Project Zomboid

i wake up in rose wood. zombies everywhere. i go to the school. i look in the lockers and find drugs. i gets high and die within 5 hours... best game ever 1000000000000/10 is that a dino on a skate board?

I've been playing Project Zomboid since almost its inception. Since it was a story based game, when you started as a husband and your wife was bitten (we now see that story only as a heritage background image). It's been more than a decade, I was in school, and I'm now a 30 years old adult, I love this game. I live my live and progress as this Project is growing. I've seen my little brother grow and get to love it as well. In fact he brought me back to it, just as I once showed it to him.

Love it and recommend it, game like no other.....

Somehow this game has slipped under my radar for a long time. Despite looking very simple, the game actually has an incredible amount of depth in it's mechanics. If you enjoy hardcore survival games, you might want to give this a shot.

i didn't think i would like this but after about 10 hours and learning how the game works i enjoy it. worth a try for sure

Start game, read books, level up. Die by swarm in house. start again. repeat. 10/10 recommend

The ultimate zombie survival experience, this is how you died. Nothing beats the sense of dread hanging over you as you come to terms with the fact that eventually the water will shut off, the power will cut out, and your generator will run dry. You'll go through your food supplies, the axe you used to use to collect firewood will wear and break, and your sanity (in-game only, hopefully) will degrade. Then it happens, you make a silly mistake and you get a scratch - hopefully a small one, it doesn't hurt much. It doesn't matter. The infection is going to kill you slowly and you'll become one of them. Was it all for nothing?

The game is extremely fun in multiplayer and the development is going in a nice direction too with exciting updates planned. There are tons of settings that you can customise as well for your own zombie apocalypse. You can make the zombies faster or smarter; you can tweak their bites or scratches to be more deadly; you can turn wound infections off if you like or you can change the amount of loot that spawns around the map as some examples.

Project Zomboid is a fantastic sandbox survival experience and well worth the money, I strongly recommend it.

Worst frame-rate i've seen in a game for a very long time. The graphics aren't mind blowing, it's a simple art style, i can appreciate that. I can't appreciate a game released in 2013, running this bad in 2025. Ok when you zoom in but when you zoom out, terrible, like 5-10fps. This is a survival game, visibility is everything. More disappointing than biting into a chocolate chip cookie and the chips being rat feces.

I wanted to love this game but there is so many little things and a few big things that get in the way of that.
You're expected to die a lot but its not fun to die at all. All the cool skills you develop are gone once you get bitten and it takes forever to build them up again on a new character. This means you end up playing essentially the first "level" of the game countless times while rarely getting to the others. It's really unbalanced for it to be fun and buggy enough to die from the game lagging :(

A True Survival game.

Most games in the survival genre don't put much empathizes on the survival part of the game. sure you have eat and sleep and fight but most of the time the challenge of survive is trivialized in a few hours or less.

In project zomboid you constantly feel the pressures of the survival aspect of the game. if your too sleepy you are weaker, if you exhausted you are slower, you can get sick from the weather, you have make you eat enough to keep weight up among many other factors you have account for. if you get injured you can't simple heal from a potion or food, you have disinfect, snitch or bandage your wounds also make sure to keep the bandages clean and with every zombie there is chance this one fight might be you last fight. The game constantly keep you alert and ready for anything truly a hardcore survival game sandbox and very much a one of kind experience

game's hard, pretty good, worth trying, truly a masterpiece.

You ever play a zombie game and think, "Yeah, this is fun, but it doesn't really feel like surviving?" Well, Project Zomboid fixes that... This game doesn’t hold your hand. It breaks it, infects it, and makes you amputate it with a rusty saw.

I spawned inside of a bar, got shiftface drunk off whisky, tried to drive a car and drove into a lamp post.
It was at this point I realized I was playing a masterpiece

Project Zomboid is one of the greatest survival games ever made. From its incredible depth to its brilliantly designed mechanics, this game sets the gold standard for what a true survival experience should be. It’s realistic, immersive, moddable, and most importantly, a hell of a lot of fun.

