the entire lore of project zomboid i guess 

couple lil secrets in there, wonder if you can spot em discord: discord.gg/MXwg8fFkPa patreon: patreon.com/Ricksdetrix

Don't forget that on 8-th of july every person in the exclusion zone threw all the sledgehammers in the river and drank all the gas from cars

project zomboid is so good they named a real city after louisville

You forgot to include the historic moment where your character finally finds a sledgehammer

Hearing "IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN CONTAINED" while seeing hundred of zombies stumbling toward a checkpoint gave me chills

I like that the virus is similar in a way to Wildfire from The Walking Dead, but improves upon it, by having airborne strain actually turn a lot of people without bites while others being immune. This solves the problem that TWD had, of how military didn't stop it.

"We know we are being lied to." Puts into effect how dire and desperate this situation has became.

19:50 imagine the npc update changing the events with "random civilian killed 700 infected after raiding the gunstore"

Calling zombie behaviour "Unamerican-like" is so funny 🤣

Bro just summons the zomboid community to make lore. Literal Top G.

The theory that the zombies came from eating bad meat is probably a reference to that "mad cow" disease that happened in the 90s. I think it was retty cool for them to perhaps mix up some diseases like this, since in real life when people dont know what's going on we might confound things from different origins as the same thing

Imagine the pure dread you'd feel after learning that the infection was spreading without contact. Truly a horrifying way of story telling. I love it.

July 8th: The public blames "How to Use Generators" for the outbreak, promptly burning all available magazines

i love the fact that the game takes place in 1993 instead of the modern day. There are no smartphones or wifi. You are entirely alone. Knoxville is descending into hell and the whole world has no idea

I'm absolutely loving the multiplayer recreation of events, amazing work from everybody involved imo 🤘

There are 3 home VHS in the game, that confirms the existence of another outbreak of the zombie virus on way smaller scale. And it seemed to be cured, since the town it happened in survived and even made an instructional tapes (one of those home VHS) how to deal with the infected individuals. Though that virus seemed to only make people aggressive, not undead. Also another home VHS takes RL event and puts it into the game lore. Im talking about the meteorite falling in Brazil. The VHS claims that after it fell, the people in the closest cities were feeling nauseous and biohazard units were dispatched to the site. Which may either mean that the virus is alien in nature, or the meteorite wasn't a meteorite.

7:23 There are also the night events that can occur, one involving hallucinations of zombies breaking in. They can’t hurt you, but a startled survivor firing off their gun at them would be enough to lure in the real deal.

I think the Knox infection was made by the secret lab but was released accidently by someone who didn't know they got infected.

The smell could be from a chemical weapon gas-like that leaked from rosewood lab,because a lot of chemical gases are invisible and Odorless,for example butane gas is odorless,so we humans put odorants to know when there is a gas leak,so probably the military did the same and that would explain the awful smell.

