In Project Zomboid, attacking zombies is an essential and indispensable skill you must master if you want long and substantial survival.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to attack in Project Zomboid.
Recommended Read: How to Lose and Gain Weight in Project Zomboid
To attack in Project Zomboid, you need to hold the right mouse button to aim, then left-click anywhere to perform the attack.
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How to Attack in Project Zomboid
In Project Zomboid, you can attack the undead with your bare hands, melee weapons, ranged weapons, and throwables.
Now, let’s get into the details!
How to Attack With Barehand
In the early game, when getting an actual weapon is difficult, you need to learn how to join the combat with your bare hands.
To attack zombies without any weapons, you can hold the right mouse button and then left-click on the zombie to push it down.
Alternatively, you can combine Space and the left mouse button to shove the zombies.
Basically, attacking without a weapon is a combination of shove and stomp moves. Although the simple shove deals no damage to the target, it can push down the zombie and make it fall to the ground if successful.
The stomp move can be made if only the zombie is knocked on the floor. Generally, it’s advisable to stomp on the zombie’s chest or head rather than its feet, as the zombie can get up again or crawl around.
This strategy is only effective when you deal with 1-2 zombies at the same time. If there’s a horde around you, try to avoid the zombies or only lure a few to your location.
Strength plays a vital role when using shove and stomp moves. As you gain a higher level of strength skill (level 5 to level 10), you have a higher chance of knocking a zombie down and only need to stomp once to kill it.
How to Attack With Melee Weapons
To attack zombies with melee weapons, you must equip the weapons by right-clicking on them in your inventory and selecting “Equip Primary/Secondary/Both Hands”.
After that, hold the right mouse button to aim at the zombies, then left-click to use the weapon on them.
There are lots of melee weapons in Project Zomboid, and they’re categorized into 6 types:
- Axe
- Short Blunt
- Long Blunt
- Long Blade
- Short Blade
- Spear
Each weapon also gains XP for a specific combat skill. For example, using an axe will level up the Axe skill, while a Katana will level up the Long Blade skill.
The higher level of combat skill, combined with a high level of strength skill, allows for better speed, damage, critical chance, and the chance to push zombies down while attacking.
That said, focusing on one weapon type frequently is advisable to quickly gain XP. In Project Zomboid, the axe, katana, and crowbar are worth using, as they provide a chance to kill the zombie with a single swing.
How to Attack With Firearms
To kill the undead using guns, again, you must first equip the guns by right-clicking on them and selecting “Equip in Your Primary/Secondary/Both Hands”.
All guns require magazines to work, so the next step is to move the cursor to the guns and check. If you see the “Need Magazine To Operate” caution, then you must find the magazine.
Some magazines have ammo in them; some don’t. Keep in mind that each gun has a different type of ammo, so the most effective way to use a gun is to loot as much as possible.
Once you find a corresponding ammo (for example, the M16 Assault Rifle requires 5.56mm Round ammo), right-click on either the ammo or the magazine and select “Insert Bullets in Magazine”, then right-click on the magazine and select “Insert Magazine”.
Basically, you must load the bullets into the magazine. Then attach the magazine to the gun. On the other hand, all shotguns don’t require magazines at all, as you can insert the shotgun shells directly into them.
Now, go outside and find the horde, hold the right-click mouse button to aim, and move the cursor to the undead until you see the green cover around its body, then left-click to shoot it.
There are 2 skills you must know before using firearms: aiming and reloading.
As their name implies, the higher aiming skill provides better accuracy, precision, range, and firing angle, while the reloading skill allows you to remove, insert, load, or unload magazines faster.
How to Attack With Throwables
Throwables in Project Zomboid contain Molotov cocktails, bombs, and noise maker. Among them, the smoke bomb and noise maker deal 0 damage to zombies, so you can’t use them for attacking purposes.
Each throwable has a different recipe to craft, but they all share the same way of usage: equip and perform a basic attack to throw (just like other weapons, right-click to aim and left-click to throw), except for the Molotov, which requires a lighter equipped in secondary to throw.
Throwables deal significant damage and cause fire to burn a large area. So don’t attempt to use them in a narrow space (or your base) unless you’re outside in a vast, open space with millions of zombies.
That’s how to attack in Project Zomboid.
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