you have company. As well as (planned future) friends joining you in co-op multiplayer to help you survive, you can meet thousands of diverse characters that you can trade with, join forces with, battle for resources, betray, help, or work for. Diverse randomly generated quests such as helping them find loved ones, finding them equipment or sentimental mementos to escorting them through the more infected areas of town.

In your group, you must deal with the different personalities and relationships, which can sometimes lead to deadly friction. And what to do with that clumsy kid who keeps leaving doors open and making way too much noise? Give him a talking to, or ask him to accompany you on a salvage mission and blowing his brains out down the street, before returning and claiming to the others he got eaten by zombies? It’s up to you how you keep people safe, and what lengths you will go to.

Self Improvement

There are all manner of skills and perks the player can develop to help them survive. 50% unique and innovative, 50% ripped off other titles, our unique and innovative skills and perks systems keep character progression interesting and avoids the dull increasing of numerical values, without sacrificing depth.

Learn skills from other survivors for everything from shotgun operation to cooking, medical training, carpentry and orienteering, that can then be increased as your character progresses and provide unique bonuses as they develop.

Pick a profession for your character which bestows unique perks to them, and pick up further perks as you play by completing hidden ‘achievement’ style criteria, meaning your character can be trained up differently depending on your play style and preferences of weapons and tactics.

Mind and Body

You can sustain injuries to any part of your body, from a broken leg to a concussion. These will need to be bandaged, set, cauterized or otherwise dealt with to keep you going. Illness and disease is also a real possibility, so better bury those corpses in the garden or set light to them before you catch something, because the hospital’s a long way away!

But it’s not just physical injuries that you can be inflicted with. The zombie apocalypse is hard to deal with, and it’s easy to sink into depression, or worse. You must try and keep your morales high, your stress down, and take some time for the little things to keep you and your companions sane. A hot shower, a cooked meal or a bit of music will go a long way.

If people are at the end of their rope, they may become withdrawn, fight, cry, or even stick a gun in their mouth and pull the trigger (which makes a lot of noise!). Paranoia can fool the senses and outright insanity isn’t easy to come back from. Cigarettes, alcohol and drugs can keep the darkness at bay, but rely on them too much and you may get addicted.

Remember, you can preorder Project Zomboid for £5/$8, and will receive lifetime updates to the game. Your support directly supports development of the game, pay the rent and buy food, so any more you would be willing to spend would make a huge difference. That said we understand some people need to play before they buy, so no worries if you’d rather wait. Love you!

Please note the first cut-down version will be free, in an effort to attract interest in the game, but subsequent releases beyond bug fixes will be a paid-alpha branch and it is this you will have lifetime access to. For more information, check out this link.

The demo will be end of April.