Why Early Access?

“PROTOCOL Z is a big simulation: a whole town of people with homes, jobs and routines, an outbreak that spreads through them, and police, military and disasters that all react to each other. The core sandbox is already fun to play, but a game like this improves most when lots of players push it in ways we'd never think to test. Early Access lets us put the town in players' hands now, hear what they enjoy and what breaks, and shape the game around that feedback.

The game is already playable from start to finish as a sandbox:
- spawning humans, zombies, special infected, vehicles and buildings;
- first-person control of any character;
- weapons, driving and swimming;
- police, ambulances and martial-law checkpoints;
- destructible buildings and barricades;
- nine natural disasters.

During Early Access we plan to keep expanding the town and its systems with:
- a hazmat cleanup team;
- wildfires and burning buildings;
- deeper traffic and town life;
- online play with friends;
- more weapons, vehicles and maps;
- performance and polish, including improvements for lower-end PCs.

Player feedback will decide what comes first.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We expect PROTOCOL Z to be in Early Access for around 6 to 12 months. That gives us time to add the planned features, including the hazmat team, wildfires, online play with friends, and more vehicles, weapons and maps. It also gives us time to polish and optimise based on player feedback. If the community helps us find new directions worth exploring, we'd rather take a little longer and get them right than rush to a full release.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“- New response teams and events: a hazmat cleanup team, wildfires that spread through buildings, and more outbreak scenarios.
- Online play: play the town with friends, one as the god of the sandbox and others on the ground in first person.
- More content:
- additional weapons, vehicles, special infected and buildings to place;
- more towns and maps to play in.
- Deeper town life: richer daily routines, smarter traffic, and more ways for residents to react to and survive the outbreak.
- Polish and performance: better animations and effects, a balanced difficulty curve, and optimization so the game runs well on a wider range of PCs.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“What you can do now:
- Watch a simulated town of hundreds of residents live their day: homes, jobs, shifts, schools, traffic, a playground, a football team and a prison.
- Spawn humans, zombies and special infected anywhere, and dig zombie tunnels.
- Take control of any human or zombie in first person, and fight with fists, guns, explosives, flamethrowers and C4.
- Drive vehicles, swim and dive in the sea.
- See police respond with wanted levels and pursuit, and ambulances collect the wounded.
- Watch the military declare martial law with checkpoints, curfews and tunnel demolition.
- Break fences, walls, roofs, doors, buildings and barricades.
- Unleash nine natural disasters: tsunami, tornado, flood, hurricane, sinkhole, meteor, blizzard, dust storm and landslide.
- Play through weather, day and night, and power outages.

What to expect:
- Some animations and effects are still placeholders.
- AI can occasionally get stuck or behave oddly.
- Balance (zombie strength, weapon damage, spread speed) is still being tuned.
- Performance is good on mid-range PCs but can dip during very large outbreaks or disasters.

We're updating regularly and fixing issues as players report them.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“We're not planning on changing the price when we leave early access.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“The community will help shape what PROTOCOL Z becomes. We plan to:

- Listen on the Steam forums and Discord: players can report bugs, suggest features and share their wildest outbreak stories. We read them and use them to decide what to build next.
- Run regular updates with clear patch notes: each update will say what changed and why, including fixes and ideas that came from players.
- Ask players what they want: we'll run polls and feedback threads when choosing between upcoming features, such as which disaster, vehicle or response team to add next.
- Share development progress: previews of upcoming features, so players can give feedback before things are finished.
- Fix what bothers players most: bug reports and performance feedback will be prioritized, especially crashes and NPC's getting stuck.”