The city is still standing. Nobody is left in it. You break a window, empty the cupboards and make one block your own — until the light goes. Zombie Apocalypse Together is a third-person open-world zombie survival sandbox for 1 to 4 players. No quests, no story, no win screen. Only the next night.

A CITY, NOT A MAP

One city in one piece: houses, shops, a diner, a motel, a church, an abandoned quarantine camp. The doors that open lead somewhere real — rooms with furniture, cupboards, shelves and whatever people left behind when they ran. What's worth taking is almost always indoors, so your first decision is always how to get in. Head for the centre and the buildings get taller, the loot gets better and the streets stop being empty. Six ways into the city. Pick the one you can pay for.

THEY BREAK, THEY LIMP, THEY CRAWL

A zombie is not one health bar. Break a leg and it limps at less than half speed. Take both and the rest of it crawls after you. Tear an arm off and it can't hold you; ruin its jaw and it can't bite, but pain makes it faster. Blades cut and blunt weapons break — what you carry decides how the thing in front of you falls apart.

FOUR SURVIVORS, ONE BLOCK

Co-op for up to 4 players over Steam: invite from your friends list or join straight from Steam. Pick a downed friend up, or drag them behind a door when the street is too crowded to stand still; bandage them, boost them through a high window, hand over what's in your bag. Push-to-talk voice chat, text chat and shared map pings are built in.

THE NIGHT IS NOT THE DAY

Thirteen minutes of daylight, seven minutes of dark. At night the fog closes in, the light drops to a cold blue and a zombie's sight range falls from 18 metres to 13.5 — but its speed goes up: a shambler that shuffled all afternoon chases three times faster after dark, and runners are quicker than your sprint. Running home is not a plan. You have a flashlight. It also has a battery.

BLOOD IS A TRAIL, NOISE IS A BROADCAST

Wounded, you leave blood behind you, and zombies follow the freshest part of that trail. A bandage doesn't just refill your health, it erases the trail. Noise works the same way: an unsuppressed pistol carries 42 metres, a suppressed one 12, and a thin line on your HUD tells you exactly how loud you are right now.

HUNGER IS A TIMER, INFECTION IS A CLOCK

Hunger doesn't take your health, it takes your breath: a fed survivor sprints for 7.7 seconds, a starving one for 2.7. Every zombie hit can infect you, and being revived off the floor always does. Infection eats into your maximum health and kills you if you ignore it. There is exactly one cure, and it is somewhere out there in the city.

TWELVE GUNS, NINE BLADES, FIVE SLOTS

Twelve firearms from pistol to shotgun to crossbow, nine melee weapons from machete to crowbar, plus frag grenades. Five attachment slots — muzzle, sight, stock, grip, magazine — take suppressors, a 4x scope, a red dot, a laser and extended mags. Every hit pulls the camera into the impact for a moment, and taking a head off opens a short cinematic. Come from behind and none of it makes a sound.

BREAK IN. BOARD UP.

Smash the glass and climb through, or open the door like a person. Those doors break both ways: noise spreads, the horde arrives, leans on the door, and the hole they make is real — they walk through it. Your answer is planks and a hammer; a barricade makes the door itself tougher, and prying it back off is as quick as putting it up. They also climb, and they crawl through low gaps you thought you had closed.

This city has no win screen. It only has the next night. How many days can you hold your block?