The Indie Stone’s fantastic isometric survival horror game challenges you to make it as far as possible before inevitably falling victim to the hostile world around them.
Despite somewhat basic graphics reminiscent of an early PS2 game, Project Zomboid prides itself on being one of if not the most realistic zombie survival games on the market.
The devs have produced a very challenging game – but along the way, they may have lost sight of some essential Quality of Life features.
Luckily mods are here to save the day and make PZ even more enjoyable.
Once you have the basics of survival like food, water, and a base, you have to start thinking about morale – and nothing is better to unwind than listening to good music.
Tsar’s Modding Company has us covered with True Music – a nifty mod that allows players to add their favorite tunes to the game and play them on different devices.
These include a boombox, a vinyl record player, and even cassette players on cars.
Just keep an eye out for zombies. They’ll be drawn to the sound!
You better have a safe base if you want to sit down and relax with some lo-fi.
Even the most experienced survivors find themselves with a safehouse full of zombies from time to time.
You may survive the zombie invasion with great skill and a solid arsenal, but that’s where your real troubles begin – after all, your apartment is now filled to the brim with rotting human flesh.
Carrying out over a dozen zombie corpses is a massive pain in the rear, so why don’t you Just Throw Them Out The Window?
This mod by Co lets you quickly throw every body out of an open (read: broken) window in just a few clicks, saving you a ton of time.
You’ll still have to scrub all the blood away yourself, though.
Reading is one of the main ways you can improve your character in Project Zomboid (and in real life), but there are many books, and it can be hard to keep track of what you’ve already read.
Creator PePePePePeil offers us a simple solution with the Has Been Read mod, which marks every unread and half-read book with an informative icon.
And the mod is highly customizable through Mod Options. For example, you can choose to extend the mod’s effects to CDs and VHS tapes.
Building an extensive skill book collection is a great way to make sure you can climb back up the ranks if your current character meets an unfortunate fate.
Once you’ve successfully gathered a fair amount of books, it can be a hassle to look through them due to the disorganized titles.
This mod by Mecha and Gaspard Savoreux renames every skill book, so all texts related to a specific discipline like Carpentry or Tailoring start with that word, making alphabetical sorting efficient.
Since Dark Souls revolutionized the roguelike genre, many games provide a way to recover your progress whenever your character dies – but not Project Zomboid.
PZ’s permadeath means your best bet is leaving some facilities or stashes behind for whoever comes after you, but skills need to be leveled back up the hard way – and you’ll need to learn all of those recipes again.
Creator Chuckleberry Finn helps you regain your full power with the Skill Recovery Journal, a custom book where you can record your current wisdom for future generations.
With it, your successor can “git gud” much quicker.
You have to take the time to craft the journal and write in it, but it’ll help any new characters get up to speed in no time, so it’s definitely worth it.
I appreciate the commitment Project Zomboid has to realism and detail, but I’ve always been against tedious and time-consuming menial tasks, and I’m not afraid to cheat a little to avoid them.
50% Wood Weight by Kechna makes hauling large amounts of planks and logs back to your base much easier by reducing its weight to 50%. This lets you carry double the logs so you can get back to your carpentry projects faster.
In many cases, a competent cheat mod like Dude Person’s Cheat Menu can be the ultimate Quality of Life mod that lets you solve problems on the spot.
Want to try out some new weapons but can’t spare the ammunition? Cheat Menu has infinite ammo.
Are you about to die, but you really can’t bear the thought of starting from zero? Better use Cheat Menu’s God Mode instead of rage quitting the game forever!
This mod also lets you spawn zombies and items, edit your skills, terraform your environment, and much more.
If used sparingly, it can improve your QoL without breaking the game.
Next up, we have an invaluable tool for the industrious carpenter and metalworker.
Improved Build Menu by Vaileasys makes crafting easier by polishing the build screen. It categorizes recipes better, adds missing item descriptions, and changes some names for consistency.
What I like the most about it is the amount of helpful information packed into the modded recipe tooltips. I can see how my inventory compares to the items needed, and container recipes show their capacity.
Once you get this, you won’t ever want to go back.
Vanilla Project Zomboid isn’t fantastic at sharing info with the player.
One troublesome example is character traits, which the game describes with simple sentences like “faster running speed” or “needs to eat more regularly” without revealing the actual numbers.
How “Underweight” can you get before it becomes a problem?
And how much faster will being “Athletic” make you?
These things matter a lot when you’re min-maxing.
Champygnakx’s More Description for Traits solves the issue by simply showing you the facts with numbers and percentages described in detail.
Getting a map of the surrounding area is critical for survival – but you only unlock its full potential by dutifully jotting down what you find during exploration.
With a well-marked map, you can avoid ugly surprises and return to bountiful locations whenever you need to.
The base game offers 16 markers to make annotations on your map, including several arrows, an apple to signify food, and a skull for danger – but the great cartographers among you need more.
Creators Lexx and Wipe bring us the Extra Map Symbols mod, featuring a staggering 65 new symbols. You will never have to “get creative” with your marks – just pick a new one for every new finding!
Most people hate having to keep an eye on it and curse the heavens if their weapon breaks at the wrong time, but it does add a fair bit of realism and challenge.
Weapon Condition Indicator is a great mod that’ll help you keep an eye on your weapon’s durability.
It adds a visible durability bar to the background of your weapons in the hotbar or primary hand. The square will go from full and green to nearly empty and red before the weapon breaks and you can no longer equip it.
Anyone can forget to check their weapon’s condition in the inventory menu, but you’d have to be blind not to notice with this mod installed.
A well-organized inventory is an invaluable tool for any survivor – but Project Zombie doesn’t help with its broad item categories.
Better Sorting by ChobitsCrazy thoroughly expands item categorization by splitting “item” into medical, crafting, tool, cleaning, cooking, and many other tags.
This way, you can find your consumables and ingredients much faster and get back to killing zombies and taking their loot.
I’m a good cook, but I suck at baking. The reason?
I’m just not wired to follow recipes correctly.
For this same reason, I hate it when crafting systems in games force me to actually remember recipes.
It’s incredibly annoying when I have to hunt for ingredients but can’t keep track of my progress without checking the recipe and my inventory.
Craft Helper by B1n0m adds a new right-click crafting menu to streamline gathering and crafting.
It gives you immediate access to every recipe requiring the right-clicked ingredient. This recipe conveniently tells you what else you need and how much you already have.
If you’ve ever tried to go from drinking no water to keeping yourself hydrated on the regular, you know how hard it can be to keep track of your own needs without reminders.
The same is true for your (many) necessities in Project Zomboid.
Are you hungry? Thirsty? How about bored?
Modder ATPHHe will keep you informed with their Minimal Display Bars, which shows you a different bar for every one of your needs on the HUD.
It’s easy to configure vertical or horizontal bars and place them wherever you find most convenient.
You can also hide any bar you don’t need without removing the rest.
Nelson Chitty is a Venezuelan expat living in Argentina. He’s a writer and translator passionate about history and foreign cultures. His ideal weekend is spent between leisurely playing games of Civilization VI and looking for the next seinen anime to marathon.
