Build 42 of Project Zomboid overhauls crafting and aims to give PZ the foundations of a more feature-rich late-game, let multiplayer games run further into the post-apocalypse, and expands the scope and depth of multiple systems game-wide.

So what’s the topline?

• A heavily evolved Knox Country, expanding and refreshing the game’s Kentucky setting with new and reworked areas that feel more lived-in, more natural, and more believable as places that existed long before everything went wrong
• Deeper crafting and building systems, giving players more ways to create, maintain, and improve their long-term survival setup, from short-term fixes to more ambitious attempts at self-sufficiency
• Animals and animal husbandry, adding new layers to wilderness survival, farming, food production, and the fragile dream of building something that lasts
• Improved lighting and atmosphere, making homes, towns, forests, roads, and the dark corners between them feel more grounded, readable, and dangerous
• Expanded lore and environmental storytelling, offering more texture to the world before, during, and after everything went extremely sideways
• Quality-of-life improvements and system updates across inventory, interactions, UI, and more, supporting one of the broadest updates in Project Zomboid’s long development history

And what does all this look like?

Want to dip a little deeper into all this? Read on!

Lighting Overhaul

The lighting system has been completely overhauled, letting light bounce off walls and leak through windows, doors and other spaces more realistically.

This allows for more natural ambient light effects, and a complete lighting pass that has been made to reflect 1990’s era-bulbs, with streetlights and exterior lighting especially looking better than ever before. Nights are darker, blacker, and more beautiful now – and also a lot more dangerous.

Ragdolls

Zombies now ragdoll when hit by vehicles, gunfire, or explosive damage.  Throwing a bomb into a horde has never looked so good!

A BIGGER WORLD TO EXPLORE

EXISTING LOCALES GLOWUP

Many existing towns have received significant upgrades – most notably Riverside, West Point, Rosewood, Fallas Lake, Muldraugh, Ekron and Dixie.

In these locations all buildings and houses are now unique, there is consistent landscaping between buildings, unique tiles have been created where necessary, and each town has been given its own idiosyncratic style.

This aspect of Build 42 has delivered 1,400 unique buildings, and 20,000 new tiles – building massively on Build 41’s previously total of 15,000. So there’s more and more unique houses, businesses, and landmarks to loot, burn, and die in!

This more stringent and creative approach to Project Zomboid map-making will next be applied to our remaining towns, and then to our city of Louisville.

BASEMENTS AND SKYSCRAPERS

Technical improvements have allowed us to greatly exceed our map’s previous height limits, allowing basements and very tall buildings.

Underground, as well as basements, you can find bunkers, panic rooms and “Wayne’s World” style sets underneath suitable houses – via a combination of unique and generated locations that change on each run.

If you’d rather head upstairs, you can find up to 32 zombie-filled floors in Louisville skyscrapers. This vertical expansion holds new secrets to discover or unique base locations for the intrepid explorer.

NEW TOWNS

Knox Country is expanding with three towns – Ekron, Irvington, and Brandenburg – plus numerous smaller map locations, alongside a full redesign of existing areas to make the Exclusion Zone feel more real, authentic and lived in.

On top of this you’ll be able to find a Wild West tourist town, a docked steamboat, a race track, a huge lakeside guesthouse, an abandoned sanatorium, and far more besides.

Meanwhile out on the street some vehicles now have location-specific liveries, like local police departments, sponsored racecars, or business-related work vans – each loaded with its own special and specific loot.

The map surface area, meanwhile, has doubled.

(NEARLY) ENDLESS MAP

The edges of the map now have huge expanses of randomised wilderness, allowing players to leave civilization behind and live in the forest if they wish.

INTERIOR DETAILS

The states of interior doors and lights are now randomized, demanding many more tactical decisions when exploring, and some houses you find may already be looted and trashed by others.

You can also now remove the grime from your walls. Keep Knox tidy!

ANIMALS AND FARMING

ANIMALS ARE AWESOME!

