How to play

You wake up in a town with a bat, a bottle of water and a sandwich. The bars at the bottom right are your health, water and food. Everything else you find.

What kills you

• The dead. They hear shots, running and engines, and see farther by day than by night. Walking past is often safer than fighting.
• Thirst and hunger. The blue and the orange bar. Empty, they eat your health; above half, your health comes back by itself.
• Bleeding. A hit can open a wound. A bandage closes it.
• Infection. A bite can infect you. It grows by itself and kills in twenty minutes. Antibiotics cure it.
• Other survivors. Killing is allowed everywhere but in the safe zone.

The dead you should know

• Walkers are slow and many. Runners are fast.
• Armoured dead and fat bloaters leave you alone until you hurt them.
• Armoured: only a head shot kills. They always leave ammunition.
• Bloaters burst when they die or reach you, and infect everyone within 6 m. Kill them from a distance.
• Screamers live only in the infected zones and the boss horde. One that sees you screams: every zombie near comes, and more after them. Kill it before it sees you.
• A boss lives somewhere inside every infected zone and leads the roaming horde. Nothing shows where: search. 6,000 health, no head-shot kill, a crate of the best loot.

When you die

• Everything you carry stays with your body for 15 minutes. Anyone can take it.
• You come back with a starter kit. The whole kit is handed out once every 20 minutes; in between you get only a bat.
• A team with the spawn-point upgrade can respawn at its base.

Where to go

• Shops, gun stores, hospitals and police stations hold crates. Bags lie in the streets. A place you found stays on your map.
• The trader at the Sandy Shores Airfield is a safe zone: buy, sell, store things in your locker, take missions, use the workbench.
• Red circles on the map are infected zones: many dead, screamers, a boss somewhere inside, the best loot.
• A supply drop and a boss horde are announced on everyone's map now and then. The horde is shown as an area: it is somewhere inside.
• No zombie spawns on a base's ground, and any that wander in are gone. Only a night siege brings them in.

Staying unseen

• Sneak (Ctrl, or press the left stick): silent at a walk, and the dead see you from barely more than half as far. The ear and the eye on the HUD show how far you are heard and seen.
• Sneaking with a melee weapon, a blow to a zombie with its back to you kills it outright.
• A light in your hand at night is seen from 35 m. A suppressor keeps a shot to 25 m for the dead.
• Other survivors see a mark on their map where you shoot (400 m), where something explodes (800 m) and where your car drives (150 m).

Getting on

• XP from kills, discoveries, missions and supply drops. A perk every five levels, up to level 30.
• Teams of up to four: names on the map, no friendly fire, team chat and voice, shared XP. A zombie kill pays every teammate within 50 m half its XP, and the killer more the bigger the team near: 25% with one teammate, 37.5% with two, 50% with three.
• A team can claim one of nine compounds: a lockable gate, a stash, upgrades. A base nobody visits for 3 days is freed; a breaching charge opens another team's gates; at night the dead lay siege to bases with survivors in them.
• Places in the survivor menu sends where you stand, or your waypoint, to your team (it appears on their maps), to one survivor (they choose to mark it) or to everyone (coordinates in chat).
• Bounties: cash on a survivor's head, posted at the trader, collected by whoever kills them.
• A car's trunk (K at the boot) carries what you take home.
• Craft bandages anywhere, ammunition and kits at a workbench, hot meals at a campfire.
• A key kit makes a found car yours: it is saved with fuel and place, and nobody else can drive it.

Levels and perks

XP for kills, found places, missions and supply drops. Level 30 is the top (43,500 XP).

Also unlocked: 3 A second water bottle in your starter kit. 5 A flashlight in your starter kit. 8 A rucksack in your starter kit. 10 The trader sells supplies: medicine, ration packs, repair kits, a rucksack, a car battery, a pistol, a vest. 12 A pistol and 12 rounds in your starter kit. 17 Antibiotics in your starter kit. 20 The trader sells arms: a field pack, a pump shotgun, a carbine rifle, a pistol suppressor. 24 A field pack instead of the rucksack in your starter kit.

Keyboard and mouse

Controller

Commands