Every aspect of Project Zomboid feels grounded and believable. This isn’t just a game about killing zombies—it’s about long-term survival, resource management, and adapting to a world that wants you dead. Whether it’s dealing with injuries, managing food and water, or fortifying a safehouse, the attention to detail is insane.

The combat is engaging and rewarding. Every swing of a bat, every perfectly timed push, and every last-ditch escape feels intense and strategic. There’s no mindless button-mashing here—positioning, stamina, and awareness all matter. The fact that hordes actually feel like a real threat adds a level of tension that few other games can replicate. Survival isn’t just about fighting—it’s about building your future. Watching your character progress over time—gaining skills, becoming stronger, and mastering the apocalypse—is incredibly rewarding. The base-building system is flexible and fun, allowing you to fortify an existing house or create a fortress from scratch.

The world is massive, detailed, and full of life (or death). The game’s art style is simple yet incredibly effective, creating an eerie, immersive atmosphere that complements the gameplay perfectly.

One of the best parts? The modding community is insane. The game is already amazing, but the ability to tweak and enhance it with mods just makes it even better.

Unlike many modern games, Project Zomboid listens to its community. The developers actually care about player feedback, and it shows. This game is worth every single cent I spent on it.

The Only Downside? Car Lag
If I had to nitpick, the only annoying thing is the lag when driving fast. But honestly? That’s a minor issue in an otherwise flawless game.

Final Verdict: A Must-Play Survival Masterpiece
Project Zomboid is a godsend for survival fans. It’s deep, intense, rewarding, and endlessly replayable. More developers should take notes from this game, because this is how you make a true survival experience. If you haven’t played it yet, do yourself a favor and get it.

When i first played this game I was scared, confused, but eager to explore Project Zomboid with my new character.
Now when I play i'm still a little scared, not as confused and even more eager to explore Project Zomboid with my new character.
I may not be the best at surviving, but i love that this game keeps me on my toes and leaves me constantly thinking about how to keep my character alive.

I saw this game from YouTube and it drew me in completely, i was never one to think i'd enjoy a zombie based game at all, but Project Zomboid is one of my favourite games to play.

I 100% recommend you play this game if you love survival, zombies, base building, and hording canned food.

If you love base building and survival games - just buy the game already. This game has ruined every other game for me because I can't find anything else that scratches the itch that Project Zomboid does. There is a huge learning curve but I enjoy that. I enjoy the struggle of being bad and slowly creating a character that is unstoppable...until I make one little mistake and it's all lost. The community is always making mods that refresh the game and make each run a little different so it has high replayability.

one of those games where you have to accept dying a lot while learning to play to get into it, after that its real fun.

something that isnt mentioned on the store page is when your character dies and you continue playing with a new character you can find your previous character now as a zombie.

This may be fun for some people, but is frustratingly hard and un-intuitive for new players.
The idea is great, and the depth of the game is impressive. Its just not for me.

This is the most addictive game I've picked up in years! A really excellent game and it isn't even finished yet (although in a lot of ways it feels like a finished game!)

A post-apocalyptic life simulator. Civilisation may be ending -- and you can watch it end on tv or radio -- but that doesn't mean it's all over for you. This may be the story of how you died, but, with time, it can be the story of how you lived.

Originally I gave this game about 4 hours before giving up on it. Game mechanics are obtuse and the game is very difficult and unforgiving. But it is actually incredibly fun once you figure things out. A quick youtube video or two will help you get started if you find it to be too much like I did.

Project Zomboid – The Ultimate Zombie Survival Simulator
Hours Played: 14

Project Zomboid is one of the most hardcore and realistic zombie survival games out there. With deep survival mechanics, permadeath, and an unforgiving world, every playthrough is a tense, story-driven experience shaped by your choices.

The Good
✅ Deep Survival Mechanics – Everything matters—hunger, injuries, mental state, and even boredom.