Find, hunt, and/or care for a variety of domestic and wild animals including sheep, chickens, pigs, cows, rats, rabbits, and deer which can be used for items like meat, leather, eggs, manure, and milk.

Wild animals can be tracked by their paw prints and droppings. Hunting is now a viable survival technique – and one required for some advanced crafting recipes when society is long-gone.

RACCOONS

Our beloved mascots finally appear in-game – though Spiffo will be upset if you make a hat out of his cousin.

SEASONAL FARMING AND NEW CROPS

Farming is more immersive with advanced crop farming and new crops like Corn, Peas, and Tobacco, and many herbs like Rosemary. Crops now take a realistic amount of time to grow, with optimal months to plant them, as well as ones where they are doomed to failure.

In addition, a variety of farming implements have been added, for tasks like pulling stumps or scything grass to clear land or feed your animals.

FISHING REVAMP

Fishing is now more fun with many new mechanics and a more interactive experience. The more fish in the area, the more splashes on the water’s surface.

Fish react to noise too – loud noises will frighten them away for a time. You can also craft chum to attract fish to an area.

ZOMBIE DISTRIBUTION

Our new zombie spawn map system makes hordes more urban-focused and natural feeling. A “Voronoi Noise” driven backend adds more believable randomness to zombie distribution.

SEED SAVING

World seeds now determine the locations of some generated elements like basements, zombie distribution, and the wilderness outside of the map’s borders. These values can be saved and shared to make locations more consistent for different save files if desired.

GAME MODE REVAMP

NEW GAME MODES

Our game modes have been revamped. In addition to our now “canon” Apocalypse mode, find a faster progressing game in Outbreak, a cozier time in Rising, or an unforgiving hellscape in Extinction.

NEW CHALLENGES

Classics like “A Really CD DA” and “Winter is Coming” return with updates, while two new Challenges are available to conquer: start at the top of a skyscraper in “Top of the World”, or battle a world full of sprinting zombies in “28 Seconds Later”.

EXPANDED SANDBOX OPTIONS

Spawn in an Exclusion Zone town of your choice in Custom Sandbox. Tweak new features like animals and basements to your liking, and find more nuanced options for loot spawning and zombie behavior.  Set up and play the type of Project Zomboid experience you desire!

CRAFTING & BUILDING

BETTER INPUTS AND OUTPUTS

Crafting inputs are now selectable. Crafting recipes can now be searched by their input or output items, and players have the choice to specify ingredients used when available.

Craft multiple items in one go, or use intelligent right-click shortcuts when all conditions are met to craft.

WEAPON PARTS/HEADS ETC.

Our new melee weapon part system allows some weapons to have separate Handle and Head Conditions tracked separately, as well as the Sharpness of any attached blade.

With some weapons, the Head can fall off. Some broken weapons are still usable as crude wooden clubs, and a Broken Spear can still be used as a weaker weapon.

NEW SKILLS AND OUTPUTS

Build 42 brings a wide variety of new crafting methods including masonry, carving, knapping, and blacksmithing, and attendant occupations and skills.

There’s also clay and stone walls, new wooden walls and constructions, food preservation methods, drying racks, shelters, and even more!

WORKSTATIONS

A Workstation system interfaces with crafting to create items, with a variety of different surfaces and devices that can be constructed and/or found throughout the world.

OCCUPATION AND TRAIT REVAMP

Occupations and traits have been heavily rebalanced for fairer, more fun gameplay, providing more skill levels starting out.

A new Rancher occupation lets your care for animals better, and traits like Artisan, Target Shooter, and Tinkerer have been added.

FIREARMS

AIMING SYSTEM

A new firearm aiming system has been introduced, allowing for precise aiming and location targeting on zeds.  This system rewards players who take careful aim, while still reflecting the state of the character, being affected by panic, stress, and aiming skills.

REVAMPED GUNS

Firearms have been revamped, with new 3D models, animations, muzzle effects, ammunition types, and SFX.

New guns like the L92 Lever Action and JS-3T Tactical Shotgun have been added, and firearm-related loot distribution has been re-worked to more accurately reflect Knox Country’s storied firearm history.

