Hot (weeks) off the back of Sons Of The Forest and the Resident Evil 4 remake coming out, we're celebrating your bestest best, most favourite survival games this month. Your votes have been counted and tallied, and your accompanying words of praise and affection matched accordingly. But which game has survived to make it to the top of the pile? Come and find out as we count down your 25 favourite survival games of all time.
]]>Guides work is a very strange beast, and one that we don't talk about as often as we maybe should. By its nature, we here in guidestown can feel a bit isolated from the rest of RPS. Our guides aren't very visible to our regular readers. No one hops onto a website like this and says to themselves, "Well now! I wonder what guides have been written today that I can spend my time reading through!". The vast majority of people who read our guides come straight from a Google search into something specific like "Can I romance Yennefer and Triss at the same time?" (spoiler alert: you can, but it may not end well for you).
Because we operate so much behind the scenes, it's easy to miss some of the amazing stuff that the team did in guidestown this year. It ain't easy, writing a walkthrough or how-to that's useful for the reader while simultaneously appeasing those nebulous and mercurial SEO gods. But 2022 has been a stonkingly good year for guides, and I'd love to take a little bit of time to shine a light on some of the things we're most proud of having achieved this year - and to toast what will hopefully be another smashing year for guides in 2023!
]]>Some games are just December games. When the air turns biting, I hear their siren song in my bones. They Are Billions. Frostpunk. Phoenix Point. Factorio. None of them are exactly what you would call a Christmas-y game. In fact, they're all pretty bleak and threatening in tone. But they're also amazingly comforting.
Just imagine: sitting down in your favourite chair, electric heat pad on your back, cat on your lap, mug of hot chocolate or coffee by your side. Legions of undead roiling at the gates, trying to break through your cosy little town's defences. Ahhhhh. It's Christmas.
]]>Like a lot of people over Christmas, New Year, and the following months, I chose to ignore everything and everyone to play Project Zomboid. The early access zombie survival game received a huge update just in time for the holidays, transforming the game. But for some people, it might not be enough. For those who want more, Zomboid has been in early access on Steam for over nine years now, and it has a healthy mod scene thriving amidst the undead.
]]>Want to know how to cook in Project Zomboid? In Project Zomboid, food is actually rather easy to come across at first. Houses are stocked with cans, tins, and boxes of imperishable goods, so there's seemingly no need to panic. You might even start to relax as you stare proudly at your huge pile of goods. Then, it all comes crashing down. The supplies dwindle down, fresh food starts to rot, your character becomes bored of monotonous tinned tuna, and suddenly you’re facing a stomach bug and feeling sad. Fortunately, that’s nothing a bit of cooking can’t fix.
Below, we’ll cover everything you need to know about cooking in Project Zomboid, including how to cook and a full list of every Project Zomboid cooking recipe.
]]>Want to know how to play multiplayer in Project Zomboid? The latest Project Zomboid update introduced multiplayer servers to the game, along with a range of other improvements and overhauls to various systems. If you want to jump into the zombie apocalypse with other people, we’ve got you covered.
Below, we’ll cover everything you need to know to play multiplayer in Project Zomboid, including how to host and join open multiplayer servers and how to play in co-op with your friends.
]]>Want to know where to find guns in Project Zomboid? Guns are extremely loud in Project Zomboid, making them very dangerous weapons - both to yourself and the zombies around you. However, if you like to live dangerously and the classic zombie apocalypse fantasy of firing your pistol into hordes of the undead as they clamber through the windows is just too tempting for you, then you’ll want to know where to find guns in Project Zomboid.
Below, we’ll cover everything you need to know to find guns in Project Zomboid, including potential spawn locations for guns and ammo, as well as some important pointers for using guns and how to get better accuracy in Project Zomboid.
]]>Want to know how to repair cars in Project Zomboid? Many cars are ruined in Project Zomboid, with broken components making them impossible to drive. Fortunately, the mechanics skill lets you tinker with vehicles, allowing you to repair cars and change parts to get them running again.
Below, we’ll cover everything you need to know about repairing cars in Project Zomboid, including how to replace parts and how to level up your mechanics skill.