Here's my theory on how it started, with key points from the lore: First, some information we can imply about the virus: The fluid contact transmission route has a mortality period of 3-4 days. The airborne strain likely has a latency period, possibly 1-3 days, then an additional 3-4 days for mortality. Dogs potential transmission route for airborne strain. Weeks Prior: foul smell in the air first noticed. - My guess is that at this point, work in the Rosewood Facility had moved to human subjects with a weaponized virus. Cures most likely being researched, subjects being killed and incinerated, hence the smell. Subjects likely from the Rosewood Penitentiary. Day -8: Phone lines down for maintenance. - Something goes wrong perhaps due to unexpected and unknown airborne strain infecting a security dog. Rosewood Facility lost. Response being planned. Day -5 (July 4th): Independence day. Helicopters sighted flying low over Muldraugh from West Point. - Plan to retake the facility executed. Gunshots masked by firework displays, however the loud noise draws infected towards the major population centers. Infected breach the facility perimeter as there are gaps in patrols. Hunt continues around Rosewood. Backup plan drafted. Day -4: Massing of troops in local military bases reported. Day -3: Exclusion zone blocked off by Military, Air activity increases. Lightning storms over Louisville (no rain). - Reinforcements being brought in response to the failure to recapture the facility. Hazmat suits show airborne strain has been considered, but is still not well understood. Limits of transmission and movements of infected being verified. Storm most likely had strong winds that spread the airborne virus far beyond the normal range. Day -2: Fort Knox and Fort Campbell cancel leave for military personnel. - Airborne strain confirmed to have spread to military personnel without protective gear. Number of infected growing as personnel involved in the facility recapture begin to succumb to the infection. Day -1: Reports of "mild sickness" spreading among some left inside the Zone. More military personnel arrive from Fort Campbell. No fly zone established. - Number of infected beyond military control, initial military quarantine camp overrun. Military moves to defend perimeter rather than testing individuals as severity of airborne strain is uncovered. Day 0: Game begins. Gunshots heard within the exclusion zone, close to the border perimeter. - Military trying to control the growing infected population, possibly from quarantine camps. Citizens within the zone left completely alone. Many already succumbed to infection, those immune to airborne strain killed by bites, or by military with orders not to let anyone leave the Zone. Day 1: Professor Jake Wilson, working with the military, claims transmission of the illness has 'slowed'. - Testing rates drop. Majority of citizens within the Zone deceased and reanimated. Day 2: Peacekeeping forces stationed throughout the nation. Exclusion Zone boundary widened. All non-military flights grounded, Fort Knox military base abandoned. Quarantine cells unlocked and soldiers gone. One guy in a uniform shot to death after a possible disagreement. Fort Knox personnel were testing people immune to the airborne strain, possibly looking for antibodies for a cure. - Perimeter breached, unknown how far infected individuals have travelled, possibly including military deserters. Fort Knox base abandoned and quarantined individuals released to deny involvement from the military. Immune survivors left to fend for themselves. Unprotected Fort Knox personnel begin showing initial symptoms of airborne infection. Day 3: Amateur radio broadcast reveals that situation is worse than the military publicly claims. Photo of dismembered young man in West Point, surrounded by bodies. Accusations of sniper fire on civilians made. - Military take measures to prevent airborne infection of healthy troops (mainly from Fort Campbell) while pulling back to the expanded perimeter. Conflict within the military as they question their orders. Day 4: Media interviews with numerous survivors describing hundreds of infected hunting the living, spreading the infection through bites. Fluid exchange confirmed as route of infection. General McGrew says sufferers are not deceased, there's no need for panic, and search for a cure is ongoing. Military permits survivors from inside the zone to enter the main camp south of Louisville for unknown reasons. Interference from an unknown source impacts radio and television broadcasts. Declaration of martial law within the US. - Military within the zone distrust their superiors, leading them to try and save as many as they can. Experiments for a cure begin outside of the zone, possibly leading to further outbreaks. Screening for infection relaxed as fluid exchange is the only infection route known to the public. People not bitten assume they aren't infected. Day 5: Violence between military personnel and trapped Knox residents. Numerous fatalities, mostly civilian. Heavy gunfire attract hordes of undead to the border fence. Small then larger breaches occur. Some military units begin pulling back. - Military personnel earliest infected by airborne strain begin to turn, situation escalates, military command breaks down. Day 6: Intense overnight battles as military begins pulling back to the north. Louisville abandoned. First confirmed reports of people falling sick without being bitten. Airborne strain becomes public knowledge. Growing number of reports of symptoms from camp survivors and military personnel, 95% ill. Day 7: Immunity against the airborne strain becomes public knowledge, however bites are still lethal. Reports of outbreaks in Somalia in Africa and Norfolk, England. International spread confirmed. - Possibly due to people infected with the airborne strain travelling before flights were grounded on Day 2, or possibly from those immune to the airborne strain acting as carriers.