NEW ITEMS

CLOTHING

Stuff your closet with hundreds of new clothing items including Halloween masks, SWAT uniforms, eccentric headwear, and dozens of new craftable armour items.

Deck your character out in the latest fashions, or armor up for some serious combat.  All this, and mannequins can be used to store and quickly swap to your favorite outfits!

CONTAINERS

Express your uniqueness with dozens of new containers for carrying your loot. Find backpacks covered in stickers, trauma bags, ALICE rigs, gun cases, craftable satchels, and more.

Then, why not camp in style with a variety of new tents, as well as sleeping bags, which can be packed away and attached to your backpack?

3D ITEM PLACEMENT

Inventory items are now placeable at any position within a tile via a 3D placement system, while you can also hang your guns or crafted melee weapons on the wall of your choosing.

So arrange those cute stuffed animals on your bed before your inevitable death: decorate your base just how you want, anywhere from a hardcore survival bunker to a cozy warm hideaway. Ultimately futile, but fun while it lasts…

PACK INTO CARTONS

Pack items like canned food, boxes of nails, and ammo into a single item for more efficient storage and stacking, or find helpful cartons of goodies while looting.

LIQUID MIXING

A new liquid transfer system allows advanced mixtures and more storage options for all your fluids. Ever wanted to make a bucket of whiskey mixed with bleach? Now you can!

AUDIO

DYNAMIC MUSIC

The apocalypse has never sounded so good thanks to our dynamic music system.

The Project Zomboid OST by Zach Beever has been reworked by our friends at Arrival into a new adaptive exploration soundtrack. Based on in-game events, a music intensity parameter is adjusted and the soundtrack adjusts accordingly as well.

CHARACTER VOCALS

Suffer in silence no longer! As well as coughing, sneezing, and breathing hard, you can now hear your character’s “hey!”s and “psst!”s.

These vocal audio cues from your character reinforce your character’s status, whether carrying a heavy load, feeling sad about the state of the world, or being wounded by a nasty zed.

NEW MENUS AND SCREENS

MOD MANAGER

Build 42 brings an official mod manager! Mods can be searched and favourited, have their load order set, and much more information about each mod is displayed, such as dependencies and which mods are incompatible with each other. You can also save Mod Presets and share them through your clipboard.

REFRESHED MENUS

UI improvements make our UI scale better on large resolution monitors, while our map selection screen now has a beautiful Knox Country map from our Art Director Ayrton to better plan out your starting location.  

MULTIPLAYER SCREENS

The server browser has been vastly improved with options to show or hide modded, full, or empty servers, and to sort servers by Ping and Player Count.

CONTROLLER IMPROVEMENTS

Gamepads are no longer hard-wired and are now customisable – any action can be bound to any button or axis, and stored in a Gamepad preset.

Each preset is stored in its own file and can be shared. Actions can even be activated by portions of a 2D axis; Sneak, Walk, Run, or Spring could be on one analogue stick, with each speed activated the more you move the stick.

MOAR LORE

New environmental storytelling and lore in the form of readable flyers and newspapers, book titles, vehicle liveries, TV and radio stations, annotated maps, random world stories, and hundreds of new decorative items.

There are many, many interesting new stories and mysteries to be uncovered by players roaming the Exclusion Zone.

MULTIPLAYER FEATURES

Multiplayer is better and fairer than ever before. The inventory system – item transfers, container interactions, and loot distribution – has been moved server side, as have all TimedActions. The client runs the visuals only: actions themselves execute on the server.

A full anti-cheat suite (Speed, Hit, NoClip, Inventory, etc.) has been enabled on top of this, dozens of remote player state desyncs have been fixed, while the NetworkState system has been reworked to prevent stuck-animation bugs.

… AND MORE!

Thousands of bug fixes, quality of life changes, networking improvements and other things too numerous to list!

The Indie Stone

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The Centralised Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something. You can also find us on Bluesky, on our Discord, Reddit and Forums.