]]>Want to know how to find gas in Project Zomboid? After finding a car in Project Zomboid, you might be eager to drive off into the sunset (or deeper into the apocalypse). However, there are plenty of obstacles that you might face when trying to get a car running. Firstly, you might not find a key, meaning you’ll need to know how to hotwire a car in Project Zomboid. Even after hotwiring your vehicle, you might discover that the gas tank is empty.
Below, we’ll cover everything you need to know to find gas in Project Zomboid, including how to siphon gas from other cars and how to use a fuel pump.
]]>Want to know how to hotwire a car in Project Zomboid? Cars litter the streets in Project Zomboid, but that doesn't mean you can just hop inside a vehicle and start driving. You can drive any car that's in good condition, but you'll need to find some way to start the engine before going for a drive. Fortunately, that doesn't mean you'll need to waste time looking for a key.
Below, we'll cover everything you need to know to hotwire a car in Project Zomboid, so that you can use any car that you find without hunting for a key.
]]>Looking for information on the Project Zomboid helicopter? If you just heard a helicopter flying overhead in Project Zomboid, you might feel very confused. There aren’t NPCs in Zomboid (right now) and working cars are hard enough to find. Unfortunately, you can’t see or pilot this helicopter yourself, but it can have a major impact on your world and potentially lead to deadly scenarios.
If you’ve heard the chopper and want to know what all the buzz is about, look no further. Below, we’ll explain everything you need to know about the Project Zomboid helicopter and other world events that can occur during a save.
]]>I’ve always entertained the idea of an apocalypse. I mean, zombies are definitely scary, but it’d be a cool fantasy to play out. Over the years, I’ve even formed my own little plan. Loot some local houses and then set up a base in the fire station on my street. They’ve got electric gates and metal fences to guard the perimeter, a renewable power source thanks to a wind turbine on the roof, and a really handy watchtower. I thought 11 years of The Walking Dead would’ve prepared me fairly well and I fancied my chances. So, I made myself in Project Zomboid. It turns out, everything I learned from The Walking Dead was useless.
]]>Looking for the Project Zomboid TV schedule? When the apocalypse begins, your first instinct might be to get a weapon. Or, maybe you choose to scavenge supplies and stockpile food. You don’t usually gravitate towards the TV. Civilization is crumbling around you, so there are probably plenty of other ways to spend your time preparing for the undead hordes. In Project Zomboid, things are a little different. The TV is a valuable means of learning new information that you should use while you can. Before long, channels will stop broadcasting and then the power will shut off, leaving you in eerie darkness.
This guide will cover everything you need to know about the TV in Project Zomboid, including the TV schedule, what skills you can learn, and which channel you need to watch.
]]>Looking for the best character builds in Project Zomboid? Before you dive into the world of Project Zomboid and start surviving the apocalypse, you need to make your character. The character creation menu can look quite daunting at first, but don’t worry. In this guide, we’ll talk you through the character creation process step-by-step and cover some of the best character builds in Project Zomboid so that you can get off to a great start in the apocalypse.
]]>Want to know how to fortify a base in Project Zomboid? If you want to survive days, weeks, or maybe even months in Project Zomboid, you’ll need a base. Much more than just a place to call home, bases provide storage space for your stockpiled goods and safety from bad weather and passing hordes. Unfortunately, sometimes the undead follow you home and will start banging on the windows and doors. This can turn dangerous very fast and could lead to your base getting overrun. In a worst-case scenario, the unprepared might even get an infection and become a zombie themselves.
In this guide, we break down everything you need to find and fortify a base in Project Zomboid and also explain how you can build your own base from scratch. As we walk you through the tools and materials you might need, we recommend using the Project Zomboid map project to find your character and help track down possible spawn locations nearby.
]]>Want to know more about infections in Project Zomboid? In a world filled with zombies, infection is a word that sparks fear in even the bravest of people. Project Zomboid has plenty of ways for you to get ill and yes, even turn into a zombie. While infections can be life-threatening (in some cases, they spell guaranteed death), others aren’t so troublesome. In this guide, we’ll break down everything you need to know about infections in Project Zomboid, while also covering various types of illnesses and injuries that you can get while trying to survive the apocalypse.
