In this guide, I’ll take you from a Naked Hunk to a Geared Warrior with a car, surviving the apocalypse with ease and setting up for the long term when water and electricity inevitably run out, all within the first 7 days.
1. Change In-Game Settings
We will start with the in-game setting. And the first thing you need to do is head over to options, Cursor, Aim Outline, and select Any Weapons. This lets you have an obvious highlight of who you’re targeting. Now, I would suggest doing the Tutorial if you haven’t; it’s only a few minutes long and teaches you the very basics, so don’t skip out.
Once you’re done with that and ready to start a game, head on over to Custom Sandbox. Choose ROSEWOOD because this is the best starter town for its useful landmarks, and you can get geared up pretty quickly here. It’s the core of this guide. Use the Project Zomboid Website to zoom in for a better view.
Now, this may look confusing and complicated, but don’t be afraid to tweak these sandbox settings to make the game easier if need be. The biggest setting, if you’re new and learning to play, is Zombie Count. You can set this pretty low, and I might suggest doing it if you’re struggling. After all, this is your solo experience, and who cares if it’s a bit easier? Otherwise, this guide works for default settings or whatever you change it to. Leave everything else by default here.
2. Choosing the Right Build
Choosing your build if you’re completely new can be overwhelming, and it’s hard to navigate all the different traits. So, we’ll keep it simple. We are going to choose the Burglar with just one negative trait, and that is High Thirst. Don’t be intimidated by this negative trait because water is mostly plentiful in every house, and almost every building with a toilet. All you’ll need is a cup or water bottle, or something that holds water in your inventory, and your character will automatically drink, so you won’t really notice this negative perk.
Smoker plus Slow Reader is also a good one, but I find at the start, finding cigarettes and a lighter or matches and seeing negative moodles can be stressful. But this is an alternative and super easy to handle as well. So, Burglar with High Thirst or Burglar with Smoker plus Slow Reader, these are two solid builds to start with. If not, this guide is still very viable without either build I just recommended.
3. Get a Weapon Early On
Find something to fight with and look for a weapon. That can be literally anything, from a frying pan to even an umbrella—whatever you can get your hands on. Try to find something to store water in (Filled Water Source). That can be a water bottle, a pan, or something that can hold water so you can keep it stored and you don’t have to think about drinking.
4. Get to Rosewood
At this point, you have to figure out where you are because our main goal at the start is to get to the firehouse. Now, out of this entire guide, this is the hardest part because you can die a lot. But that’s how you’ll get better because if you fail, it’s still the start and you can easily start over. So, this is absolutely a low-risk, extremely high-reward scenario.
Figure out where you are on the map, and that means heading over to map.projectzomboid.com and making your way over to the Rosewood Firehouse. You might have to fight zombies on the way or lose them along the way.
Now, one thing as you make your way over to the firehouse, pay attention to your moodles. If you start to get tired, take a break and go to safety. You don’t need to get to the firehouse on day one; sometimes you have to backtrack, get food, rest, and make sure you’re ready to fight with energy. People make the mistake of rushing; you don’t have to.
As you make your way to the firehouse, you’ll have to fight. Usually, there are a lot of zombies at the firehouse and even on the way there. Now, you can completely fight them like I do, and that’s because I’m a veteran at this point, and it also teaches you how to fight. Alternatively, you can use the lure method where you simply scream and lead them away from the firehouse.
5. Bulk up in Firehouse
Once you’re in the firehouse, this is where the magic happens and where you level up big time. You’ll be looking for all these items, including a fire axe and full armor. The reason being is they provide scratch and bite defense, giving you a better chance of living if you make a mistake and they get a hold of you. These items provide some of the best stats in-game in that regard, though it comes at a drawback with the armor because you’ll be hot, which means you’ll drink more and get heated, which means your combat will suffer a little, but you’ll be as well-protected as you can be without crafting yet so early in the game.
So, go into this room specifically and find an axe; there is always typically an axe here. Head upstairs and go through the lockers, and you’ll usually find the jacket, boots, fire hat, and pants. If you don’t, check other lockers downstairs, or you’ll find firefighter zombies with the armor you need, and you’ll just simply kill them; they are usually right outside.
There is also a full set of medical supplies in this specific room; make sure you check it out and be aware of stuff you can use like bandages, beta blockers which let you suppress your character freaking out when fighting zombies, and things like disinfectant. And finally, food will be upstairs in the kitchen as well, so you have a good starting base now.