✅ Brutal and Unforgiving – One mistake can cost you everything, adding real tension.

✅ Huge Open World – A massive map full of towns, forests, and abandoned buildings to explore.

✅ Incredible Customization – Tons of sandbox settings, mods, and character traits for replayability.

✅ Co-op and Multiplayer – Surviving with friends or in an online server adds a new dynamic.

The Bad
❌ Steep Learning Curve – The game throws you in with little guidance—expect to die a lot.

❌ Clunky Combat – Melee and gunplay feel deliberately slow and unforgiving, which some may find frustrating.

❌ Slow Early Game – Survival is all about patience; if you prefer fast-paced action, this might not be for you.

Final Verdict
With 14 hours, I can say Project Zomboid is one of the most in-depth and immersive zombie survival experiences out there. If you want true survival, deep mechanics, and an unforgiving world, this is a must-play—just be ready to die. A lot.

Rating: 9/10 – Brutal, realistic, and endlessly replayable. 🧟‍♂️🔪

12 years of EA, and the devs have failed to implement many of the original promises of the game (a story or narrative, NPCs in any form, quests, a world that responds to your behaviors).

Where is the game now? Pretty much the same state as in 2013. Some slight improvements in animations, but the UI is still very cumbersome and unintuitive. The game plays essentially the exact same, and I have the same issues as I did over a decade ago.

Most damning, it's just a boring game. Want to interact with the zombies in a zombie game? There's a high chance you will get infected and your character/progress will irrevocably be lost. Want your character to survive for more than a few days? Then better bunker in a home without ever interacting with the zombies in the zombie game. Want to level your character up? Then hope you enjoy having your character read (idle for periods of game time).

If 12 years isn't enough to release the game, how much time do the devs need? A game should entertain, and I'm not convinced this will be entertaining, interesting, or engaging, in any capacity, even in another 12 years in 2038.

OK GUYS THIS IS THE MOST INACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF A GAME EVER:
✓ Dietitian Simulator - because I never really paid attention to the nutritional value of foods and their effect on weight in real life
✓ Bookworm Simulator - because my character has read more books in three months than I have in my entire life
✓ Brown Pants Simulator - because I don't turn off jumpscare sound
✓ Gardening Simulator - because 90% of my time was spent growing cabbages
✓ Alcoholic Simulator - because whiskey from a dead man's kitchen cabinet is the only cure for depression
✓ Serial Undresser Simulator - because I stripped 48 corpses in one day
✓ Fashion Victim Simulator - because I died trying to steal a leather jacket from a zombie
✓ Pyromaniac Simulator - because I accidentally burned down an entire neighborhood trying to make soup
✓ Obsessive Organizer Simulator - because I spent 3 hours arranging canned food alphabetically
✓ Paranoid Simulator - because I barricaded every window in the house, then couldn't escape when the fire started
✓ Breaking and Entering Simulator - because I've broken more windows than I've killed zombies

✓✓✓ HELICOPTER PANIC ATTACK SIMULATOR - BECAUSE THAT SOUND STILL GIVES ME PTSD ✓✓✓

The game is so realistic that I'm now afraid to open my own refrigerator. Also, I stopped talking to my nephew after he decided to test his shotgun after I told him three times not to, and I was eaten alive in underwear with glass in my legs and a bag full of firearms. All I wanted was just to take the boots from the corpse...

Bought 2 more copies and forced my friends to play. Convinced several more to buy it. Now we're all lonely together.

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME if you need a social life, job, or sleep.

11/10 - the number of days before I learned not to die from an expired mouse.

I can't recommend this game in it's current state.

Edit: After "unstable" patches 42.3-42.5.1 it seems clear that developers do not test their patches before putting them live, nor do they care about the average player base of this game.

Their changes are aimed at stopped meta player being able to make meta plays, and sucking the fun out of the casual/midcore experience of the game.
This game is not immersive. In fact, the few things of this game that held up it's immersion, the developers have nerfed into the ground due to meta players using this to their advantage.

