42.20: The Big Glow Up

Hi everyone, as previously mentioned Build 42.20 will be coming to the public stable branch this Wednesday, July 29th! For full details on this please check out this announcement blog.

A big new part of this is a HUGE new upgrade to the Knox Event Exclusion Zone – that goes way beyond what you have already played during the Unstable beta.

Our aim? To create a heavily evolved Knox Country that expands and overhauls the game’s Kentucky setting with new and reworked areas, that feel more lived-in, more natural, and more believable as places that existed long before everything went wrong.

So what’s got us to this point? Let’s hand over to Art Director Ayrton Orio to explain:

“Since Build 41 the Art Department has been hard at work on expanding the map westward, establishing an ambitious target quality, and revamping many of the existing towns in-game – while also hiring and restructuring.”

“Overall Build 42 in the Knox Event Art Department saw four new map artists added to the team (Erika, Melo, Dylan and Alokin), one departure (Xeonyx), two ascensions to wider game management positions (Mash and Binky), and my own promotion to Art Director.“

“The first improvements made to the map itself are those that Build 42 Unstable players have already experienced. Myself and Jamie (Xeonyx) made a first leg of improvement that covered a whole new area furnishing the extreme West of the map with three new towns: Brandenburg, a new location on the banks of the Ohio river river; Ekron, a small agricultural town full of Southern charm; and Irvington, in the South West of the map, with its famous race track.”

"While we were working on the above, however, the South of Muldraugh became our proving ground to experiment on a much more detailed style of world building. If reception was positive, we thought, then this could eventually become the expected standard for the rest of the map.“

“As it turned out, the reaction from players when B42 hit Unstable was so overwhelmingly positive that it triggered the hiring of the new enlarged team mentioned above – which would then go on to achieve that vision we’re announcing today.”

A snowy night in Muldraugh

Following on from Ayrton’s thoughts above, when 42.20 hits stable Knox Event, survivors will find the following entirely reworked:

• Riverside

• West Point

• Rosewood

• Fallas Lake

• Muldraugh

• Ekron

• Dixie

The revamp, meanwhile, follows certain standards – while future versions of Project Zomboid will see the rest of the map overhauled to the same rigorous high level:

• An idiosyncratic style for each town

• All buildings and houses are now unique

• Consistent landscaping between buildings

• Unique tiles where necessary

For more details on this, and Ayrton’s vision for the future of the map and his oversight on the game as Art Director, he has been interviewed by MrAtomicDuck – in the same fashion as Christian Allen our new Design Director was recently quizzed.

In terms of the differences between Build 41 and Build 42, the surface area of the map has been doubled. In fact, when comparing builds, overall the Art Department has delivered 1,400 new unique buildings, and 20,000 new tiles – which brings the game’s tile total up to 35,000.

Build 42 contains 400 procedural basements, and 75 unique ones. Hundreds of posters and wall decorations. Light overlays for any source of light. Snow overlays. New burned tile variations, new 30 degree roofs, many more types of windows, all the crafting tiles, and much, much more.[carousel][/carousel]

Knox Country Map (Isometric) – from Build 41 to Build 42.[carousel][/carousel]

Knox Country Map (Top down) – from Build 41 to Build 42.

There are many other locations to explore too, like an abandoned orphanage, a revamped logging compound, an entirely new Prison, a boy scout camp, and so on… but we will let you explore all these nooks and crannies, when Build 42 comes to stable later this week!

While some existing Challenge maps are being taken out of rotation for now in 42.20, the map update also means that classics like “A Really CD DA” and “Winter is Coming” are returning with improvements.

Meanwhile two new Challenges are available to conquer: whether starting at the top of a skyscraper in “Top of the World”, or battling a world full of sprinting zombies in “28 Seconds Later”.

When we released B42 Unstable, we initially changed the Main Menu illustration and added other art for loading screens. The artist for these pieces had previously worked with us and provided ‘human-created’ art. However on release, the community quickly saw what we didn’t: inconsistencies and typical AI generated artifacts.

In the intense period of work to get Build 42 Unstable out the door, we failed to notice the use of AI. As soon as we realized the mistake, the art was removed from the game. Since then, absolutely no AI has been used in our art processes.

As we moved past B42’s launch, we began developing the PZ “rendered style”, which you can see on flyers, newspapers, leaflets and so on. We are very happy with this approach, as it makes the world we build way more lively and consistent. So, it became clear that the way forward was to use that style to redo the Main Menu title screen which you will be welcomed by on the release of 42 Stable.

This will only be the first iteration of the Main Menu, seeing as we have lots of ideas to make it better and more interactive. Alongside 42’s spawn map and and front-end UI improvements, this is just one part of a more global effort to make the start of a game less austere and more immersive. We hope you’ll like it!

- The Art Department, The Indie Stone

These are just some of the new and revamped locations in Knox Country. Anywhere look familiar? Beware of spoilers![carousel][/carousel]

The Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something. You can also find us on Bluesky, on our Discord, Reddit and Forums. If you fancy, sign up to receive PZ blogs like this in your email right here.