]]>Looking for a Project Zomboid beginners guide? You might tell yourself “Oh, I could survive in a zombie apocalypse.” Some might even occasionally wish for one. Project Zomboid is a hardcore zombie survival sim that lets you live the apocalypse in extreme detail, and you’ll quickly realise how difficult it would really be. One cut is all it takes to start the downward spiral towards death. Honestly, that’s all Project Zomboid is. Lots and lots of death. As the game makes explicitly clear when you start a new save, this is how you died.
Hopefully, we can help fend death off for as long as possible. Below, we’ve got 10 beginners tips that you need to know when playing Project Zomboid. We cover everything from those very first moments to setting up a base and finding a car. By the time we’re done, you should be much more confident that you can survive in the world of Project Zomboid. For a while, at least.
]]>There's never been a better time to get into survival games on PC, as the recent revival of the genre means Steam is now awash in some truly great games, both in early access and in full release. There are more arriving every year, too, which is why we've done the hard work for you and ranked the very best survival games to dive into today. Fair warning - there are some early access games on this list, which mean they might be a little janky early on. Give them the time they deserve, though, and you'll find they often blossom into some truly great games over subsequent updates. We've only included the very best and most complete-feeling survival games on this list, though, so you can rest assured that every game here will leave you hungry for more. It's by no means exhaustive, but it should give you a nice selection of wolf-taming, base-building, carrot-picking action to choose from.
]]>To this day, the jaunty static of the opening jingle to Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town brings me back to a simpler time. Summer evenings spent hunched over my Game Boy SP, a pane of glass between me and nature’s suburban bounty as I tilled my little squares of land, pet my happy little chickens, and bribed a town’s worth of reticent heartthrobs into falling for my little blonde avatar, Pepper, with an onslaught of ores, animal products, and various culinary delights (but never cucumbers, ya’ gummy-mouthed fish-man).
Harvest Moon was about as wholesome as wholesome gets, my first videogame love, but as the days turned to years, we grew apart. Since then, I’ve filled the hole in my heart with the usual suspects, (Stardew Valley, Rune Factory, and so on) until there was only one thing left to do: make my own Harvest Moon. And so began my ongoing personal quest to turn every game I own that is unfortunate enough to not be Harvest Moon into the farming simulation game they were always meant to be. Here, in true naturalist fashion, I present my field notes in the hope that we may go on to tame this new frontier together.
]]>The Indie Stone's Project Zomboid has been in early access since before early access was a thing. This ambitious zombie survival sandbox has been steadily growing for seven years now, and today it got one of its largest and most game-changing updates yet. Build 39 adds vehicles to the zombopocalypse for the first time, and while that may not sound too amazing on paper the entire game has been effectively rebuilt to support them.
]]>There is only one game I ever purchased on Desura and it was Project Zomboid, way back in 2011. This cool little indie isometric game strove to bring a Romero-esque slow zombie apocalypse to life by mixing survival skills, community management, close quarters combat, exploration, mental health, and a lot of good moaning sounds. It was a project I was backing but also getting in on the ground floor for, as I watched the developers list off exciting features they hoped to introduce, and work alongside the gaming community. Project Zomboid finally hit Steam Early Access in 2013... and it has been stuck there ever since.
But stuck isn't the right word for it. Or at least I'm hoping it isn't.
]]>No. Let's not be ridiculous. But there are so many examples of bad survival games that it’s important to remember the good ones. So that’s what we are doing on the latest RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. We're breaking stones over the heads of rubbish survival games, but cooking, salting and eating the delicious ones. Adam wraps himself up in The Long Dark but reluctantly sets Project Zomboid on fire to stay warm. Matt gets sea sickness from Subnautica but wants to swim again anyway. And Brendan freedives into Subnautica too, in an attempt to escape from all the mediocre survival games set on red planets.
]]>I'm not sure when - or if, or how - Project Zomboid [official site] will ever be finished, as developers The Indie Stone are forever finding new things to add to their open-world zombie survival sandbox. Simulating a world with thousands of characters, players and NPCs, can be a mighty deep rabbit world. DayZ has gotten lost down that hole at times, but Zomboid has at least seemed to be heading towards a finished game.
The next big addition will be a 'Creative Mode' which makes creating your own levels far less of a pain in the bum, and will let players do it together online.
