Status and Build History - Project Zomboid (2024)

“Greetings survivor! I’m Spiffo the Community Raccoon!”
“If you want to know the what’s in the upcoming build of Project Zomboid, or look back into the past, you’ve come to the right place!”

Please note: only bigger changes are listed here, for full build-by-build version changelists please visit the PZ Wiki.

For details on public IWBUMS beta testing please go here.

Future Builds:

Not currently in public testing:

1. New animation and combat system.

• Visible backpacks.

• New firearms and melee weapons
• Blood spatter now accumulates on zombies, players and even weapons. Character blood from wounds will be able to spread, and give the player a visual cue that they are bleeding. Visible bandages.

• Identifiable clothing and uniforms on players and zombies.

• Character entertainment/boredom system improved – with in-game CDs and VHS tapes to listen to, and record.

BUILD 37 – IN PUBLIC TESTING

• Lootable Map Items. Maps of urban locations within the Knox Event Exclusion Zone can be found in relevant towns, in particular spawning in gas stations. Current maps you can find cover Muldraugh, West Point, Rosewood and March Ridge.

• Using the new map UI you can zoom with the mouse wheel, add your own notes and a bunch of provided symbols in four different colours – if you have the relevant coloured pens. Annotated maps can be shared with friends and faction members in MP. Vid here.

• You now have access to a new oven/microwave settings UI upon which you can change the temperature, and use the timer dial. Ovens will ‘ding’ when the time is up, microwaves will turn off. Metal in microwaves can cause fire. Some food will become less edible when microwaved, increasing character sadness. Eating food hot/cold will have relevant impact on character happiness/sadness.

BUILD 36 – JANUARY 2016

• Survivor Trading UI. The initial MP iteration of a trading system that will later be expanded on in SP modes. Players can drag and drop items from their main inventory, and faction-owned surroundings, so they can barter with other players, make offers and finalise deals.

• PZ builds now show changelogs on initial boot-up of new builds so survivors don’t have to hunt through Steam or the forums to find out what has changed.

• Player can now move two-tile furniture like signs and paintings around, and also (with the correct tools) deconstruct larger objects into several smaller kit parts that can later be reconstructed. Movable item icons also improved in the UI to make system clearer.

https://youtu.be/yRzFy4VYW8c

• MP Admin improvements. ‘Connected Players’ UI window and associated options. Item Editor options for special server events.

• Small stuff: Electrician starts with radio recipes. New tooltips. Recipes now overwritable to make life easier for modders. ‘Invite Friends UI’ made prettier and more user-friendly. Expanded respawn/forage zones. Trapping nutrition adjusted.

BUILD 35 – DECEMBER 2016

ROSEWOOD, MARCH RIDGE AND ROSEWOOD PRISON COMPLEX

• Visit the new towns of Rosewood and March Ridge, the farmland in-between and the vast Rosewood prison complex.
• New buildings include court house, fire station, shopping areas, new police station, community centre, residential areas and military apartment buildings.
• New profession-based player spawn locations in and around the town of Rosewood
• New map tiles, furniture, decoration and building styles

LOCATION-BASED VOIP IN MP

• Lets you talk directly to your co-op friends, and survivors you meet on MP servers.
• Player voices can be heard when in ‘audible’ distance from other characters on the map.
• VOIP available in ‘Press to Talk’, ‘Voice Activated’ and ‘Listen Only’ flavours, and accessed in the Options menu.

NEW CONSTRUCTION

• Metalwork crafting – weld metal sheets to create metal barricades, or put bars in windows
• Metalwork profession and skills.
• Multiple stage building to combine metalwork and carpentry skills.
• Building now utilises items from inside bags carried by survivor.
• Objects on the map can now be deconstructed to obtain materials if player has correct tools and skills.

MP FACTIONS

• Safehouse UI to claim buildings, change ownership and see connected players
• Formable factions, with a visible four character tag above survivors – should they choose to show it.
• Melee PvP disabled between faction-members

WILDERNESS MAP IMPROVEMENTS

• ‘Tree noise’ to automatically improve/randomise wilderness areas of the map.
• Big trees in forested areas.

RADIO/TV COMMUNITY TRANSLATIONS

• Community Translations of Radio/TV narrative content in French, Polish, Spanish, Russian and Turkish.
• Radio/TV content and timelines now operate in-line with narrative tool WordZed, which has been released to the community.

