Full notes
Full Project Zomboid update
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What changed
- Compatibility
- Gameplay
- Balance
- UI and audio
The public ‘I Will Back Up My Save’ beta for the long-awaited Build 41 is now open for testing by the Project Zomboid community.
HOW?
The IWBUMS beta is accessible to anyone who plays Project Zomboid. Right click Project Zomboid in your Steam library and hit “Properties”. Then, navigate to the betas tab and select the “iwillbackupmysave” branch from the dropdown menu.
Those who test IWBUMS beta builds must be aware that what they’re playing is a work in progress.
IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS - MAKE SURE ALL MODS ARE DISABLED - then please try verifying the steam local cache within those same options. If this doesn't work, try a full uninstall and reinstall (while also deleting or renaming the installation folder as well as your user folder in C:\Users\YourUsername\Zomboid). Sometimes Steam updates can be buggy with big updates.
The beta is put out for public consumption for player feedback and bug reports. Please direct gameplay feedback to our forum beta release thread, and bugs to this section of our forums.
For further details on what IWBUMS testing entails, please check here.
WHAT?
Build 41 is the most fundamental and wide-ranging update that Project Zomboid has ever had. We intend it to be a stable foundation for us to build on for many years ahead. For this reason too,however, we anticipate a fairly long public beta while all the various issues presented to us by community testers are spotlit and remedied. Some key features, primarily MP, are initially disabled in the IWBUMS beta build – and will be turned on during the testing process. Build 41 currently contains:
New gameplay styles: Builder, Brawler and Survivor
More deadly ‘Survivor’ (Survival) gameplay balance – player can be dragged down by horde and feasted upon etc.
New survivor abilities: sitting, sneaking, sprinting, jogging, racking, reloading, climbing, fence-jumping, collapsing and much much more.
New combat, new weapons, new difficulty balance.
New character creation – many, many different new clothing options both on spawn and discoverable in the world as loot or on zombies.
New zombie behaviour: feasting on recent corpses, lolling against walls, falling over fences etc.
Blood system that progressively bloodies bodies and clothing of survivors and zombies
New injury system – movement and combat visibly hampered when injured. Lacerations now possible, an injury state that lies between bites and scratches.
- Improved gunplaygreen/red aiming outline, new guns, improved racking and reloading, increased gun loot spawn.
Zombie Death Scenes – zombies discovered in the situations in which people died. Prayer meetings, sports-viewing parties, survivor zeds wearing backpacks etc.
Situational zombie type/clothing and inventories – cop zeds in police station, firemen zeds in burnt buildings, Chef zeds in restaurant kitchens, bride and groom zeds at a wedding ceremony in church etc.
Clothing protection: different clothing provides different levels of protection from zombie attacks.
Visibly ripped and damaged clothing.
New Sims-style cutaway vision system.
Vehicle handling improvements, resizing and appearance tweaks.
Updated, remastered and improved Kentucky-themed soundtrack. Original music still in rotation, and also accessible through game options.
New SFX: weaponry, zombie moans etc.
New water visuals – including visible flow direction.
New puddle system during heavy rain.
Broken
Source
Changelog.gg summarizes and formats this update. How we read updates.