One of the things that indie survival game Project Zomboid does phenomenally well is tension, proving you don’t need a first-person perspective or ray-traced lighting effects to scare someone. The latest Project Zomboid update, version 41.71, adds a new dynamic music system that will dial up the tension during your ultimately futile fights against Kentucky’s ravenous dead.
With update 41.71, Project Zomboid gets a new ‘action music system.’ Developer The Indie Stone says that rather than simply switching tracks during combat, you’ll now hear a reactive musical score that can “increase and decrease in intensity during combat and other dramatic moments.” So from now on, the score will crank up the tension as more zombies head your way when you’re waylaid by a couple stragglers behind a liquor store or out in a field.
The patch adds some more nice additions and tweaks, too: there’s a “compilation” of new hair types, plus an option for stubble in the hair and beard sections of the character creator – terrific for that 1950s comic strip tough guy look.
The Indie Stone has also added new items and updated some 3D models. 3D items are now displayed as textures, rather than models – the developer says this means they’ll slide around less when the player is moving, and it’ll help with framerates in situations “when there are 100 nails on the ground, for example.”
The developer has also made some tweaks to Project Zomboid’s multiplayer mode that should improve the experience there. Vehicle physics have been removed from the server side, which should “address some of the vehicular weirdness sometimes seen online”. You’ll still see physics when interacting with vehicles, but those will be handled strictly client-side from now on, which should help keep things in sync.
The full patch notes have all the details, which include some important update for Project Zomboid modders.
