In a game where survival is key, any advantage gained from the start is an absolute bonus whether you are a seasoned player or someone just starting. Project Zomboid has the option to pick a spawn from the get-go, allowing you to create your own playstyle and can create a harder or easier difficulty curve from the start. Given that you have a few choices of spawns when you create your character, you may want to know what your newfound starting point can be, and that is what this list aims to achieve.
While any area of the game is still going to be littered with zombies, have familiarity with each area’s quirks, benefits, and possible migration spots if you happen to be in another place and want to move as early as possible. There are some good spots all around the world, but those are the only places that you can visit using a vehicle or have a mod that allows you to be in those places, which isn’t the typical experience a player will have in this game, so for now, we will look in-depth at 4 of these spawn points and see how it starts can aim to shelter you from a very slow, but deadly swarm.
For this list, the list is made at the time of the games’ latest version (ver. 41.78 Steam) and is based on my experience in a friend-hosted multiplayer server, and the items listed are from the vanilla version of the game, meaning no mod items are included. Criteria are based on overall safety and ease of living for the early parts of the game. Some locations may be referenced as they are not part of the spawn choices in the base game. Videos linked are locations to points of interest and base ideas within the city it is residing in.
4. West Point
What Makes West Point Great?
With a divided residential and commercial area, West Point offers a hybrid of spaces and claustrophobic areas that can be challenging in both good and bad ways. With relatively small, but winding intersections, you can expect to have the map down immediately, but still be lost when faced with a difficult situation, such as going back on a beaten-up vehicle. For all its shortcomings, it’s still a viable place to be for the following reasons below.
- Easiest access to Louisville – Shortest distance to cover
- Clustered resource areas – Shops that can house essential items such as books and tools are within reach of each other
- Good distant base choices – Some areas have enough distance to safely convert into an ideal base
- Double gun access – Police and Gun Shop give many chances for weapons
With the game spawning you into a house for most of the chances, you’ll likely be running from zombies from the get-go as the residential areas are near each other, inviting clusters of zombies either on the road or on your front porch. This will be tricky for first timers as the sheer number of zombies can simply tag you if you try to loot in. Given that the gun shop and police station are on the east side of town, and the residential side is west, grabbing a gun to clean the zombies isn’t going to happen for quite a bit, and the likely scenario for you surviving is just being faster, or hightailing to a safer location to make a base.
When you do get your essentials in check, you’ll be greeted by plenty of resources from the city such as the nearby cafes, hardware stores, and the large Gigamart, allowing you to comfortably live for nearly an in-game month or two, assuming you get a ration of canned and fresh food in check.
A key thing to making a base here is the need to build a wooden fence around your chosen area, as the dense nature of West Point makes this a necessity, especially on parts like the Gigamart, meaning, you’d better pick up or have carpentry skills, or else you’d be open dinner. Base options here are limited but doable, with Gigamart itself being a possible area, but likely you’d take somewhere remote such as Twiggy’s (a bar) on the right part of the city next to the gun shop if you want personal advice on where to build. When you do survive your stay in West Point or choose to move to the big city of Louisville, then a short drive to the east should point you to the next phase of your adventures.
If you want to create a good testing ground for being able to survive a swarm, then try West Point as a starting location, but be warned of the oncoming onslaught that is a huge zombie wave that will happen frequently.
How to Get to West Point
3. Muldraugh
Why is Muldraugh Great?
A personal favorite as you can survive here more often on spawn, Muldraugh is one of the friendliest spawn points for those new to the game. Located in the middle part of the map, it provides a good countryside experience that's not too populated, granted that it is where you want to be in during the end times. A clumped-up area full of big warehouses and spaced-out commodity areas, it’s a very simple place to be in for simpler reasons it’s good such as the ones below.
- Easy access to commercial areas – The majority of the commercial buildings alongside the main highway have goods waiting to be looted.
- Good spawn points – A chance at a trailer car or an isolated house, your first spawn may have fewer zombies than normal.
- High chance of working vehicles – When hotwiring a car, you’re likely to find good-condition cars from the get-go.
- Multiple warehouses - Muldraugh has multiple warehouses and storage facilities sitting both inside and near the town, which grants you the highest chance to grab one of the most important items in the game, the sledgehammer.
- The Forest House – Another distant house that may prove good for a base or a classic themed house
Muldraugh is pretty much straightfoward (literally), most of the major commercial buildings rich with loot are all sitting pretty beside the town's main highway; from restaurants, gas stations, the bookstore, or the auto repair shop, they're all accessible from point A to point B. Take caution, however; for the majority of the living dead are grouped up together and wander about aimlessly there; waiting for their next meal to make a mistake.
For setting up bases, you can pick your poison. Want to live far from civilization but also want to maintain easy accessibility? The Forest House in the south is perfect for you. A secure haven that's not too hard to set up? Are you a risk taker that's willing to set up shop within the belly of the beast? The Large Warehouse up north could just be perfect for you. Want to set up a base with tons of space to work with? Consider securing the Lumber Mill just a few blocks away from the main highway.