]]>Mid-way through Rezzed, I decided that somebody must have cloned Dean Hall. The DayZ creator was everywhere. One minute he was talking about the most frightening moment of his life - hanging off the side of Everest, I hear - and the next he was playing games on the showfloor. If he wasn't admiring Maia with an excited twinkle in his eye, he was telling interested parties about how much he digs Project Zomboid. The man loves games and since he has so many interesting things to say about them, we should be thankful that he enjoys talking about them quite as much as he does. One panel involved The Indie Stone folk and Hall talking about zombies. They offer a defence of the oft-maligned enemy and it's often compelling. Behold.
]]>What are you doing this weekend? I'll be doing what I always do: travelling to Wales to watch a roller derby match, and playing a multiplayer survival game in a world populated by zombies. No, for once the latter doesn't mean DayZ, but Project Zomboid. The long-in-alpha isometric RPG recently released a new beta-for-the-alpha, which adds multiplayer and is downloadable via Steam.
]]>Scene: The RPS chatroom earlier this morning.
Graham: I tried playing Rust and didn't really click with it. It feels earlier even than DayZ. John: Another interesting sounding game ruined by the presence of awful other people. Graham: Haha! Do you play Project Zomboid at all? It's singleplayer. John W: I haven't for a very long time. Adam S: I played Zomboid a couple of weeks ago - still feels too empty for my liking. I end up surviving for half a day and then running around attracting as many zombies as possible just to make something happen.
Good news for Adam and bad news for John then: about an hour later, Project Zomboid's developers revealed they had multiplayer up and working. They've demonstrated their ability to spy on our conversations with three videos posted on the Zomboid blog.
]]>If you've ever invested time in a level editor, there's a good chance you've started looking around your environment and considered how you might re-create it in a game. If you've ever invested time in a piece of zombie fiction, there's a good chance you've started looking around your environment and considered how you might survive an attack by the walking dead. The Project Zomboid Map Editor lets you explore both fascinations by enabling you to create your own home, office, or other environment, and port it into the alpha-developed isometric zombie survival RPG.
]]>Project Zomboid is up on Steam Early Access now. Project Zomboid is a zombie survival RPG with a grim tone, and it has been in development and paid-alpha for ages.
That's it. That's the news. It was in the title. I'm always a little wary, though, of posting things like this, which are just straight-up, matter-of-fact pieces of information about a thing you can now buy in a new place. So to prove that I'm a hard-hitting journalist, I reached out to Will Porter over the weekend to ask him about the game's launch into Early Access.
]]>Everything has a horde mode. Just the other day I accidentally set my microwave to horde mode, and when I returned from a pre-dinner poo I was overwhelmed by burritos. They were deliciously angry. I tried to phone the police for help, but in the stramash I accidentally switched my phone to horde mode as well. There were burritos and phones everywhere. I've sealed the kitchen up, but the intoxicating aroma of pico de gallo wafting through my house is driving me mad, and when someone texts me all the phones go off. In other news, did you know that isometric zombie survival game Project Zomboid has just updated with a "Last Stand" mode? It puts you in a house in the woods against all the zombies. Like I said: everything has a horde mode.
]]>The saga of Steam Greenlight has, thus far, been packed with unexpected surprises, whiplash-inducing twists, and sudden bursts of lava-like sensuality. Unfortunately, hardly any of it has been related to actual, you know, games. Instead, Greenlight itself and its (in some cases, not-so-well-explained) policies have hogged the spotlight, with Valve doing its best to tweak and modify the system as it goes along. Now, though, the first batch of community-tested, Valve-approved games is getting its chance to shine. Also, one of them is Half-Life.
]]>The Project Zomboid session at Rezzed was right at the beginning of the first day and yet it still managed to be extremely busy. Despite the (approximately) seven million people in attendance, if there's even the slightest chance that one person reading this didn't see the people of The Indie Stone talking about 'How (not) to make a game', I suggest you do so now. With Will Porter guiding the journey from the safety of a podium, the team talk about the origins of the game, copying Notch, living on beans and bread, and a series of extremely unfortunate events. There's plenty of humour but also memories of robbery, death and the internet being a bastard. Then, for good measure, a trailer for the next version of the game.