FOOD AND NUTRITION REVAMP

• Realistic nutritional values that see your character impacted by what he/she eats and their physical activity.
• Visible nutritional information on food items with labels
• Added associated professions and traits

NEW MP ADMIN FRAMEWORK

• Hugely improved player activity log system
• Admin panel to goven players, safehouses etc
• TransactionID savescumming prevention update
• Warning point system
• Admin abilities to check/modify player stats: add/remove XP, change displayed name, heal etc
• Server access level ranks for admin staff
• Ability for admin to easily create non-PvP zones on the map
• Player names decoupled from usernames

SLEEPING REVAMP

• Zombies more attracted to house lighting at night.
• Night Events. Zombie activity can result in safehouse incursions should it be left unsecured while sleeping.
• Alarm clocks and watch alarms are now used to wake up survivors. Tired survivors might wake up late without them.
• Character will struggle to sleep when in pain, so should take painkillers or sleeping pills.
• Anxious characters might wake up early, or even in the middle of the night.
• Quality of sleep now impacted by where player chooses to rest

COMMUNITY REQUEST SPLURGE

• Composting – rotting food can be placed in a crafted composter to create crop fertilizer
• ‘Container’ items weight reduces the more they are used (water bottles, gas cans etc.) and can be combined.
• Pots and bowls fill with water in rain
• Zombies can tear down sheet ropes.
• Wet items dry over time.
• More realistic tea and coffee making (!)
• Paint all interior walls and wooden furniture
• First aid equipment automatically used by First Aid panel
• Smoker trait
• Various other things
• Selected loot container now highlighted

UPDATED UI

• ‘Transfer All’ button when looting
• New tutorials and updated tooltips
• Ability to ‘favourite’ items to highlight them and prevent them from being dropped
• ‘Windows Explorer’ Inventory improvements. Shift selects a sequence of items, Ctrl lets you selected different individual items.

Build 34.23 – May 2016

• Easy to host and join online co-op integrated after great technical work by the guys at General Arcade.
• Sleeping in co-op and MP, plus new server settings editor.
• Updates to: barricading, stoves/campfires, crate movement and smoke bombs.
• Bags now displayed on ground
• Double-sized textures for every sprite in-game and new player models, making the game clearer and more distinct.

• Ham icon looks less like penis.

Build 34 – Feb 2016

• Food revamp, freezers and initial test of nutrition system.
• New C++ line-of-sight and lighting system to improve performance, especially in areas such as the Mall. Lighting updates are no longer interrupted whenever a ‘map chunk’ is loaded, less ‘black fog’ and more uniform room lighting.

Build 33 – Nov 2015

• Full FMOD sound system integrated – allowing for full 3D sound, ambient noises, circling helicopter etc.
• Randomized building states while exploring; featuring barricaded houses, survivor corpses, burnt out homes, zombies boarded up into safehouses, profession houses etc.
• New starting scenarios allowing different entry points along the PZ timeline – Initial Infection, The First Week, Six Months Later and Survival. Revamped difficulty ‘character starter’ settings for each.

• Herbalist trait, medicinal herbs, poultices and countryside cures – also revamped poisonous berries/mushrooms.
• Movable furniture – player can pick up items around the map for decorative and survival use in their own safehouse.

• Full radio and TV broadcasting system – providing narrative content during the full breakdown of society over 11 different channels/wavelengths.7046 lines of content overall.

• Broadcast gradually scrambles visible words the further you go from a television set or radio, or outside the house. Zombies attracted to volume of radios and TVs.
• MP player to player communication on different frequencies using both HAM radios and walkie-talkies. Different radios of varying power and frequencies.

Build 32.20 – Aug 2015

• Steam Workshop integrated into PZ’s java framework to allow the current proliferation of user mods.

• Steam servers integrated into MP by our friends at General Arcade and EasyPickins, to allow for more admin control and less cheating. Clients can connect to PZ servers using their Steam accounts, let server admins ban players by Steam ID and allow Steam avatars and profiles pop-up in the ‘players’ list in-game. Dedicated server package made available on Steam.
• New Crafting UI and Guide showing all the recipes your character knows. System also can see and use everything in your own inventory and what’s in arm’s reach of your character.

• New music by the awesome Zach Beever
• Fire extinguishing.
• Health panel overhaul.
• ‘You have one day’ challenge on original 0.1.4 map
• Watermelons no longer fatal

Build 32 – May 2015

• Zombie respawn and migration; zombies are no longer static and dependent on on player proximity. They roam around the map and build up over time. Zombies should not appear in closed off areas that are unreachable from the edge of the map.
  