To the developers if they read this or care: Balancing your game to the small and overpowered percentage of players does nothing except exclude the larger player base who wish to play this for what it was advertised as, a hardcore zombie survival sandbox.
Please optimise your game before you decide to nerf every possible enjoyable thing in this game.
Thank you.

Very fun game, more fun with friends, I would recommend

This is my favorite game of all time and I recommend you play this game. It is damn near perfect, has so much to offer, and has at least a thousand hours of replayability. Its the perfect zombie survival game and has the realism all masochists desire. One little trip, dead. Busy taking a sip while your deaf, dead. Miss a point blank shot with high aim skill, dead. The game is punishing but also very rewarding and engaging. With all its mods the game becomes even more of a trip and with Build 42 and its changes the game has entered a new era and now is the time to play if you aren't already. Its only $20.

First character was deaf. Lived for 9 months hearing nothing. Maxed passives and some combat and skills. Had enough food and water and general supplies to chill. Killed like 3000 zombies. Went out to get some clothes for fashion reasons since I prioritized supplies pretty exclusively. Store was alarmed. Got into car and tried to drive away. Some of the zombies randomly sprint. One sprints in front of car just as I pass a horde. Car stalls once. It starts up again. I try to go. I'm in dirt and the car won't go because I took Sunday driver and there's too many zombies around me now. I swap seats to draw them away to the other side of the car. I go to swap back and run. Accidentally click exit vehicle instead and instantly get swarmed. Died to Sunday driver perk and a misclick after ~100 hours on one character. 10/10 I can hear again.



Actually for real though this is the best zombie game I've ever had the joy of playing. Buy it. If there's something about it that you don't particularly like (everyone is different after all) I can almost guarantee there's a mod that fixes it. You like zombies? You'll love this.

Any game that needs workshop to make it enjoyable ain't it. Plus in "Early Access" since 2013 is a joke.

Nah but like, genuinely, this is one of the best games around.

Do yourself a favour and watch a 5 hour long Project Zomboid Challenge video on YouTube, then buy this game, you'll understand.

All of my characters died early apart from an old woman who killed every zomboid she came across without taking damage. Being old apparently makes you immune.

Probably the best Zombie Survival Simulator that's been made! The systems are deep and complex and the terror of trying to survive in the world is real!!

this game gives you the genuine tweaker experience of stealing anything you can while fighting off other tweakers and making some of the most scuffed food known to man. you can also crash a Mustang into a tree at mach speeds and die, just like an actual tweaker.

would recommend

The game has the potential to be amazing, however the pace at which the game is being developed makes it seem as though development will be finished somewhere in the 2100's. So if you are considering buying the game, don't expect much to change any time soon and would be best to consider the game will remain in its current state for the foreseeable future. Which brings us to the next issue...

The replayability of the base game is limited to say the least and any long term enjoyment will only come from either multiplayer or mods. Both of which will add to frustration as multiplayer servers are often running hundreds of mods and considering how badly optimised the game is, even quite beefy PCs will struggle to keep decent frame rates when in cities or when driving cars. And having hundreds of mods to fix issues / give gameplay content will run about as you expect.

The game also has a bunch of logical issues/inconsistencies such as requiring a magazine to learn how to use generator, but you spontaneously learn how to hotwire a vehicle after dismantling some digital watches and taking off a car hood a few times.
But Project Zomboid is after all a game so not much point in criticising it for inconsistencies in logic, however the game takes itself very seriously when trying to implement systems that are "realistic" which often detracts from the gameplay, such as the new muscle strain system added to prevent the player from killing too many zombies in a short amount of time when an endurance system already exists. Perhaps this was added to slow progression of getting settled, but it is not the right direction the developers should be moving in when so much is left unfinished/broken.

the best zombie open world survival game ive played u can do pretty much anything i love it smmmmm

brutally hard but very fun, and even more fun with friends, don't let the graphics turn you away from this classic

This is the perfect post-apocalyptic survivor simulation. This is how you die.