]]>Here's the first sentence: Project Zomboid is great. The sandbox zombie survival game is one of the most intelligent and interesting indie projects out there, and reports like this one from John should make you pay attention. More importantly: "This is how you died" should tell you what you need to know about the mood of this somber excellence. If you've not had a look at this game yet - and you can get access to it from the site right here - then you owe it to yourself to take a look. Anyway, to news, and this update, which explains how the animation system is being overhauled for the new build. Techie stuff, and not that interesting to everyone, I suspect. But the treat is at the end. Indie Stone say this: "The next build, R, should (fingers crossed) be released in around two days time – Lemmy is currently fixing the wheelie bin issue and a few save bugs that have cropped up with the changes. The new animation system will be present in the R build, as well as a tweaked approach to combat." A video details the animation changes below, while Zomboid fans just have to sit back and wait for a fresh build.
]]>Released when I was distracted by something that wasn't the internet over the weekend, Deadly 30 is a side-scrolling game of zombie killing, home building and exploration. More killing than building, granted, but while each of the 30 days that must be survived allow for scavenging, and the discovery and recruitment of other survivors, the nights are given over to barricade building and defense, as the hordes of dead knock on the doors and windows, possibly asking to borrow some sugar or tea. Judging by the trailer below, there's not a great deal of depth to the construction side of things so hopefully the exploration is a little more fleshed out. Fleshy enough for a zombie to feast on.
]]>Project Zomboid developers The Indie Stone aren't have-and-have-not types. They're more egalitarian in their views, and have just released a newly updated public version of the Project Zomboid alpha for everyone. This is actually a test-build of the public build that's being worked on, with a full, working release incoming in 'a week or so' - that'll have story-based content reinstated and a working launcher. As such this is a somewhat crippled version of the game, as the lengthy list of troubles you can expect demonstrates, but they're releasing it in the knowledge that a) you know this to be the case, and b) zombies!
]]>It's been a while since we looked in on Project Zomboid, the disaster-prone survival RPG that, fingers crossed, now hopefully seems to be back on an even keel. During their time hiding and rebuilding, devs The Indie Stone have given the game "a radical engine overhaul," a new AI system and assorted extra bits. The latest new feature on show is carpentry, which sounds like a minor, dull thing on paper, but in practice you can see just how crucial erecting ruddy great pieces of wood all over the place is to defending yourself against hungry deadheads. Also, there's a new lighting system on the cards. Cos light is also quite handy for the whole not being dead thing. Unless you're an earthworm, in which case a lack of light is probably more useful.
]]>We already mentioned this briefly in The Sunday Papers, but really it deserves its own post - both because of how flat-out tragic the situation is, and because a vocal subset of the online response to it has been repellent. To summarise: The Indie Stone, developers of Project Zomboid (as yet unreleased, but playable builds are offered to anyone who pre-orders) suffered a break-in over the weekend, with the thief making off with two of their laptops. One of these laptops contained the current and in-development code for the game and future updates. The other laptop contained the only backups of the latest code.
Needless to say, the team - just four guys making them game themselves, and funding it solely via pre-order money - are distraught, apologetic and enormously self-recriminatory. There's a statement from PZ's writer Will Porter here, but the long and short of it is that, while the game will continue, clearly it's going to delay the next update. The finished game has never been given a release date, but the community has come to expect a regular trickle of new builds and features. The current build is still online and running however, and I'm assured the game's wider integrity is not compromised. All will be well again very soon.
]]>The Indie Stone have announced that the first update for Project Zomboid is now available for download. And that’s not all! They’ve also answered some questions regarding Steam availability and the frequency and girth of future updates. If you’ve already pre-purchased the game and have access to the in development version, the update is available now. The free demo, however, will not be updated so if you want to see the changes in action, it’s time to hand over the clams. Fortunately, that just got easier because the game is now available through Desura. Not Steam though. Not yet.
]]>Here's a spot of good news for the world's unluckiest indie developer, The Indie Stone: It's looking as though Project Zomboid - their really very good zombie survival game - may be coming to Steam. Using the same technology that brought the news that TF2 was going free, keen eyes on our forum have spotted the Magical Box Thing that says what's being added soon listing Project Zomboid as a retail product. Which is fabbo, because it deserves to be played, and those poor bastards deserve some luck. So just give your best guesses as to how this will go spectacularly wrong. (Cheers to Will and SilverSilence.)
