Before we dive into this latest Zeek Feed, just a heads-up: this episode contains quite a few spoilers. If you’d rather discover everything fresh when 1.0 drops, now’s the time to click away!

Alright, with that out of the way let’s jump in.

We’ve been working harder than ever since the last Zeek Feed, and we’ve got plenty to show and discuss. Let’s start with Infection.

Our goal was to make the Zeeks feel like more of a threat and to overhaul how infection works in HumanitZ. With the new character progression and skills system, losing a survivor should now feel more impactful than ever before.

🧬Infection System Overhaul 🧟

We’ve introduced a brand-new infection system.

Now, each time you get hit by a Zeek, you’ll take on a small amount of infection. This will slowly build up over time. Once your infection meter hits 10%, it will display on your player HUD so you can keep track of it.

The infection meter ranges from 0 to 100 but beware: a single bite adds 50 to that meter, so things can go bad fast. If the meter hits 100, you’re dead. 💀 (when you die you will lose all accrued XP.)

🧪 How to Combat Infection

Clothing and armor now help reduce infection damage.

You can still craft an infection treatment like before, but it now reduces infection by 50% and is tied to an unlocked skill.

We’ve also added a new homebrew medicine that can be crafted at the chemistry station. It suppresses infection gradually, a sort of poor man's version of the full infection treatment and this isn't locked behind a skill you just need the resources to craft it.

So while the system is kind of similar to before, you can manage infection and prevent death. It is now more dangerous and requires more careful planning. So far feedback from all our testers on this has been overwhelmingly positive!

🎯 Why We Made the Change

Our vision for HumanitZ has always been to make zombies something you genuinely fear. Being careless or making poor decisions about when to run or fight should now have real consequences and with this change to the infection system you can really feel it now.
Lets continue with making the game harder…If you want to?

We’ve added a new feature to HumanitZ: Afflictions.

These are optional modifiers you can choose before starting a game to make survival even more challenging. For example:

ACL – Reduces movement speed

Bad Back – Lowers carry weight

Fumble – Slows reload speed

Afflictions are perfect for roleplay scenarios or for survivors who want to push themselves to the absolute limit by stacking an extra challenge on top of max difficulty.

On the topic of difficulty and settings we have revamped the Settings Menu and created some Predefined Game Settings to get you up and running.. Whether you're a brand new player or a seasoned veteran we’ve got you covered. 

We also have new improved custom settings allowing more options like setting loot rarity of different item types.

In the last Zeek Feed, we shared some early images of the new Custom Characters, and progress has been moving along really well since then.

We’ve added new clothing that can become worn, dirty, or blood-covered over time, plus new beards and hairstyles that look far better than our earlier versions. We’re really pleased with how it’s all shaping up!

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be working on new player faces and beginning development on the female character.
💥 New Special Ammo Types

We’ve also introduced new ammo types for those who like to customize their firepower:

• Armor Piercing – Punches through armoured enemies.

• Dragon’s Breath – Shotgun rounds set targets on fire

• Shredder (Bleed) Rounds – Causes bleeding damage.

• Hardcast – Heavy impact rounds for larger threats.

• Incendiary – Ignites enemies on impact.

We’ve finally updated Guns and Ammo!

Now, when you load a firearm, the ammo is taken from your inventory and stored directly in the weapon — just like in pretty much every other game out there.

In short: if you load rounds into a gun, drop it, and someone else picks it up, the ammo will still be in the gun. This also accounts for storing the weapon in your pack, a container, and the ammo will stay in the weapon when logging out so no more reloading everything when you hop back in!

We’ve been busy creating new and improved Challenges, along with a cleaner, easier-to-track UI.

These challenges will reward you with the XP you need for the new skill system, helping you unlock those all-important late-game skills!

There is lots of hard work being done on map and level design, lots of locations and towns are getting nice updates so here is a sneak peak on some of the work done so far. Many of these images are from locations still under construction but it's looking really good. We’ve added a Huddson High School, Historical Museum, City Bank and much more.  The whole of Huddson City is having a full make over.

New Hide Grass Building SystemWhen building certain items now the buildable will remove the grass for a cleaner look inside your base, this has been a heavily requested feature and it’s finally coming to the game.

New Zeeks We have added some new zeeks but we won't share all of them as we want to keep them a secret for the full release but here is a sneak peak of the new giant zeek.

While we discuss Zeeks we've made some really good progress on performance and optimization allowing us to increase the amount of zeeks on screen, and with that we've been working hard on the sfx and different hit reacts to make the combat feel that bit more connected. New locked storage unit with juicey building loot

New bus stop signs that fit in the world of Humanitz. Check them out when you find them, they might have some information posted to guide you along the way, hint hint…
Here is a tease of a few new items coming to HumanitZ

Thanks for taking the time to read our latest Zeek Feed. We hope you're as excited as we are for the future of HumanitZ. From here on out, we’ll be bringing you more Zeek Feeds to keep you updated on progress and all the latest info as we move toward 1.0.
Link to all the 1.0 info from the last Zeek Feed: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1766060/view/544490453586674032?l=english

Thank you for your support, Survivors.

Stay safe out there.

HZ Team