The team at The Indie Stone has outlined its 2022 roadmap for Project Zomboid, which will potentially include the introduction of NPCs into the game.
Project Zomboid has exploded in popularity recently with the recent release of build 41 of the game. And The Indie Stone doesn’t seem to plan on slowing down any time soon, as its 2022 roadmap for the game goes all the way up to build 48. However, the roadmap only details what players can expect from the next two builds, build 42 and 43.
The team is currently working on polishing up build 41 at the moment, which was a huge undertaking. Build 42 will primarily focus on two things. Firstly, The Indie Stone is going to look at balancing various aspects of the game, with a big focus on traits, professions, and skills. Tweaking the numbers for those aspects of the game will help make more builds viable.
The second part of build 42 is the expansion of the tech tree. This is to improve the multiplayer experience, so servers are less pressured to wipe or have loot respawning. The Indie Stone also plans to introduce crafting surfaces. There will be certain recipes that will require a specific table or piece of equipment, to add an extra level to the crafting.
Build 43 is where The Indie Stone plans to introduce NPCs, in whatever form that might take. The post notes that it hasn’t decided on what kind of NPCs it wants to add to the game just yet. Earlier builds did include animal NPCs, but its aware that fans want human NPCs added into the game. The Indie Stone do also say that it has a Rimworld-like priority and jobs system planned, as well as personality systems, procedural storytelling systems, vehicle driving systems, and more planned too. Builds 44 through 48 also seem to focus on NPCs.
The Indie Stone also made a point that if it isn’t confident in a particular aspect of what it’s working on, it won’t ship with the latest build until it’s ready. No specific dates were given for when we can expect any of the builds, only that the next set of builds will be coming in 2022.
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