]]>And thus continued the saga of sadness known as poor Project Zomboid. Over the weekend, developer The Indie Stone removed the game from their website after they discovered that pirates had developed a version that can update itself. This means trouble. Here are some words that they said in a blog post:
"These ‘auto updating’ versions of the game could screw us completely. We have a cloud based distribution model, where the files are copied all over the world and are served to players on request, which means we are charged money for people downloading the game."
]]>Project Zomboid, darling of Reddit and attractor of impressive calamities, has its early alpha tech demo build in the hands of players, and the reaction has been very positive. We grabbed hold of one half of development team The Indie Stone, Andy "Binky" Hodgetts and Chris "Lemmy" Simpson, and demanded they tell us how it's all been, how it came about in the first place, and what will be happening next. I am obliged to mention that the other two members of the team are Nick "Nickenstein" Cowen and Marina "Mash" Siu-Chong, along with Will Porter writing and Zach Beever making the music. But I ignored them. Read on...
]]>The Indie Stone's calamitous path has finally brought it to a place where Project Zomboid is available to play as a cut-down alpha. Those who have pre-ordered the game (and more recently, those who have bought their other games to get a PZ pre-order) will by now have received an email with the link and password. Those who haven't can pick up one of the older games and get access immediately. Is it something you should be interested in? I've had a play of it, and tell you below.
]]>The Indie Stone, creators of upcoming apocalypse RPG Project Zomboid, have been barred from selling Project Zomboid by Google Checkout. This seems egregiously unfair, but part of the big G's reason for this smackdown is that they're asking money for something that doesn't yet exist. Indie Stone, for whom this is now the second time they've been denied a big pile of money which they claim to desperately need to fund Zomboid's development, have devised a possible way around this.
Now, they're asking you to buy games that do exist - which will be accompanied by a 'free' copy of Zomboid once it is available. Proceeds from this trio of games will fund Zomboid's development, presuming that cash doesn't also get locked away from them. What are these games? Ah, that's the thing...
]]>Are you an indie developer who's set up to receive money without going through either Paypal or Google Checkout? How do you fancy helping The Indie Stone, who couldn't be having more bad luck and misfortune in the run up to the release of Project Zomboid if they all fell down drains and their trousers caught fire. The last disaster was when they had their money frozen by Google. The latest madness to happen to the fledgling indie studio is an email from Paypal announcing that they're closing their account because of "bad customer experiences", none of which The Indie Stone has ever heard of, nor has been proven by Paypal. The developers, planning to release the demo for Zomboid in only three days, now have accounts with both companies either frozen or closing (with their funds unobtainable) despite neither company offering any helpful explanation. They need help.
]]>Poor old Indie Stone. In their attempts to self-fund the development of their new game, Project Zomboid, they aren't having much luck. A couple of months back Paypal froze their account, leading to their adding in a Google Checkout button. Paypal eventually fixed the error and gave them their money, but a lot of people chose to pre-order and donate to the project via Google's alternative in the meantime. About 80% of their funds, in fact. Which have now been frozen without explanation by Google, and without any obvious way to get at their money. Which puts the team in a very difficult place.
]]>Coo lummee, we find ourselves rather looking forward to the accidentally named Project Zomboid from Indie Stone Studios. Sure, there have been too many zombie games lately, but this one captures our imagination, with its combination of Amiga-ish graphics, and the crafting for survival. Also, there's a couple of game footage videos to watch, which give me that, "Oh God, no!" feeling of being overwhelmed by the hungry, hungry former people.
]]>This forthcoming indie, zombie, open-world, browser-based RPG (IZOBRPG?) was a bit of a Twitter sensation the other week, thanks to him what co-wrote Father Ted linking to it, but mean, paranoid rotters that we are on RPS, we decided to hold off posting until there was some footage to accompany the appealing concept. The 3-man team of Britishers behind it, Indie Stone, are funding the game with pre-orders - so let the below be the shells for your shotgun-of-purchase decision-making. Yes.
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