Project Zomboid has acquired quite a lot of popularity as of late, and the developers at The Indie Stones have just released a new patch.
The update, numbered 41.66, brings significant tweaks to multiplayer, an overhaul for the foraging system, and much more, including a large slew of fixes.
You can read the full patch notes here.
Perhaps even more interesting is a Twitter thread written by developer Chris Simpson, which provides an intriguing outline of how NPCs will work when they’ll finally be implemented.
Then I'm remarrying, marrying or making single people partners, then giving them potentially more kids. We'll do some kind of modelling for same sex relationships before release, but just getting the basics to create familial connections thus far.
— Chris Simpson (@lemmy101) February 23, 2022Then, I assign each household a random house on the map to live with sufficient bedrooms. That becomes their start safehouse.
— Chris Simpson (@lemmy101) February 23, 2022The people away from their home are given the goal of getting back to their loved ones. The people at home will be hiding in their home, perhaps considering fleeing if they are all together.
— Chris Simpson (@lemmy101) February 23, 2022The idea here is for realistic ties between characters to exist. Stepmothers, half brothers, uncles, brother in laws and so on. This will factor into the NPCs stories, giving them existing relationships. We'll mix in out of towners and whatnot to mix it up further.
— Chris Simpson (@lemmy101) February 23, 2022Every character will have a story from the start of the game. Sure we'll probably spawn in new out of towners or randoms when needed, but the survivors of these core families will persist and have events (that they'll hopefully be able to recount to the player) since game start.
— Chris Simpson (@lemmy101) February 23, 2022At the moment, the only living characters in Project Zomboid are the players, while everyone else is already a zombie. The introduction of NPCs has been a hotly anticipated feature among fans, and the system certainly appears to be very deep and potentially quite dynamic.
At the moment, we don’t know when exactly the feature will come, but I’m definitely looking forward to it.
Project Zomboid is available exclusively for PC via Steam and GoG. It’s still in early access and it has been for several years, but it already provides a remarkably polished and extensive experience.
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