Setting up a base here requires you to manage your spaces well, as while the places you can make a base in are huge (literally) it also means a huge wave can overwhelm you in no time. As the days move on, the population of zombies increases, and the parking lots, flat lands, and highways where you find ease traversing it may end up being an undead roadblock, making for a tough getaway when you have that horror movie car issue experience.
Despite being a small place there's no absence of action on this side of Kentucky, so why not enjoy what the once peaceful town of Muldraugh has to offer?
How to Get to Muldraugh
2. Riverside
What Makes Riverside Great?
Ever dreamt of retiring by a riverbank? Well, why not give Riverside a go as this water-rich community has everything you need for an early retirement. In the case of a zombie apocalypse, on the other hand, it can be one of the trickiest or easiest places to live in, depending on how you approach the game, which leads to the things listed below as guidelines to your possible stay in Riverside.
- Fresh supply of fish and water - As the name implies, Riverside is well located near a river, offering fresh fish and an endless water supply
- Clear diversity - Population control is relatively easier in Riverside, despite the residential areas being cramped together in gated communities
- Best of both worlds - Riverside has the luxury of balancing both city life and country life in one packed area.
- The Country Club – A good place to set up a base/luxury area
Toying around Riverside sounds nice and all but do not let the area fool you, this place can be a deathtrap if you either get too comfy or you don't know what you're doing; the streets in town are narrow, curve heavy, and susceptible to roadblocks, not to mention the wide space outside of town can give you a false sense of security as you may find yourself bumping into a vast number of the undead out in the wilderness. This area is known for zombie clusters in places where you least expect it, and with its unique location, the sheer volume of zombies blocking the narrow roads and chokepoints makes this a pincer death waiting to happen for any mistakes
To go back to the positives, Riverside's best resources are its access to basic commodities Once the electricity and water are cut off, fresh food wouldn't be a problem as you can just collect said water and fresh fish from the river, not to mention there is also a Gigamart right at the heart of the town itself for your usual canned commodities. Your only issue would be hauling generators to your preferred area of the station, but again, this death trap of a town can complicate things, especially if you stay longer.
Speaking of the bases, setting up bases isn't that much of a hassle despite the residential inside town being cramped, and for secluded, solo base operations, the riverbank up north also has a limited amount of houses. This town has a bar with a food market beside it just outside the town's edges, and a junkyard secured by wall-high fences with space just waiting for passionate builders to turn it into a fortress.
If you want to play a dangerous game of heaven or hell in terms of getting by the weeks, then this should be one for you to play on, assuming your mental hasn’t broken from dying 6 times in the same gas station choke point. Spawning in Riverside is good, getting to Riverside from another town is a whole different story.
How to Get to Riverside:
1. Rosewood
What Makes Rosewood Great?
With the likelihood of starting in a house, the housing area of Rosewood offers some good protection for newbie players while also being an easy place to begin. You’d love what Rosewood offers in terms of important things like the things below.
- Wide open spaces – A lot of places here have space to run circles or away from zombies
- Many secure areas – Base possibilities are usually protected by fences or high walls
- Relatively low zombie spawn – Zombies here are typically less dense than in other starting locations
- Easy roads to other areas – Places like March Ridge are easily accessible and require a few turns to navigate to
- Rosewood Penitentiary and Military Base access – These places are within reach if you wish to get more loot
As a beginner place, the suburbs of Rosewood are split into 2 distinct sections, scattered houses on the right, and a small commodity strip on the left. It’s a very simple place to be in, in terms of remembering, with a lot of those parts being just land, perfect if you wish to traverse the area on foot. If you want to go get some stuff like food from the supermarket, take the road that goes north, and if you wish to settle down and build a place, any road on the map can lead you to one.
If you do want some adventure, variety, and a general sense of adventure, then Rosewood ain’t no slouch either. The houses on the right side, despite being far from each other, can hold a few zombie clusters together, and with that area being around a school, that also can mean bad things if you aren’t careful as the zombies can migrate in great numbers from the woods around.
For adventures outside the city, a trip on the lower right can lead to the penitentiary, which can hold valuable resources like guns and clothing, while the same can be said for the hidden military base just left of Rosewood. If you do run out of stuff and need to find a nearby town, you can take the road on the bottom right and snake your way to a non-spawnable town called March Ridge, which has its challenges and resources, but is relatively near when you look at the whole map of the game.
Living should also be really good, as places here have the aforementioned fences and high walls, making your protection radius partially complete from the get-go. Hunkering up to the Fire Station, a bar, and even a specific house on the bottom right, Rosewood has so many possibilities for any would-be survivor.
Should you want to play safe, or have a near-to-blank canvass to learn the ins and outs of Project Zomboid, take away the minor thorns of zombies from this flower and look no further than the bed of roses that is Rosewood.
How to Get to Rosewood