Got a pan, went outside, saw 3 zombies, missed and died.

10/10 great game!

Game is extremely punishing, I'll say this. if you like being as durable as wet paper and enjoy losing everything and starting over and over and over and over again. This game may be your jam.

its a really good game i just wish i had friends to play it with

my friend made me buy it and then he dudn't wanna play because its too hard for him

f4ck that guy

I love this game. It has a way of giving you hope and then ripping it from your hands as you stare in horror. I love the fact that that no matter how prepared you are, it only takes one and your're infected. I would recommend any new players to just jump straight in. Its far more enjoyable to find things yourself.

Set off an alarm, attract a horde,
Forget to lock the door, now you're floored.
Eat some rotten food, get real sick,
Try to fight a zombie with just a stick.

Dumb ways to die,
So many dumb ways to die,
Dumb ways to die,
In Project Zomboid.

Leave the oven on, burn down your base,
Run out of water, dry up your face.
Ignore the infection, let it spread,
Sleep in the open, wake up dead.

Dumb ways to die,
So many dumb ways to die,
Dumb ways to die,
In Project Zomboid.

Drive a car too fast, hit a tree,
Get caught in the rain, catch a cold, you see.
Forget to bandage, bleed out slow,
Try to take on a horde with just a hoe.

Dumb ways to die,
So many dumb ways to die,
Dumb ways to die,
In Project Zomboid.

Kill zombie for 10 hrs
die
lose everything u worked so hard for including levels and skills
go again

Masterpiece 10/10

The game play is exciting and scary, great game to play with friends but not as much solo but to each their own. Im not much of a top down gamer but this game hits all the right spots. Cant wait for the unstable multiplayer to be released.

I’m still new to this game, just seven hours in, but I’ve already lived and died more times than I can count. I’ve scavenged for food, patched up wounds, and limped through empty streets, hoping to make it back before nightfall. Sometimes I’ve managed to hold out, built shelters, grown crops, but even that feels like a slow kind of death.

Survival isn’t the goal. There’s no winning, no happy ending, just the stories you create before the inevitable. Will you hide, fight, or run? It doesn’t matter. In the end, death finds everyone. The only thing that matters is how you live before it does.

600 hours on this game and is js good asf in b42 unstable update i only needed one mod and it made me feel i downloaded over 200 mods love this game ngl

honestly this game reminds me of minecraft:
1-you start a world
2- you progress through the world and the weapons and stuff
3- you set a target to make something in your world or to clear something
4- you go do the objective
5- you die during the objective
6- you get mad for 2 days until you see a tiktok about some dude making a huge base in the woods eating fish 24/7 and fighting zombies with an umbrella
7- you reload the game and make a new world
8- you die in the first 5 minutes of the game
9- you dont touch the game for another 2 months
10- repeat

spawn in

get mauled

survive off scraps

survive for three more hours until my inevitable death

die.

friends find me right as i get zombified

spend another two hours searching for them

find them zombified

would play again

it took a few tries to get the hang of it, but this simple game is worth the effort. so much complexity hidden beneith a very polished shell.

Really good dev support, actually listens to community, 10/10 potential 8.5/10 current (just because of UI difficulties for beginners)

I really want to like this game. But despite playing it for a few weeks, I always end up frustrated and not enjoying my time at all. It's less something I do for fun, and more like I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong to unlock the potential I imagine is there. But I think I have to admit to myself, it's just not a fun, engaging game. And the glacially slow development pace doesn't help.

One of the best survival games out there. Be warned this is not for everyone. It is a slow slow burn. But that is what makes it so good. You have to work hard to build a secure base. You have to work on getting all your skills up and if you die all your skills are gone forever and you have to start over do not play this game if you just want a fun game where you kill zombies. Go play L4D2 or killing floor. Play this game if you want to feel the weight of very mistake and tiny victory.