Project Zomboid is a runner up for one of the most popular zombie survival games to date. With its unique simulator-esque gameplay, the game immerses the player in a decaying world filled with man-eating monsters where they are tasked with a simple yet difficult job: keep yourself alive. Only recently, however, has Project Zomboid finally allowed players to play with each other!
While playing by yourself may be enjoyable, everything’s better with friends! Even watching paint dry can be enjoyable with a buddy. Unfortunately, playing with friends can be somewhat difficult, as Project Zomboid is a very unique game when it comes to multiplayer. Today, we’re going to go over all the ways you and your pals can coordinate and join each other in-game. Let’s begin.
Joining Servers
The first way you can play with your friends is very similar to Minecraft.
In the main menu, select the Join option.
Select the Internet tab.
Select a server and decide on a server profile
Press the Join Server button
After you’ve done that, a server list should pop up showcasing all of the servers available. Each server has its own name, description, and information regarding the specifications of the server. Here, you can see whether a server is whitelisted, your ping, the amount of players, and the version of the server.
Keep in mind that when using the Steam client, you are limited to Steam servers unless you use the server’s public IP on the right column. To do that, you’re going to need an IP address of an existing online server. If the server is password-protected, you’ll need to input the proper password into the Server Password field.
For more information regarding joining servers, check out our full guide on joining servers using steam or the game itself here.
Hosting Servers
Technically, Project Zomboid allows you to host your very own server straight from the main menu. This will open a window where you can choose the server’s name and specify the amount of RAM you would like to allocate to it. If you’d like to edit it further, click Manage Setting next to Server Name.
Choose Create new Settings
Adjust basic settings to your liking
Start the server
If you would like, you can tweak the server settings to your preference in the default files path C:\Users\[your PC username]\Zomboid\Server.
If your computer is incapable of hosting a server, or you just rather have a more optimized experience overall, a great option is rented server hosting. With companies like Apex Hosting, you can pay a monthly/quarterly fee to have a server set up and managed for you, allowing you to skip all of the difficult technical know-how required to get started. With the use of an easy to learn control panel and the assistance of 24/7 live technical support, Apex Hosting is a great option for you to get started with your friends today.
Steam UI
You can also join friends by using the Steam UI. By opening up your in-game Ui by pressing Shift+Tab, you can invite any player to your lobby like you would with any other Steam game. As long as the server is public, it should be fairly simple. You can also do this in game by opening the pause menu and then choosing Invite Friends.
Conclusion
That’s all there is to it! Playing Project Zomboid multiplayer is actually pretty intuitive and well made once you get the hang of it. I particularly like how the whitelisting works with server specific usernames, compared to Minecraft which uses account usernames. Overall, it really feels like Project Zomboid was meant to be played in multiplayer. That isn’t to say there’s no point to solo play, but everything is better with friends! With that being said, I hope this blog helped you, and have a great day!
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