Sandbox settings

Sandbox mode lets you build your own apocalypse. Here are the five presets side by side and what every major world setting does, so you can tune the game to the run you want. Zombie settings have their own page: zombies. Updated for Build 42.21, November 2026.

An overgrown lot — Every setting is a different apocalypse

01Part

The presets compared

Preset	Zombies	Utilities	Erosion	Helicopter	Main change
Apocalypse	Normal (x0.65), rises to x1.5 by day 28, no respawn	Water 0–30 days; power 14–30 days	Slow	Once	The canon default
Outbreak	As Apocalypse, peaks by day 20	Water 0–2 months; power 14 days–2 months	Slow	Once	More skill XP and loot; minimap on
Rising	Low (x0.15), shamblers, slow respawn	Water 0–2 months; power 14 days–2 months	Slow	Never	Starter kit; more materials and tools
Extinction	High (x1.2), rises to x2, 6% sprinters	As Apocalypse	Normal	Sometimes	Less food (x0.4) and ammo (x0.2)
Six Months Later	Insane, fast shamblers	Both off from the start	Very fast	Once	Starts 9 December 1993; one-hour days

02Part

Loot rarity and respawn

Every loot category (food, weapons, ammo, medical, tools, materials and so on) has a rarity level. Each level is a multiplier on how much spawns:

Rarity	Default multiplier	Allowed range
Insanely Rare	0.05	0–0.2
Extremely Rare	0.2	0.05–0.6
Rare	0.6	0.2–1
Normal	1	0.6–2
Common	2	1–3
Abundant	3	2–4

Respawn

Off by default. If you turn it on, building nearby stops a place refilling.

Per category

Build 42 presets set each category separately; Apocalypse has ammo at 0.6, Extinction at 0.2.

03Part

Water and power shut-off

Choices run from Instant to years: Instant, 0–30 days, 0–2 months, 2–6 months, 0–6 months, 6–12 months, 0–1 year and 0–5 years. Apocalypse uses water 0–30 days and power 14–30 days. The radio warns before the power goes; nothing warns before the water. What to do about it is on base building.

04Part

World settings

Erosion

How fast grass, trees and decay take over towns. Slow (200 days) on most presets; Very Fast (20 days) on Six Months Later.

Nature’s abundance

How much you find foraging and fishing. Normal; Poor on Extinction.

Meta events

Distant gunshots, screams and other events that move hordes. Sometimes by default, Often on Extinction.

Helicopter

Once on Apocalypse, never on Rising, sometimes on Extinction.

Generators

Range 20 tiles and 3 floors; fuel use and exterior placement can be changed.

Rotten food removal

Never, by default.

05Part

Character settings

XP multiplier

1 by default. Outbreak raises individual skills to between 1.2 and 1.5 instead.

Starter kit

Only on Rising: crisps, a water bottle, a small backpack, a baseball bat and a hammer.

Media XP

TV and VHS stop giving XP at level 3 by default.

Easy climbing

Removes failed climbs over fences and up sheet ropes.

Nutrition

On by default. Off removes weight changes from food.

Multi-hit

Weapons hitting several zombies at once. Off in Apocalypse.

06Part

Settings we recommend

Our picks.

First run

Rising, but helicopter Once and power 0–2 months. Learn without being punished.

Builder’s run

Apocalypse with loot respawn every two weeks and Easy Climbing on. Time to build something huge.

The real thing

Apocalypse, untouched. It is the game as designed.

Nightmare

Extinction with Sprinters and Sight on Eagle. Bring friends.

07Part

Challenges

Challenges are fixed scenarios with their own rules, picked from the main menu. 42.20 refreshed the list:

Challenge	What it is	Status
A Really CD DA	Start naked, wet, drunk and sick with a bleeding wound, inside a burning house in Muldraugh in winter, with a huge population and no water or power.	Returned in 42.20; start moved, no respawn
Winter is Coming	Starts in deep winter: cold, frozen water, and fuel and clothing matter most.	Returned in 42.20
Top of the World	Start on the roof of a skyscraper with almost nothing and work your way down.	New in 42.20
Sprinter challenge	Every zombie on the map sprints.	New in 42.20; reported as “28 Minutes Later” or “28 Seconds Later”, check the menu
Six Months Later	Starts 9 December 1993 with power and water off, fast erosion and fast shamblers.	Now a preset

Older challenges were taken off the list in 42.20; Cabin in the Woods is reported among them.

08Part

Every zombie lore option explained

The Zombie Lore tab decides what kind of undead you face, and it is the biggest difficulty lever in the game. Descriptions below are the game's own, condensed; defaults are the Apocalypse preset's.