Considering the cannibals: imagine surviving in the zombie apocalypse and thinking that eating people is a good idea.

35:24 "The British Queen likes to stay behind in Windsor Castle as the Royal Family evacuates" This line still works even now, since it would make sense for the royals to flee from Windsor Castle since old Lizzie has come back from the dead and is wandering the halls.

the Knox Infection likely only affects dogs like a stomach bug would, though it could be fatal, as there are no dogs left.

As someone who lives in Knox County (Barbourville) Kentucky i can verify these zombies are annoying as hell

Ngl when the infection spread to the world i was disappointed. Not surprised given zombie media, but I really loved the idea of knox county being successfully quarantined, and we're just trapped within, no help, stuck in a cage with the people on the outside watching on in pity unable to help. Something about that is more horrific to me, and a unique way to spin a zombie outbreak. Especially given without npcs we are completely alone.

it must be a serious problem if garfield is there fighting for his country instead of lasagna

Would anyone consider it possible that the Knox Event spreading to Mogadishu Somalia could've been unintentionally caused by an American Soldier being deployed there for Operation Gothic Serpent? I know that the events occurred a couple months before the events of the Battle of Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down) but the U.S. Army were actually preforming Peace Keeping operations in the country alongside the UN since 1992.

I think one of the most horrifying parts about this is how cases start coming up in Japan, England, Africa, the Middle East, and then all contact with anything outside of America just abruptly stops. Either the world has ended and humanity is dead or this is the world’s biggest surprise party and the infection is actually really easy to take care of.

this makes me want an official zomboid tv series even more. you did an amazing job with this.

as always "fuck the government" is step one to surviving a crisis

I wonder how they will implement Louisville once non-player characters are added because, like you said, it wasn't "in the zone" on the default start-date. Will it be a normal city filled with hundreds of normal people with normal lives, or will it just be completely blocked off and inaccessible to the players?

The guy on July 13th, on Knox Talk Radio, says "everyone got the sickness at once." He's talking about the original outbreak. That's a very specific way of describing how quickly the Virus spread. It really sounds like people were being normal, then suddenly everyone started showing symptoms. It sounds to me like maybe the first wave of the Virus was also airborne and in the panic and confusion of a totally unexpected and extremely serious crisis nobody really realized that not everyone who got it was bitten. It also makes all the theories make some kind of sense. The bad smell, the chemical spill, the burger meat, even the meteor where the conspiracy theorist mentions "it's in the air we breathe", every single one of these theories have the common threads that a) they would be a mass casualty events and b) they would involve a lot of people catching it without ever being bitten. The fact that all the theories have this in common, combined with the fact that we _know_ the Virus is eventually proven to be airborne, suggests to me that the Virus could have been airborne from day 1 of the spread. Just something I noticed when re-listening to this video. Edit: Also the first reports of the airborne cases on July 15th referred to people having a fever and being incapacitated, which is the 4th stage of the Virus, occuring 48-72 hours after infection. So the first airborne infections occured sometime between the 11th and the 13th.

My favorite thing with Zomboid is that while the world is going to hell you have some absolute crack head swallowing entire cartons of icecream down while walking in circles and killing thosuands and thousands of zomboids

the reason why i love the project zomboid lore is that they NEVER call then "zombies" nor "reaminated" far as i know theres no tapes,magazines,nor anything that calls then "zombies" in-game and it makes sence! zombie movies where not popular at that time(i think)or the "zombie" idea was never thought of in the zomboid universe!!

The B-roll is almost more impressive than the script. Excellent work

My favorite moment in the narrative is the infamous armless zombie picture It's one of the most iconic points in the game

I loved reading the twitter comments as the playerbase rped along with the official lore tweets. Seeing it all was fun and I liked different people such as Mayor Otto, or the nuclear power plant guys.

I don’t know why but zombies scare me the most. Vampire, werewolves, ETs, A.I, criptids, est are all stuff I can handle. but zombies make my stomach queasy and me genuinely scared.

