Project Zomboid is, perhaps the best Zombie Survival game on the market. Perhaps even the best survival game in general.

I'm something of a sucker for zombie survival games, I play quite a lot of them and am disappointed more often than not. I knew of this game for a long time, but thought it was just another one of those failed betas, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Don't let the graphics deceive you, this game is an expertly crafted survival masterpiece.

Project Zomboid is an unbelievably punishing game, and it barely lessens in difficulty as you progress, as only a slight lapse in judgement or a single bout of carelessness will send your character that you've been playing on for hours, days or weeks right into the garbage. I have lost characters that I've spent days on simply because I was hungry and decided to eat an unknowingly poisonous berry that I found while foraging, instead of waiting to get back home and eat some food I had prepared in advance. Or another time where instead of luring a single zombie out into the open to kill it safely, as is tradition for me, I swing the door open and get a quick bite on my hand, sealing my fate.

Zomboid has a number of surprisingly in-depth systems, like their Cooking, Mechanics, Carpentry, Metalworking, Foraging, First Aid, Trapping, and a few others. Each of them has their uses, and become dramatically more useful as you further your skill with them. Go from finding sticks and stones as a forager, to frogs, edible berries and mushrooms. Make poultices with wild plants that you find to help with various ailments. As a low-level mechanic, your car has effectively one life, you bust it up and its useless to you. As you raise your skill by stripping and repairing cars around the world, you can repair your car to good as new with the right materials. As a basic Carpenter and Metalworker, you'll be reserved to only barricading windows against the undead. Break down enough wooden and metal objects and you'll be skilled enough to build your haven in the middle of the woods from nothing but wood and nails.

All being said, Zomboid rewards you for playing how YOU want to play, not how the game wants you to. That's because the game doesn't force you down a specific path, except for the path of death, because you will die... a lot. But every death will teach you a thing or two, and over time you will go from a clueless walking sack of meat to an intelligent and skilled sack of meat.