Option	Choices	What it does
Speed	Sprinters, Fast Shamblers, Shamblers, Random	Chase speed. Fast shamblers both run and shamble. A separate Random Sprinter Amount slider sets the percentage of sprinters (0 by default).
Strength	Superhuman, Normal, Weak, Random	How hard a hit lands on you and on doors and walls.
Toughness	Tough, Normal, Fragile, Random	Zombie hit points and how easily they fall over.
Transmission	Blood + Saliva, Saliva Only, Everyone's Infected, None	How the Knox infection spreads. Everyone's Infected makes every dead player rise, Walking Dead style.
Infection Mortality	Instant to Never; default 2-3 days	How long the infection takes to kill you.
Reanimate Time	Instant to 1-2 weeks; default 0-1 minutes	How long after death an infected player rises.
Cognition	Navigate + use doors, Navigate, Basic navigation, Random	How well they path to you. A Random Door Opening Amount slider sets what share can open doors.
Crawl Under Vehicle	Crawlers Only to Always; default Often	Which zombies can go under cars.
Memory	Long, Normal, Short, None, Random	How long a chase continues after they lose you.
Sight and Hearing	Eagle or Pinpoint, Normal, Poor, Random	Size of the sight cone, and how far a noise pulls them.
Environmental Attacks	On or Off; default Off	Roaming zombies that have not noticed you still bash doors and constructions.
Damage Construction	On or Off; default On	Whether player-built walls and defences can be destroyed at all.
Day/Night Active	Both, Night, Day	When zombies are most active.
Drag Down and Fence Lunge	On or Off	Groups can pull you down; fence-climbers can lunge at you.

Our pick for a base-builder: Environmental Attacks off, Damage Construction on. Walls stay honest against a horde that has seen you, but a wanderer will not chew through them while you sleep. See zombies for how each type behaves in the field.

09Part

Population, peak day and rally groups

The population sliders in Advanced Zombie Options sit behind the simple Zombie Count choice, and three of them explain why week four feels so much worse than day one.

Population Multiplier is the base. Zombie Count sets it: Insane 4.0, High 2.0, Normal 1.0, Low 0.35, None 0. Apocalypse uses 0.65.
Population Start Multiplier scales that base on day one (1.0 by default).
Population Peak Multiplier and Peak Day set the top of the curve: 1.5 on day 28 by default.

So an Apocalypse world starts at 0.65 of the map's designed population and climbs to 0.65 times 1.5, roughly 0.98, by day 28, then holds there. Set Peak Day to 1 and make Start and Peak the same if you want a flat world.

Respawn is separate. Respawn Hours is how long a cell waits before it may refill; 0 disables respawn, which is what the Build 42 Apocalypse preset ships with. Respawn Unseen Hours is how long a chunk must go unseen first, and Respawn Multiplier is the fraction of the cell's desired population that comes back each cycle; older presets used 72, 16 and 0.1. Redistribute Hours (12) is different again: it moves existing zombies into empty parts of the same cell, which is why a cleared street fills up without any respawn.

The Rally settings decide how the undead clump. Rally Group Size (20) is how many idle zombies gather into one group, and 0 means they never group. Rally Travel Distance (20) is how far they walk to join one, Rally Group Separation (15) keeps groups apart, and Rally Group Radius (3) keeps members near their leader. Follow Sound Distance (100) is how far an unloaded zombie walks towards the last noise it heard. Our pick for a quieter but still dangerous map: leave population alone and cut Rally Group Size to about 8, which turns hordes into clusters you can split with a spear.

10Part

Time, weather and the calendar

The Time and Nature tabs change what a run feels like without touching the zombies. Most are set once and forgotten, so set them deliberately.

Day Length

How long an in-game day takes in real time, from 15 minutes up to a real-time 24 hours. The Apocalypse preset uses 1 hour 30 minutes; Six Months Later uses one hour.

Start Month, Day, Hour

Default 9 July at 9 AM, and Start Year 1 is 1993. A winter start means frozen soil and sparse foraging from the first morning.

Temperature

Very cold to Very hot. Shifts the whole weather model, so hypothermia and heat moodles move with it.

Rain

Very dry to Very rainy. Rain fills barrels and keeps crops alive, and keeps you wet and sick.

Erosion Speed

Days until nature fully reclaims roads and buildings: Very fast 20, Fast 50, Normal 100, Slow 200, Very slow 500.

Nature's Abundance

Very poor to Very abundant. Sets how hard fishing and foraging are, which matters once the shops are empty.

Farming Speed

A multiplier on crop growth; 1 is normal.

Two interactions catch people out. Day length and start date together decide how many real hours you have before the power and water shut-off above arrives, because shut-off is counted in game days. And a short day with a late-year start compresses the first frost into your first week, so if you want a harvest before winter, start in spring, keep days at an hour or more, and read crops before you plant. Our view: the single most "realistic" change is a two-hour day, which gives one in-game month about sixty real hours and makes every journey a decision.

11Part

Quick answers

What is the default game mode in Project Zomboid Build 42?

Apocalypse, the canon lore mode.

What happened to Survivor and Builder?

They were Build 41-era presets. 42.15 replaced them with Apocalypse, Outbreak, Rising and Extinction; Six Months Later is still there.

Can I turn on loot respawn?

Yes, in sandbox. It is off by default and building nearby stops a place refilling.

How do I make Project Zomboid easier?

Use Rising, or sandbox with shamblers, a low population and later shut-offs.

What does erosion do?

It makes nature overgrow the world over time: grass, trees and decay on roads and buildings.

Preset values and ranges from the Build 42.21 server files as published by pindrop.gg, cross-checked with pzfans.com and build42guide.wiki; presets from The Indie Stone’s 42.15 notes. Recommendations are ProjectZom’s opinion. Added November 2026: pzwiki.net Custom Sandbox; pindrop.gg Build 42 sandbox settings reference; projectzomboid.com 42.20 release post.