This was an awesome video! The use of extra players and actors really pulled it together. Well done! I do find it curious, though, that the game does such an excellent job of making you feel like you're one of the last survivors as early as July 9 but looking at the timeline laid out here it seems as if things don't really go off the rails until a few weeks into the outbreak. I guess that's due to the lack of survivor NPCs currently in the game. Being unable to enter Louisville due to the initial military presence would be really cool, forcing players to have to consider whether trying to brute force your way inside early is worth it or if you should wait it out until the military gets overrun. There are so many cool things they could do with NPCs to better tie the game together narratively but I very much doubt that's gonna happen even when they add them. This video definitely got my mind racing, though, so thanks for that 😄

Love trying to place who you've got to do some of the voiceovers at time. Can't miss Hazzor's dulcet tones. Wicked video, Rick, absolutely brilliantly put together. Top PZ content.

honestly, I would pay for a mod where you can use the radio station to broadcast the truth to the outside the zone and you have to do it before the military sets up jammers

"Theres this one lady....they just shot her..." shows some mustache dude getting shot x'D

Its great to see that you've actually used nearly all of the scenes that we did

i love how the entire US military couldnt stop the zombies but slavic cleared entire knox county with just a swat gear and a shotgun. sure it did took him a few months, but considering he was alone, its impresive.

Okay I expected this to just be a lore read, but you’ve put so much work into the visuals. Great work!

Fantastic video! Great visuals with a well made and digestible narration.

You set the scene for this story perfectly. The hauntingly mellow banjo to the loud and intense violins. You know the pacing, vs when a moment deserves its silence. I’ve been following the development of this game and it’s story for awhile now, and you did a beautiful justice to its content. Keep up the good work!!! 💕

Imagine a 1 year persistent world with most of the zomboid community in it, I’d hope to see it in the near future if technology is advancing at this rate.

God. The fact that an infant caught it is more terrifying than the hoards of zeds to me.

here is a dangerous one. Take a shot each time they say "The Knox event is contained"

I love the ingame footage, especially the pre-appocaypse. Its a nice break from the isolationism and desolation of the game.

I would really love it if in the future you were able to visit Louisville only to either be shot down by military, or getting checked as infected even though you aren’t, which would also get you shot. It’s a subtle way of saying “You’re not ready for this yet” without straight up putting an invisible wall there, it’s also a good introduction into NPCs if we ever get them.

I just imagine how cool it would be once the NPCs come out to meet some characters like Hass (AFAIK, he's still out there). Maybe you can even save some of the reporters who died not because they fell ill, but because they were mauled by zombies. Even if they don't want to add something like what I'm about to say, modders will do a short work. Just imagine being a random grunt stationed at a military camp. You have to deal with people, both dead and alive. Your crew falls sick. Some come back, get put down in front of your eyes. Maybe you're the only survivor, maybe there's a few guys left who are immune to airborne strand of the virus. Either way, a massive horde is coming to break through the exclusion zone, and there's nowhere to run. You don't have enough ammo. This is how you died. Or once/if Nashville comes out, you could join one of the two groups there and work againsg the other, one being cannibals and raiders and the other regular survivors.

It would be cool to have npcs living normal until the outbreak starts.

awesome video man! keep up the good work

the government calling zombies "unamerican" is so fucking accurate

this video made me want to start up a roleplay server for real, all of the scenes with actors are amazing

My theory was that the infection was cuased by a Cold War Era bioweapon set to be destroyed after the end of the Soviet Union. Instead, it went horribly wrong, cuasing the bioweapon to leak into the sorrounding area.

The meteor / space stuff could be a reference to Night of the Walking Dead which basically started this whole genre. In that film, it's suggested that a space probe returning from Venus brought radiation that causes zombies

Amazing job Rick, this is the best Zomboid lore recap I've seen. The cinematography, the voice acting, incredible.

