Finding Your Own Corpse

[Jatta Pake]

Note to new players: If you die, you can restart Project Zomboid and launch the saved game you died in.  You will get the option to pick a new survivor but the world will stay be the same as when you left it.  So if you stocked up a lot of loot in a safehouse, it will be there for your new character if you can make it over there.  Also, re-deaded zombies remain re-dead so you can "clear" out an area.

 

In my current game, my first character, Rebecca, died after a month of adventuring.  I had started her as a throw-away character just to explore the beta build but ended up surviving longer than any previous plays.  She levelled up in Carpentry and Blunt, and managed to stockpile an impressive collection of loot.

 

My nine-year-old son sat and watched me play a quick session with Rebecca, and his youthful proddings encouraged me to take more risks than usual.  Rather than my usual slow and steady zombie killing, I charged ahead towards the Large Warehouse and into waves of zombies.  Instead of running to the safety of my safe house, I ended up running into pocket after pocket of zombies.  Eventually, exhaustion go the best of me and I panicked.  One wrong turn later and I was boxed in and devoured by a crowd of zombies.

 

My second character, Steve, was a far more aggressive play, who heaped vengeance upon the zombies that ate Rebecca.  He downed nearly 100 zombies after four days of vengeance but fell victim to a scratch.

 

My third character, Jennifer, has returned to the slow and steady play style that I originally had with Rebecca.  Unfortunately, she had no ammunition after Steve used it all up in his four days of revenge.  She has been doing well though.  And she recently made a grim discovery.

 

Jennifer found Rebecca's corpse.  It was near where she died but not in the exact location.  Jennifer was able to identify Rebecca because of the contents on the corpse.  It had the standard load out for my survivors:

 

Big Hiking Bag renamed "Main Adventure Bag"

Bottle of Water

Pistol (fully loaded)

Baseball Bat

Extra 9mm rounds

Chips (3)

Dish Towel

 

I've never been able to find a corpse of a previous survivor before so this was a huge windfall of much needed loot.  I had always assumed that any loot on a dead survivor decayed away and was lost forever.

 

I love this aspect of the game.  Death sucks because you lose XP but it doesn't require you to start over from zero.

[Footmuffin]

Were you playing sandbox? I know you can do that in sandbox, but I'm not as sure about survival mode.

[harakka]

Yes, you can do that in survival just fine. This also gives an use for bleach etc: if you know you don't have much time left, crawl somewhere away from zombies, and chug it. Your body will be easier to find this way, compared to going down in the middle of a huge horde with guns blazing.

[Jatta Pake]

I've never played Sandbox so this is Survival all the way.

 

Cool tip about the bleach but I was under the impression that your dead character could turn into a zombie and wander off.

[tish]

I've played with '2nd gen' characters a couple of times and have been able to claim the originals safehouse so I did wonder if we'd be able to find their bodies and the loot they had with them when they died.  Thanks for the info, I may have to go back to one of those games and try to find my old corpse!

[PhantomWarlock]

I usually don't play the same save again. I get super pissed off, mostly because I've never survived more than 2 weeks, and just rage quit. (Then I rage delete )

[morphpogo]

I actually didn't know that. Thanks for the info. So if I die I actually will not lose any stuff I build or all the items stockpiled in my fort? So basically all I lose is the character progression, like leveled up skills? I guess thats a nice feature but I will stick with always starting a fresh world when I die, otherwise I would not feel the fear or there wouldn't be much risk in engaging zombies if I could just keep playing the same save with another person.

[Maximillian]

It's a good thing that you don't have to lose any stuff but I have to agree with "morphogo", I will always start a new world when I die since that way I will still stay alert and learn from my mistakes, but again it's nice to have the opportunity to load a new character  

[jimmy5322hk]

I will be thrilled if that's true. One time my character died of zombied and I come back to him with my new character and couldn't find my corpse. I wonder if he wondered away. If he did that would be cool.

[syfy]

i got sort of lucky with my most recent death, got nailed by a group of zeds right outside the medical office with 2 big hiking bags, which made it so easy to locate again. however, only one of the bags was there and of course it was the one that did not have all the food i had found. i did notice that my body was not there, just the big pool of blood.

[Connall]

I decided to add this information to the wiki, more specifically the survival guide, don't know why I didn't include it originally. I usually like to dump all my items in a cupboard or leave a bag somewhere that I'll be able to find, since trying to track my former self down is usually impossible.