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. 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 gunplay: green/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 glass and related injuries.

Garage doors may be opened / closed and shake when hit.

New Challenge maps: Film Set and Kingsmouth Vacation Island

3D Store Mannequins – can be dressed however you like

Working washing machines and driers

Server-side saving: MP save system now in a server-side database. Offline SP-side, also means no more lost cars via irl power outages.

New game cursor

New level-up sound, and tweaked levelling system.

Faint isometric aiming cursor that shows where you’re aiming in iso space.

New loot balance and loot balance system: houses and stores now have loot in the containers you would expect from real life – and not in a jumble.

Two tiers of loot priority – allowing for more realistic ‘filler’ loot amidst the more valuable gameplay items.

Many, many general fixes including remedies for: floating cars, farming issues, inaudible house alarms, erosion shrubs blocking vehicles, desensitized survivors being panicked by crawlers and much more.

VISIBLE BACKPACKS!

Build 41 and is the first (biggest) step in our overall plan to bring more life, variety and activity to the Knox Event. From this build onwards we will be adding in (and improving) our existing AI work layer-by-layer.

Build 42, for example, will use the power of the Build 41 animations build to introduce animals and wildlife.

We will also be releasing AnimZed, our animation tool, to the community during the IWBUMS beta process – meaning that modders will receive a huge boost in what they can create within PZ.

WHAT NEXT?

During the IWBUMS beta process for Build 41 the following features will be re-enabled and/or improved.

Multiplayer – alongside significant MP Networking improvements

Improved visual fidelity of survivor character and zombies

Further optimization to improve performance on both low and high end systems.

Sprinter Zeds

Fire visuals

Tutorial

Zombie skin appearance/decay

Ability to repair ripped clothing

WHAT ELSE?

Due to the extent of engine and gameplay changes in Build 41, existing savegames will NOT be compatible.

At the time of the full build release, for those wishing to continue playing on old saves, a Steam beta branch of the current Build 40 will be available – and will continue to be available at all times.

This will be known as ‘PZ Classic’, and will also allow people to continue to play with their favourite mods until such a time as they are updated.

Click here for a sneak vision into the future beyond build 41!