• Generators added for use once power network fails. Consume fuel, electrify homes, noisy and will slowly poison player if used indoors.
• Electrician and Engineer professions brought into game.
• Molotovs, explosives, smokebomb and noisemaker can be crafted. Those with relevant skills can attach timers, motion-sensors and remote triggers.
• Playable Spiffo-led tutorial finally put into game. Edible dead mouse and ‘press E to cure infection’ become canon.
• Opening Hours and Winter is Coming challenges added.
• Many new items added to flesh out the world: perfume bottle, dog leash, crayons, comic book, pinecones, washing-up liquid, mop, alarm-clock etc.
• Blindcoder’s random character mod added to game

Build 31 – March 2015

• New Professions System. Professions can provide supplementary skill points, which directly tie into the learning speed of relevant skills as well as starting skill levels. Further diversifies character creation, and to make professions feel like a character’s pre-zombies life has genuine impact on their survival experience.
• Character trait rewrite. Profession only speeds up levelling in relevant skills due to a range of traits that act as Hobbies. Many new traits added, some cheesable ones removed.
• Challenge modes improved and added – ‘A Really CD DA’ included in play options.
• Keys, locks and padlocks added to game. Player carries keyring.
• Ability to clean away blood.
• Bitten player character turning into zombies after death reintegrated into game.

Build 30 – Dec 2014

• New Health system featuring new injuries, treatments and crafting. Infections, burns, fractures, lodged bullets and glass shards all included. First Aid skill added to help you cope.
• Erosion integrated into the game and substantially improved after TurboTuTone joining the team – showing seasonal change, weather effects, the reclamation of nature and post-apocalyptic decay. 11 types of tree with different seasonal variations, 11 types of bush, 17 types of plant, wall vines and cracks in walls.
• Weather system tied to real world Kentucky patterns. (So around 12 days of snowfall a year).

• ‘Zombie clumping’ improved. Instead of single zombies dotted about (though this will still happen to an extent) zombies are constantly be attracted to each other’s groans and movements. Player is much more likely to run into a pack of 5-6 zombies rather than see over 5-6 zombies dotted around a particular area.
• Pickling of farmed produce. Improved growing times and ‘agricultural maintenance’ required for crops.
• Endurance recoded to model general physical exertion over the course of a day, rather than an occasional arbitrary timer.
• Sandbox presets added: Starting erosion, Character stat decrease, XP multiplier etc.
• ‘Couch’ split-screen co-op returns to the game. Two or more players on the same screen, and better pad controls. Playable online.
• Shaders replaced to make game appear more moody and atmospheric.

Build 29 – Oct 2014

• New sounds. Ambient noises (screams, dogs, owls etc), new crafting noises (sawing, food-slicing etc), footsteps and many more.
• Foraging skill coded in to allow for more wilderness survival. Berries, mushrooms, worms etc can be found in woodland areas alongside materials for…
• New survivalist crafting recipes. Log walls, stone hammers etc.
• Melee skills revamped. Blunt and blade given three sub skills – Guard, Maintenance and Accuracy.

Build 28 – Sept 2014

• Semi-3D sound.
• Ranged weapon overhaul. Range, critical chances, recoil delay and more specialist uses for pistol, shotgun and rifle. Physical timing and panic now taken into account. Aim skill added to game.
• Weapon modifications. Scopes, slings, lasers, red dots, clips etc.
• Zombie corpses can be burnt.
• Zombie population management system introduced. If a zone is unseen for a few hours, then the next time a player sees the area will respawn some zombies and some loot inside the containers. Server owners can now setup a loot respawn, and dabble in zombie respawn management.
• New crafting recipes: beds, bookcases, shelving etc.
• Paintable signage and ability to paint signs on walls.

Build 27 – May 2014

• Multiplayer and public server list released.
• World filler sprites to make world feel less empty.
• Animal trapping. Snares, cages, bird traps, mouse traps in-game that can be baited with food.
• Mall and Movie Theater added to West Point.

• New containers/bags added to game.
• Ability to drag and move corpses.
• Propane tanks
• 3D models introduced for player and zombies.

Build 26 – March/April 2014

• Fishing – fishing rods and crafted variants, fish populations in different bodies of water, seasonal fish varieties etc.

• New cooking system. New recipes, hunger reduction, cooking procedure, cooking skills, impact of rotten ingredients and change in moodlets upon consumption.

Build 25 – Feb 2014

• Multiplayer introduced into testing. Admin tools. Soft reset. Safety system.
• Multi-threading improvements and light source revamp.
• Custom maps support integrated into game.
• Thunder and lightning
• Weapon repair system
• Increased difficulty and horde sizes
• Improved gamepad support

Steam release – Nov 2013

• West Point location added to game.
• New items, recipes, animations and specific locational looting on map.
• Lighting quality features.
• Mouse zoom.