New Project Zomboid update improves map, fixes spawns, and makes games longer

There are parts of Knox Country where I feel perfectly at home. The gas station at Fallas Lake is one of my mainstay bases. I also have a house picked out in Muldraugh - as long-term shelters go, it's far from optimal, but it's where I lived during my first ever game, and you always cherish your first ever game of Project Zomboid. Largely, though, The Indie Stone's post apocalyptic world feels dangerous and inscrutable. That, of course, is the idea, but navigating Knox - and sharing points of interest with other Zomboid players - can sometimes be frustratingly difficult. The new Project Zomboid update is here to help. Marking another vital overhaul to unstable build 42, it adds extra map details, fixes that immersion-spoiling issue with zombie spawns, and makes default games last longer.

Build 42 has already revolutionized Project Zomboid, first with the new animal husbandry system and basement locations, and more recently with the addition of ragdoll animations and revised equations for zombie spawns. Already one of the best survival games on PC, while Zomboid has a long future ahead of it (we're still anticipating the return of NPCs, and searching for answers on why the outbreak began in the first place), the latest update marks another crucial step in its early-access journey.

First up, streets in Knox Country now have names. That might sound like a minor detail, but when multiplayer finally officially returns, and when you're trying to clue in fellow players to good loot or base locations, this is going to be a game-changer. "It's on West Street" is a lot easier than "you come out of the Gas2Go, turn left, walk past the Spiffo's…" and so on.

Fire and smoke visuals have been improved (although the mechanics for fire and smoke remain the same) and there are new animations for zombies when they lunge towards you or stagger left or right. Speaking of the undead, the new heat map introduced in the last Zomboid update has been causing some issues whereby inexplicable numbers of Zombs spawn at deserted locations - you might have arrived at a deserted farm house, or some cabin deep in the forest, only to find it unjustifiably crawling with walking corpses. The Indie Stone says this issue has been fixed.

But be warned: unless you manually alter your settings, after the new Zomboid update, each day in Knox Country is going to be longer. Until now, when you played in the apocalypse sandbox mode, each day lasted 60 real-world minutes by default. Now, it's 90 minutes. On the plus side, that gives you some extra time to collect water and find a generator before the utilities all go kaput. But making it to four weeks might take a little more strain…

You can also now sneak even with heavily damaged feet (although your movement will be much slower) and an annoying bug that made it hard to target crawling zombies has been squashed. And there's more good news: if you haven't played Zomboid before, it's 33% off right now, meaning you'll pay $13.39 / £11.22. You can get it here.

Otherwise, try some of the other best zombie games, or maybe the best indie games on PC today.

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