I was really excited about this game, but the controls were unnecessarily over complicated for me.
this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2025
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The huge Project Zomboid build 42 finally gets multiplayer just in time for the holidays
(www.gamingonlinux.com)
Oh, I find that surprising. I'm a pretty casual game player but don't find the controls too difficult. Maybe that's because I take a pretty minimalist approach and don't use most of them. A lot of the controls are optional and you can use the context menus by right-clicking the mouse instead.
From memory, because it's been a little while since I played, this is what I commonly use, ordered by how frequently I use it:
- WASD - moving around the map
- Left / Right mouse buttons - aim and attack
- Space - shove/stomp
- C - crouch/sneak
- Esc - cancel action
- E - interact, but I believe in most cases you can use the context menus instead, like for opening doors, so I don't use it a ton
- V - vehicle menu
I think that's pretty much it.
Edit: added the mouse buttons, that I had left out from my original list, moved "C" down a couple of notches, and removed "shift" to run because I very rarely do that. We have the running zombies disabled on our games because they don't seem very lore-accurate. The regular slow zombies you can keep at bay just by walking.
Q - apply heals
I don't know if it's what the original commenter was referencing, but the combat controls - mostly not shown in your list - were extremely unintuitive last time I played it. Otherwise I enjoyed the game.
You hold Ctrl for combat mode, left click to swing your weapon, mouse to aim, space to shove or stomp, Q to talk/whisper mobs. That's about it, it's not complex at all.
Right, and I don't even use Ctrl at all - I use the right mouse button instead, so to me it's even simpler.
Not a comment on PZ but often "intuitiveness" and expressiveness must trade off against each other. I prefer expression.
Interesting, I find the combat controls also very simple. In addition to the space bar I listed, I only use the left and right mouse buttons to aim and attack.
It's been years since I played. When I did, the only options (at least that I found) were shove and stomp. I guess it's improved since then.
It sounds like it maybe has improved since you played, although I would be surprised if they haven't always had weapons. I only started playing with build 41 though.
I find that the tutorial level that they include now teaches the core controls very well.
When I played, there absolutely, positively was not a tutorial level. Or even the hint of one. Good to know things have changed!
Hell yeah