Our official Project Zomboid Tips and Tricks are here!
Project Zomboid is the ultimate in zombie survival. Alone or in MP: you loot, build, craft, fight, farm and fish in a struggle to survive. A hardcore RPG skillset, a vast map, a massively customizable sandbox, and a cute tutorial raccoon await the unwary. So how will you die?
Project Zomboid hails from the golden age of Steam Early Access—a time in which pre-release titles were entertaining and not prone to abandonment.
Despite still being in Early Access, Project Zomboid is a resounding success. With over 23,000 reviews on Steam, most of which are positive, newcomers pick up the game daily, and they die.
You don’t want to die. You want to survive the zombie apocalypse, don’t you?
Well, we can help you with our Project Zomboid Tips and Tricks meant to help you survive the post-apocalypse and undead hordes.
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Hunker Down for the Long Run
On day one, I know a lot of folks wind up scavenging their surrounding area in search of food, water, medical aid, and a backpack of some sort.
Personally, I do all of that while moving from neighborhood to neighborhood in search of an ideal base.
Ideally, you’ll want someplace fortifiable, semi-isolated—unless you’re playing multiplayer. A few good options include a two-story residential home, a lumber mill, or a school. Better yet, find someplace with a privacy fence already constructed.
Equip Yourself for a Fight
The dead surround you. Their decaying hands reach for your flesh, and with a single bite, they may infect you. Quick! Defend yourself!
Project Zomboid is a tough game, especially when it comes to combat. The controls are a little, how do we say this nicely, unintuitive. The more you play, the more you grow used to their clunkiness, though.
Early on in your survival journey, you’ll want to equip yourself with a weapon of some kind. A good, durable baseball bat, a frying pan—a melee weapon of some type. A firearm is fun but dangerous. Your shots are heard for blocks, drawing in the zombies from all directions.
Related: How to Download Project Zomboid Mods
Farming for Sustenance
Scavenging for supplies in the post-apocalypse is fun if you want to roleplay but not ideal for long-run survivability.
Instead of scouring each house for canned food and slowly rotting fruit, think ahead. Farming is a long-term, sustainable solution to your dwindling food supply.
The thing is, farming is tough. You need farming knowledge, equipment, and seeds to begin planting. But then, there are the zombies to consider. If a corpse falls beside your crops, the blood may infect your plants.
Hoard the Nails!
You would think that in a game about surviving the apocalypse, food and water would be the most important resources. But that’s incorrect. It’s nails.
You see, in Project Zomboid, nails are tough to find. You need nails to craft barricades and most carpentry items in the game. Furthermore, you can use a box of nails to improve your weapons, like the baseball bat, turning you into a pixelated Negan.
Essentially, what we’re saying is when you find nails anywhere in the game world, make room in your inventory for them.
Don’t Ignore Skill Books
In Project Zomboid, your character is dumb. You choose your job, which grants a few useful skills, like carpentry or shooting, but you know very little otherwise.
But thankfully, the game world is littered with useful skill books to enhance your character’s knowledge and unlock new skills and construction.
Most players ignore these books. They take up valuable backpack space. Don’t! If you want to farm, fix a generator, or build a barricade, you will need the corresponding skill, which comes from a book.
Items to Always Take
Inventory space is valuable but some items are worth the trouble.
- Ammo — You won’t use a firearm often, but when you do, you want plenty of ammo.
- Nails — Again, we cannot understate the importance of nails here, so pick them up!
- Bottles — To collect rainwater or to take advantage of the dwindling water supply, plastic water bottles, and canteens are used to collect and store water.
- Seeds — When you start farming in the mid to late game, you’ll want copious amounts of varied seeds to plant.
- Pills — The world of Project Zomboid is dangerous for your health. Take any pills you can find to stave off infection or otherwise.
Well, there you have it. A few Project Zomboid tips and tricks to get you started. Keep an eye out for part two and our guide on how to survive your first day in Project Zomboid!