I remember playing Project Zomboid — a game we first covered in 2011 — almost a decade ago and really liking it. A slow-paced zombie survival sim, it gave players a chance to scrounge their way around a town trying to stay alive, searching for food and supplies, while at every corner zombies were trying to eat your face.
I then got on with my life and forgot all about it, save occasionally trying to remember the name of “that cool isometric zombie game” a couple of times in conversation, so it was a wonderful surprise to see this week that the game, while still technically not in a state of final release, has just dropped an update that its creators say “feels more a sequel than a patch update”.
They’re not lying. This is a game transformed, with the graphics and audio given a huge boost, along with a number of big gameplay tweaks and additions like a new map, character creator, combat system, zombie AI and look I’m not going to mention everything you’re going to have to see their blog post about it for that.
To really show you how far this game has come in a decade, below is what it looked like in 2011:
And here’s what it looks like in 2021:
OK, so it doesn’t look that different at first glance, but the devil really is in the details, loads of little things that have smoothed the experience out and not only made it look better but play better as well. The animation and character designs are the first place to look more closely at, but even the way lighting and obscured objects are revealed in the isometric viewpoint as well.
Project Zomboid is still technically in Early Access on Steam, though it’s also on Good Old Games as well.
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