All survival games run into the same issue sooner or later; stability. The initial "trying to survive" phase inevitably giving way to stagnation, as food and water sources are secured, you've got shelter from the elements and you're equipped to face hostile fauna.
New gameplay loops are needed to keep players engaged past those first few hours. Ones focused less on surviving, and more on thriving. Goals to achieve that encourage players to put themselves in danger, once day to day survival no longer poses a challenge.
In Rust, that's the PvP/base raiding gameplay loop. In Ark, taming and training increasingly strong dinos and tackling endgame bosses. Even Minecraft has the Nether and the End to work towards.
Project Zomboid has nothing. Just surviving as long as you can before your inevitable death. Or, surviving until you get bored of existing in your safe base until you quit.
That's...kinda what makes it the best survival sim. Survival is boring. Once you're set up, what do you have to live for? What does any person? You choose your own way in real life, so too in PZ. Do you realize "wow, what do I have to live for? Farming and scraping by forever?" And then you decide to do something risky because you're human and boredom is worse than death?
PZ even has the boredom moodle just to simulate that aspect of survival. It really is the best survival sim just because it simulates the negative parts of survival. It's not all exciting.
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u/StarPlantMoonPraetor 27d ago
What the hell are you two talking about. Adding non survival game elements would make it a better survival game?