Project Zomboid

Genre: Survival, Open-World, Horror

Original Release: November 8, 2013

Developer: The Indie Stone

Publisher: The Indie Stone

Platforms: PC, Linux, MacOS

Played on: PC (Steam)

*NOTE: As of June 2023, this game is still in early access. As such, features present in this review may change or be removed.*

I remember being a groomsman for my brother’s wedding a few years ago. I met his best man when we all went for our fittings. At the time I was trying to grow lemon trees from seeds and had managed at least partial success. He offhandedly asked me if I was a doomsday prepper and we all had a good laugh. The thought never really left my mind, admittedly. See, I’ve mentioned in previous articles that I tend to romanticize isolation in survival situations (see: Solipsis/The Diving Bell, Dread X Collection II), and it’s no different here. Depending on whether you’re playing solo or with friends, you’re either alone or in a very small group, but there aren’t a whole lot of people out there. It’s you, your gut, your wits, and whatever you can scrounge up.

The story, as I’ve been able to piece it together from the wiki, in-game events, and the Steam page is like this: Just after the 4th of July in 1993, Kentucky’s own Knox County has been quarantined by the US military following an incident known in-universe as “The Knox Event” which has resulted in the dead coming back to life. Somehow, despite their prevalence in the late 2000s to the mid 2010s, zombies feel remarkably (and perhaps ironically) fresh in 2023. Anyway, as the player you start on July 9, 1993. Military evacuation has already happened and blockades have been set up. It’s a pretty darned bleak situation, and it only gets worse as time passes in-game.

I’m not sure what exactly made me choose Stubbs as our hapless victim for this game, especially considering his most recent incarnation was made for West of Loathing, but I thought of a fun/sadistic little story for him: See, you’re going to die a lot in Project Zomboid. There’s no avoiding it. You can be as careful as the day is long, sneak everywhere, and stay on top of your needs, but all it takes is one bite (or a laceration if you’re unlucky) and you’re dead. You can create a new character with a new name and new features, but I decided to stick with the same character throughout. Every time Stubbs dies, I bring him back and add another “b” to his name. Imagine how cumbersome it would be to write “Stubbbbbs” or longer on one of those high school reunion name tags.

There’s another aspect to character creation beyond name and appearance, and that’s starting class. You currently have twenty-one different occupations to choose from when making your character, ranging from construction work to burglary to fitness instruction. Each job comes with its own perks and drawbacks. For example, I started as a burglar and as a result I had a better chance of jimmying open windows than other characters. I could also hotwire cars which was invaluable until people got their electrical and mechanical skills up. It’s part of why we had so many cars on the lawn in that first screenshot. However, the burglar job also requires you take some negative traits. Each job has a different number of points available to spend on traits. positive traits take points while negative traits give points. In his very first iteration, Stubbs could see better at night and read faster, but he was also hard of hearing so everything was a little muffled in-game. After this first one croaked, I changed it up to obese since it was easier to lose weight than work with reduced audio. The only real downside here is that he has a harder time climbing tall fences and has a higher chance of tripping and falling. It’s a fun little balancing act.

After a while I decided to change it up and made Stubbs a burger flipper. He learned cooking faster, which is great when you’re on your own and trying to knock out all the perishable goods before the inevitable power failure hits. Trouble is, it took him forever to read books and if you want to improve your skills in any sort of reasonable amount of time you’ll need those. Tell me, have you ever tried to read a technical manual? I haven’t, but they seem pretty dense and the ones in game only get larger from around 220 pages depending on the volume. For comparison, I recently read through William Whobrey’s translation of The Nibelungenlied (and the Klage) and that came out to a little over 200 pages if I remember correctly. It was dense and at times it was a bit of a slog, but the story itself is from the 13th century so you can understand why it might take a bit to get through. Technical manuals though? I dread ever having to read one of those myself.

And then Stubbs got sick.

When I checked his health I didn’t see any bites. There was a laceration though, so I figured it was just an infection running its course. I got him back to base and filled his belly with as many good things as I could. Nothing helped, he just got sicker. It was around this point that I realized what had happened: Stubbs had been the unlucky victim of a laceration infection. Even when he went to sleep his fever got worse and he got more and more stressed out. I had a feeling that he wasn’t long for this world, so I had him wash his clothes, hang them up his hiking bag, and sprint as far as he could to explore as much as possible. He made it a good distance before he was overrun by zombies and eventually joined the horde.

Stubbbs emerged from the ether within the next few minutes. He was better equipped for reading lengthy tomes, but he was more prone to panic attacks. Not ideal in a survival situation, but you make due with what you have. He made his way back to where Stubbs had been mauled as if drawn by an invisible thread, and managed to reclaim whatever Stubbs had on his person at the time before discovering that the mauling had occurred on a farm plot! Rain barrels, a decent house, and lots of space! Sadly the garden was wilted by this point, but it’s still workable! There was even a store due south, which was great because the house didn’t have a fridge.

Unfortunately, Stubbbs also met his end while exploring in a very similar fashion. He had carelessly forgotten to check around his base of operations and been ambushed by a small pack of zombies just before joining them. I’m sensing a pattern here…

Stubbbbs came into existence shortly afterward, but then I had to move and that ended up being a 16-hour drive so I was wiped out long enough to completely forget where I had left off and where Stubbbs’ body was, leaving me at a bit of a loss for what to do next.

Real talk though? I really like Project Zomboid. I love the art style, I love the sense of isolation, and it’s surprisingly immersive when I get into it. To date, I haven’t made it to the end of the first month (the current survival record from what I’ve read is eleven months in game), but I keep trying and I’d love to see what all the devs will bring to the game in the next build. It pulls me back time and again, and it got me thinking about writing my own zombie apocalypse story. So thank you for that, Indie Stone team. Thank you for a heck of an experience as well as inspiring what I hope will be an entertaining read one day.

Obviously I can’t recommend this for everyone, but if you’ve got a couple of friends and want to check it out, look up some videos and give it a try for yourself! Now if you’ll excuse me, Stubbs is due for his next round of “adventure.”