If I reviewed this game a few months ago, I would say it's pretty dang good, but could use some more quality of life and feels like it's missing some vital features like a map for example.
But this new build is unplayable (and i'm reviewing how the default survivor experience is here) as zombies are WAY too broken op in almost every way. For one, they hear you and then suddenly pinpoint your location, and then continue on to chase you for ages, all from off screen. Often times I will have not even made a sound, and then I'll see a small HORDE OF ZOMBIES coming STRAIGHT FOR ME for literally no reason! This kind of stuff infuriates me beyond reason, and is only like half of the MAIN problem with build 41/the current official zomboid.
Also zombies are WAY too alert, and it genuinely feels like they have way beyond unrealistic intelligence, as they are always expecting you and constantly looking, meaning they find where you are from WAY too far away from a realistic standing of a LITERAL ROTTING CORPSE. Then of course they also have MUCH too good pathfinding for what a zombie should be able to think of (which is nothing). It's not realistic even whatsoever for a zombie to see you through a window and then remember which direction you moved to get out of the view, and be ready for you, randomly stop banging on anything, and chase you instead from still insanely unrealistic ranges. On the subject of zombies banging on objects, they should NOT be able to hear you SNEAKING BEHIND THEM even if they're not banging on objects if you're literally across the room. Again zombies should not be expecting you whatsoever as they don't have the brain power to even think of someone trying to sneak up on them.

So to sum up the whole broken op zombie thing, the developers did a terrible job on making zombies due to doing way too good programming on them. They're not supposed to be good guys, zombies are supposed to have bad or sloppy programming! Or at least they should be programmed to be bad... Build 40's zombies are AMAZING though, I tried build 40 again after a while and was freaking out at how the zombies were A MILLION TIMES more realistic and possible to sneak around. I tried build 40 and it was a breath of fresh air to escape the suffocating build 41 unfair zombies.

Now you might say "Oh Johnsir just go play build 40 then!" Yeah... I tried, but now after seeing build 41 I KNOW what those features that felt like it needed were, and boy does it need them. Build 40 needs towing, it NEEDS that global map thing, and also the rain could use a bit of a nerf as it's a #1 killer for me so far (I died when I first tried build 40 again from literally just rain making me blind and soaking me, forcing me to run into a horde of zombies when i was cornered and didn't see them).

I might go fiddle around with the settings and try build 41 with the zombies being as close to build 40 zombies as possible, but I HIGHLY doubt the settings even have the options to offset how broken they are right now nearly enough to make the build playable.

Story time!
When build 41 was in beta I ignored it for a good while, but I decided I'd try it eventually. I was so miserable with it that I quit project zomboid (I thought at the time) FOR GOOD. I couldn't stand the thought of being an extremely unrealistically clunky slow guy who could barely control his body, and having zombies walk up on me for not seemingly, but LITERALLY NO REASON made me lose my mind. I only came back because I figured the developers would've fixed these problems and at least SOME of the many others I didn't even mention here, and I was very disappointed.
This build is not ready for use, and now that it's out I know build 40 ain't gonna get the touch-ups it needs to be a standalone version, I legit don't know how I'm supposed to get by without a map, and always had that problem when I played before I even knew about build 41's beta. Please just add that map feature at the very least to build 40, and towing too if you could! But mainly please just fix your new build! I genuinely am so upset that nobody I talk to who plays this build seems to notice these issues, I would have to guess that most of them have never played build 40 and also have no bloody clue what realism is.

If I reviewed this game a few months ago, I would say it's pretty dang good, but could use some more quality of life and feels like it's missing some vital features like a map for example. But this new build is unplayable (and i'm reviewing how the default survivor experience is here) as zombies are WAY too broken op in almost every way. For one, they hear you and then suddenly pinpoint your location, and then continue on to chase you for ages, all from off screen. Often times I will have not even made a sound, and then I'll see a small HORDE OF ZOMBIES coming STRAIGHT FOR ME for literally no reason! This kind of stuff infuriates me beyond reason, and is only like half of the MAIN problem with build 41/the current official zomboid. Also zombies are WAY too alert, and it genuinely feels like they have way beyond unrealistic intelligence, as they are always expecting you and constantly looking, meaning they find where you are from WAY too far away from a realistic standing of a LITERAL ROTTING CORPSE. Then of course they also have MUCH too good pathfinding for what a zombie should be able to think of (which is nothing). It's not realistic even whatsoever for a zombie to see you through a window and then remember which direction you moved to get out of the view, and be ready for you, randomly stop banging on anything, and chase you instead from still insanely unrealistic ranges. On the subject of zombies banging on objects, they should NOT be able to hear you SNEAKING BEHIND THEM even if they're not banging on objects if you're literally across the room. Again zombies should not be expecting you whatsoever as they don't have the brain power to even think of someone trying to sneak up on them. So to sum up the whole broken op zombie thing, the developers did a terrible job on making zombies due to doing way too good programming on them. They're not supposed to be good guys, zombies are supposed to have bad or sloppy programming! Or at least they should be programmed to be bad... Build 40's zombies are AMAZING though, I tried build 40 again after a while and was freaking out at how the zombies were A MILLION TIMES more realistic and possible to sneak around. I tried build 40 and it was a breath of fresh air to escape the suffocating build 41 unfair zombies. Now you might say "Oh Johnsir just go play build 40 then!" Yeah... I tried, but now after seeing build 41 I KNOW what those features that felt like it needed were, and boy does it need them. Build 40 needs towing, it NEEDS that global map thing, and also the rain could use a bit of a nerf as it's a #1 killer for me so far (I died when I first tried build 40 again from literally just rain making me blind and soaking me, forcing me to run into a horde of zombies when i was cornered and didn't see them). I might go fiddle around with the settings and try build 41 with the zombies being as close to build 40 zombies as possible, but I HIGHLY doubt the settings even have the options to offset how broken they are right now nearly enough to make the build playable. Story time! When build 41 was in beta I ignored it for a good while, but I decided I'd try it eventually. I was so miserable with it that I quit project zomboid (I thought at the time) FOR GOOD. I couldn't stand the thought of being an extremely unrealistically clunky slow guy who could barely control his body, and having zombies walk up on me for not seemingly, but LITERALLY NO REASON made me lose my mind. I only came back because I figured the developers would've fixed these problems and at least SOME of the many others I didn't even mention here, and I was very disappointed. This build is not ready for use, and now that it's out I know build 40 ain't gonna get the touch-ups it needs to be a standalone version, I legit don't know how I'm supposed to get by without a map, and always had that problem when I played before I even knew about build 41's beta. Please just add that map feature at the very least to build 40, and towing too if you could! But mainly please just fix your new build! I genuinely am so upset that nobody I talk to who plays this build seems to notice these issues, I would have to guess that most of them have never played build 40 and also have no bloody clue what realism is.