Project Zomboid is a game that I’ve been playing, on and off, for over a decade, and it’s also a title that I greatly admire because of The Indie Stone’s commitment to systems-driven gameplay and, you know, zombies. I love me a good zombie game, and I don’t mind admitting it.
Recently, Project Zomboid came back onto my radar when I decided that I was going to expand Rogueliker to cover games that have a similar spirit but that are more flexible or open-ended in terms of their gameplay structure.
When thinking about what non-roguelike games I might focus on, The Indie Stone’s sandbox simulator was right at the top of the list, and I was delighted when the studio agreed to answer some of my questions.
That being so, here is my Q&A with Christian Allen, Design Director, The Indie Stone, who was gracious enough to take some time out of his day to answer my questions while sharing some really nice details along the way. Enjoy!
RL: Let’s start with the basics: what is Project Zomboid, in a nutshell?
CA: In a nutshell, Project Zomboid is an open-world isometric survival game, set during a zombie apocalypse in 1990s Kentucky. The zombie apocalypse has finally come; now how will YOU deal with it?
I went back and checked, and the first time I covered the game was all the way back in 2013, the year you launched. You’ve been around for a while, then, and you’ve spent all of that time in Early Access. I don’t expect a full timeline or anything like that, but what has your somewhat unique journey been like?
Project Zomboid was started by a team of four developers from the UK and Canada, who set out to create their vision of the ideal zombie survival game. Starting with a small prototype that they built initially called “Dead Territory,” they eventually self-released the first alpha version of Project Zomboid out to the world in 2011, and it slowly grew in popularity, releasing onto Steam in 2013 as part of their new Greenlight program.
Over the years, the game’s community grew, with new contributors coming on, community-requested features being implemented, and a vibrant modding scene growing around the game as it continued to expand in scope.
In 2021, multiplayer was fully added to the game, and the player base exploded. I joined the project last year, coming on as the Design Director, focusing on the player experience, game balance, and reducing friction on player-facing systems.
Now, in 2026, we’ve just released the newest stable update to the game, Build 42, which brings new systems, visual upgrades, and depth to an already expansive survival game. We’re still a small international team, completely independent, working together remotely across several time zones to make the best zombie survival game that we want to play.
The latest update is a big one. How has the reaction been to the glow-up?
The response from the community has been great, and watching our peak player count almost double just in the past few weeks was obviously very motivating for the team! Folks really seem to like the hard work the art team put in, and the new lighting system has been very well received.
It’s also great seeing players exploring the expanded crafting, animal systems, and of course ragdolling a few thousand zeds.
Since we use an open beta development pipeline, our core player base has been extensively playing and providing feedback on various elements for the past year and a half. This is instrumental in allowing us to tweak, balance, and fix bugs heading into a broader rollout to the Early Access community, so we owe a lot to those players who dealt with plenty of frustrations as we worked to iron out the biggest wrinkles, and we’ll continue to monitor feedback as we move forward.
The game has a brilliant catchphrase. Tell me about how that came to be!
The story of exactly how “This is how you died,” came about is still steeped in Project Zomboid lore since it’s very early days, and we’ll save that story for another time, but it does serve as a guiding principle both for the player and the development of the game, where players can craft their own tale of a normal person facing the existential and impending doom of the zombie apocalypse as they see fit, whether going out in a blaze of glory of shotgun blasts and molotov fire, or quietly settling into a cozy retirement spot.
Project Zomboid has a reputation for generating emergent scenarios. What are the most important things you do as developers to facilitate these moments?
From a development standpoint, it means that you are creating systems for players to use and overcome, not designing moments for them to encounter. This means that the team needs to think systemically, and consider how the game systems interact with each other, while providing tools to the player to deal with these systems.
We aren’t trying to build a puzzle that the player needs to solve in a specific way; we are crafting world systems and providing tools for the player to use to come up with their own solutions and styles of play.
You’re not a roguelite by any means, but you do use proc-gen elements. Tell me about how you use these mechanics to keep things fresh.
While the world is handcrafted by our talented map team, what populates that world provides extensive replayability via controlled randomisation of the placement and density of things like zeds, loot, items, animals, weather, and much, much more, so that every Project Zomboid playthrough is unique.
By also providing access to the “levers” that govern these systems, we can also give players the ability to customise their experience to their liking, whether brutally difficult or cosy and quiet, and everything in between, which we also utilise for differing game modes based on the desired player experience.
We do use some procgen systems, for example: the ‘edges’ of the world now transition into a procedurally generated wilderness, allowing players to head out into uncharted territory if they choose to do so (assuming they can survive long enough to do so).
What’s the thing about the game and its current state that you’re currently enjoying the most?
For me, one of the most fascinating things to watch now that longer playthroughs are possible with the current build moving to a stable state is watching people forming actual communities and economies, especially in “Role-Play” servers, where people are staying in character.
I’ve seen people create hotels where they charge food for access, with armed guards patrolling the perimeter to keep guests safe, roadside restaurants where people are trading handcrafted meals for gasoline to run their generator, and blacksmith-focused players who are crafting entire armouries for their chosen faction to conquer the map.
Personally, I love building out bases in places I would never get to live in the real world. Whether it be a glass office building, a hospital, or my current abode in a survivalist’s bunker (they didn’t survive, but I’m glad they built it for me to find), I love fortifying, stocking, and decorating my own apocalypse palace. But of course, the standards set by the community for the most unique and well-thought-out bases are quite high; I don’t think I can ever compete with some of the elaborate creations out there.
What’s next for Project Zomboid? Any plans to leave Early Access and head to consoles?
The team still has a road ahead of us to bring the project to the 1.0 release and deliver on the features set forth by the founders of the company, and so that is our primary focus. There is still a lot of work to do, and we look forward to continuing to gather feedback from the community and polish the player experience while remaining faithful to the original vision established by Chris, Andy, Marina, and Will when they started the project.
As far as other platforms and versions, we are obviously interested in bringing Project Zomboid to the widest audience possible, but for now those specific plans will have to remain in the secured vault underneath our secret development bunker.
Project Zomboid is out now on PC (Lin, Mac, Win) via Steam.