6. Find a Car with Gas and Hotwire it
If you happen to follow my burglar build, this might happen to you. I was able to hotwire one of the cars immediately outside the firehouse, and one of them had a full tank of gas. Now, this won’t always be the case, and there won’t always be gas, but any car you find from here on out, check to see if it has gas. If it does, hotwire that bad boy, and now you’ll have a full vehicle and almost full armor and one of the better weapons. And again, this is at the start of the game.
Now, at this point, we head into our last and important gearing phase. We head to the police station that is next door to the firehouse. This police station comes in with some serious loot that can include a bulletproof vest that helps with more scratch and bite defense, a holster, a fanny pack, and even a backpack or duffel bag of some sort, and of course guns (Get to the police station and highlight backpacks, bulletproof vest, holster, fanny pack).
Head on over slightly north and take the same measured approach to clearing this place and getting inside. Once inside and cleared, head on over to the lockers where you might find everything I highlighted. But I got unlucky in my run for the first time ever and found nothing; this will happen. Of course, the police zombies you’ve killed clearing this place will probably have what you need.
Finally, if you head into this room, there are guns stored, and I usually break down the door with my axe and just grab the guns. But I caution against using guns as they are loud and can get you killed at the start without leveling it. The parking lot is a good place to find cop cars for you to take over if you still haven’t found a car.
At this point, you have all the basic necessities to survive: full armor with great bite and scratch resistance, some of the best weapons, food, hopefully a vehicle, and a base. I’ve used the firehouse as my base in a lot of playthroughs, and it’s a great place to hunker down.
7. Ready to Raid
Now, from here on out, you have quite a few options, and I’ll give you those choices for you to pick to survive for the long term. You need to worry about the water shutting off, and you need to worry about the electricity shutting off and needing a generator and food for the long term. There are several places in Rosewood I like to raid. You can do any of these in any order, but make sure you work towards them.
First, there is the Rosewood Library, go there as reading helps the XP modifier give you more experience when you’re leveling. Carpentry is a big one I like to focus on almost right away because at level 4 you can make these water boxes to collect rainwater. And there is a lot of downtime, so you want to be reading and you want to also watch TV because this gives you direct levels.
8. Hoard Food As Much As You Can
Now, the grocery store is located in the middle of the town and it’s got so much food in both perishable and canned goods. I like to take my car and hoard as much as possible and bring it back to the base. Also, try to take ice chests if you can because you can freeze food, and it will last longer. Keep in mind the earlier you get to this spot, the better, so the produce can be put in a refrigerator and last longer.
At this point, I typically like to find my generator, and this is relatively dangerous because you’ll go from house to house and go through garages. These generators will be in random spots, and you actually want to find two generators: one to power the gas station for when the power goes out (set up gas station video) and another for your home base. Go through garages and take them back home. If you happen to clear to the gas station, take one over there as well, and of course, use the gas station to keep your car fueled. But the generators need to be fueled and placed outside to provide power to your home base and the station itself.
In my playthrough, I got this all done within 7 days, but I’ve done this a lot, and I’m a noob veteran, if that makes sense, as I’ve survived many times to at least my 30 days using this exact method without fail. And if you followed this, you will have lots of food, generators to power, and if you’re leveling up carpentry, you’ll have water for the long term by building up the level 4 water barrels. And technically speaking, you’ll be set up for hundreds of days with this method so far I’ve shown you.
9. Prefer Walking Over Running
For combat, don’t run, walk. Unless you’re about to be boxed in, try to preserve your energy for killing zombies. Walking moves faster than zombies, so there’s no reason to run unless you’re really in trouble. Also, once you see the Endurance moodle, that should be your fire alarm in your head to take it easy because you will die if you keep going and you’ll be too tired. Once this shows up, take a rest by sitting or simply let some time pass, but don’t try to keep fighting much harder with the Endurance moodle up.
My favorite tip that I don’t see a lot of people talk about is to use beta blockers if you find them. At the start of the game, your character is scared poopless of everything, and it makes combat more difficult. Beta blockers block the panic your character has, and it lets you fight zombies more effectively.
10. Craft During the Day, Sleep at Night
Try to do most of your looting and crafting during the day. Maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, sleeping at night, and using your watch alarm if needed to ensure you read and watch TV at the exact times Life and Living programs are on is crucial. This routine gives you a significant boost at the start of the game, especially in different crafting skills, which can make a big difference in your survival.
Even if you die at the start while following some of the tips in this guide, you’ll learn, as I did, how to perfect everything shown eventually. It took me hundreds of hours, so don’t feel bad if it takes you a while to get the hang of it. But hopefully, with this guide, it won’t take you as long.
