Survival games like Project Zomboid are always more enjoyable when you add mods to improve your experience. While the vanilla version is refined, adding modifications can introduce various upgrades, from enhancing your quality of in-game life to making everything more fun. Adding some augments might make your sessions more fun if you plan to play Project Zomboid with your friends. Here are some of the best mods to have in the game:
Mod Manager
Starting our list is the Mod Manager. The base mod folder of the game is quite decent already, but this one improves the organization of your list, especially if you have hundreds of augments installed. The Mod Manager has features like filtering, sorting, and searching through mods that would make navigating through your folder much more accessible. If you have too many modifications to configure or swap back and forth with, you should always consider getting this option.
Hydrocraft
Arguably one of the most popular mods, Hydrocraft provides players with more crafting recipes that are extremely useful for survival. The number of additional blueprints is four pages long, so gamers might need help memorizing every schematic. Hydrocraft provides players new weapons, hunting, food, farming, and alchemy items. If you have this one installed, consult the mods’ wiki page to see which interests you.
Weapon Condition Indicator
For Survival Games like Project Zomboid, having your weapons in usable condition might save your life during dangerous moments. Unfortunately, it might be hard to monitor your items’ durability if you open your inventory. Weapon Condition Indicator will allow you to see the status of your weapons from the Hotbar and show you how much ammo, battery charge, or stacks you have. Another cool feature is that the mod tells you if you accidentally dropped something. Weapon Condition Indicator is a huge QoL improvement in a brutal game like Zomboid.
Hotbar for 5-20 often-used items
Project Zomboid is brutal and requires you to make split-second decisions to ensure survival. This means that you also need to be able to use items or equipment during appropriate situations. Unfortunately, the basic UI for inventory management in the game could be more straightforward and flexible, which can be problematic.
This mod is another quality-of-life improvement since it allows you to efficiently access commonly used items from your inventory. The integrated hotbar gives you a hotbar that can show up to 20 things based on your customization. It may not seem much, but this enhancement is enormous when making split-second decisions.
Profession Mod
For a game based on the real world, it might seem that it has a minimal selection of jobs. The Profession Mod will increase the number of occupations available during character creation. Trying out different positions will give you varying starting stats and skills. Profession Mods adds 21 fields on top of the first 20+ occupations in the game.
More Traits
Zomboid’s character traits are one of its more defining features, as players can customize their avatars to have various aspects. The key to this system is balancing your best positive traits with the available negative characteristics. With so many attributes already open, it’s hard to see why people want more options.
More Traits provides players with significantly more characteristics that would allow players to test their limits. Some traits include a broken leg and sunlight sensitivity, making gamers’ gameplay more enjoyable. If you want to make your sessions more immersive, this mod might be a good thing to try.
Hunting Mod
While there are tons of homes and buildings that you can loot for food, there will come a time when you need to be self-sufficient as supply runs become less efficient. Farming and Fishing are some of the best alternatives, but another mod will allow you to hunt for food. Hunting Mod will enable players to scour the wild for their next meal.
The mod introduces 16 different animals as new food sources. However, hunting these creatures will take much work since you must track them first. This makes this mod extra immersive because it does make you go into survival mode.
Fur Clothes
When you already use a mod that involves hunting, you might be interested in using the carcasses for more than food sources. The Fur Clothes will allow players to craft warm clothing to help them get through the winter. Instead of piling on multiple clothes, this mod will help you get the needed temperature by making much-needed padded sets from rabbits, rats, and squirrels. In addition, you can also harvest their meat as an extra food source.
Brita’s Armor Pack
Armor is significant during times of crisis, especially during a zombie apocalypse. While the vanilla version already has tons of protective gear you can equip, Brita’s Armor Pack takes it a step further. This mod increases the number of mods you can find and provide, which increases your survivability since you are more likely to find the armor. In addition to new excellent protective sets, you can also find backpacks and vision goggles, which are functional.
Basements
Finding a decent safehouse is hard since zombies constantly try to break down your fortifications to ruin your home. Defending a too-large building is hard, and a small house might feel slightly restricting. Fortunately, you can expand the areas of places by getting the Basements mod.
Constructing Basements can be done through this mod. However, you will need tons of preparation if you survive long enough to make one. The underground bunker provides a decent escape from hordes of zombies and additional storage areas. You can fulfill your post-apocalyptic dreams by downloading this mod.
Megaviblades
Guns are arguably the most common weapons you would see during a zombie apocalypse. However, they are expensive to sustain due to their consumption of bullets, and they attract hordes of zombies through loud noises. Fortunately, you can smash their heads if you are unafraid to get up close and personal.
Megaviblades expands the available list of melee weapons. Players will see many newly bladed weapons, such as a katana or a loud stone saw. These tools can also serve as harvesting items, which makes them even more efficient. The mod will make players live their fantasies of bloody brawls with the undead.
ORGM
If you prefer to have more guns instead, ORGM might be an excellent mod to add to your list. This modification integrates a bunch of new firearms, ammo, mods, and other features. There are tons of new stuff like shotguns, assault rifles, UIDs, and cool-looking blunt weapons.
What is cool with this mod is that it also introduces gun mods to improve your efficiency. You can use silencers, scopes, and recoil pads to improve your marksmanship. With so many options, you can become a ruthless zombie killer.
Advanced Trading Post
You should get the Advanced Trading Post if you are into massive multiplayer servers. This mod will allow you to trade items with other people on your server, which is an easy way of acquiring essential materials. Advanced Trading uses a barter system and will not use any money.
Raven Creek
If you find the usual maps of Project Zomboid too dull for your taste, you should take your chance in Raven Creek. This mod allows you to access a valid urbanized city with sprawling skyscrapers. This area has tons of large-scale buildings, all containing various helpful loot. However, doing supply runs to the town may be a bad idea as they usually have the largest containments of zombies.
The access points to Raven Creek are blocked by wrecked and abandoned vehicles, so you must go on foot to explore the city. Be mindful of the restless dead as they lurk around every corner. This map is not recommended for beginners, but it is an excellent mod to add for veteran players.
Cremation – Corpse Disposal
If you have survived long enough in Zomboid, you have stacked up a high body count unless you are doing a pacifist run. The more undead you kill, the more bodies pile up, and they are not suitable to look at, cluttering the area. Fortunately, this mod helps players do housekeeping around their neighborhood.
Cremation allows gamers to get rid of corpses by burning them. They help keep the area clean of clutter, and burning bodies means you have extra fuel to extend your campfire’s burn time. You won’t have to worry about waking up to a mountain of zombie bodies outside your lawn.
Superb Survivors!
If playthroughs feel boring and lonely, installing this mod can spice up your sessions. Superb Survivors! Adds survivor NPCs that you can interact with. These people will be journeying in this post-apocalyptic world and can have various relationships with players. Be wary, though, as only some of these NPCs are friendly.
Desperate Crafting
While Project Zomboid aims to imitate real life as much as possible, there are some things that the game doesn’t allow, even though it would be highly rational. Desperate Crafting will enable players to do realistic actions not integrated into the vanilla version. These activities include opening cans with knives and sewing together ripped sheets.
Simple Logistics
Looting can be tedious in Zomboid since you must click on each item individually. This mod will transfer inventories faster and more efficiently. Simple Logistics provides players with a more user-friendly UI that allows you to move larger quantities of materials and significant items. In addition, you also gain access to valuable recipes like pallets and lumber stacks that makes transporting things easier.
Explore More Mods
These are just some of the game’s best, most popular, and most used mods. These are must-have modifications as they can significantly improve your sessions. There are more of there waiting for you to try out, so research and experiment.