The other day, I managed to get a car for my new character. I went on a quick drive for supplies, and ended up stopping in a rural area with houses overnight. When I woke up, I turned on the TV and managed to catch the, "IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN CONTAINED" broadcast. I genuinely got really interested and stayed in the house in order to get more updates from the news, and I got it, with zombies storming the army camp after hearing the gunfire and biting the reporter. I drove off, put KnoxTalk on the radio, and listened to the stories that survivors told about their family members dying and reincarnating. It was absolutely chilling, I almost felt bad for surviving for so long. I can't get over how immersive this game is, I love it to pieces!

Imagine how cool it would be, if Louisville were actualy locked in the game for the first 6 days, so if you go there you would be killed by the millitary

I do believe the burger meat theory is the closest one to the truth. Mad cow's disease is one hell of a bugger. It's also known to jump species. Also, there is no cure to it, so it fits perfectly with the game's story. Prion diseases are really scary

15:37 "We need to thank the US army" *One of the soldiers is wearing a Spiffy's Mascot head*

Love it ! You and your friends who helped voicing this did a great Job here!

Now that was epic

“My fellow American Americans America cries for the America Because un-American sick people are un-American in currently the un-American America” “The un-American infection is contained Americaingly” (he says all of this will be chewed on by a zombie that clearly isn’t contained)

This video is extremely well done! And is quite honestly, very well needed! Ive been nitpicking at pieces of lore these past few months. Thank you!

Props for the Chad that decided to spin that jeep on those infecteds at 33:34

This is one of the few aspects of the game that I dont know about. Looking forward to watching this

There's nothing I love more than when somebody makes a lore video on a video game I'm heavily interested in. Thanks so much for making this, while Project Zomboid might just seem like a regular zombie survival game for some, it is packed with lore that I love discovering and the ability to piece it all together is something I'll always love to do. I hope that eventually when the devs achieve the end goal they've envisioned, we get some more heavy lore focused updates that really tie everything together. Super excited for the future of Zomboid.

me turning on the radio for the first time after a killing spree of over 100 "there has been no confirmed deaths"

To add to the bad beef thing there was a real mad cow outbreak in meat sold in military comissaries around this time in real life. Similar thing with lab testing animals just being released into the wild. It works so well because it's a pastiche of all these real fears we experienced back then

The entire zomboid lore in just one phrase would be "if it's not in vanilla, there's a mod for it."

The detail and work put into this video is utterly unbelivable to me

This is amazing man, I love how much work and inspiration was put into this. This is wonderful :D

"The spread of the Knox Event infection is now total" will never not send chills up my spin. This is it, this is the end. Humanity's death is absolute, there is no one coming to save us. Death has come to embrace us all. And we are condemned to writhe in its yoke until our destined demise. Truly horrific. Wonderful world building by the devs!

This was the best Zomboid video I’ve ever seen. Just saw it on my lunch break and was gonna listen to it while I played the game, but the in-game storytelling you included with so many well set scenes and players helping made this game feel like a genuine movie. This is the stuff that deserves 7 digit views brotha, thanks for all the hard work everyone spent on this, it’s a masterpiece

4:57 Shooting dogs is quiet.. logical move in place when social structures fall apart. The stray dogs can pose quiet big danger to peopel. They either need to be caught, or the more realistic option-shoot

The feeding cattle to cattle thing, it was a practice back in the day to feed waste animal protein to livestock, bur after they had a massive outbreak of madcow that made its way into the food supplie they stopped. If this is taking place in the 90s then it would have been only a few years after that event.

I love the passion and effort you put into this video. Project Zomboid's lore is amazing, thanks for compiling it and arranging the events in chronological order.

Wow, this looks like hard work! Awesome , i´ve really enjoyed it. Greetings from Berlin

This is genuinely a great peace of film I can’t imagine how long this took to Make so much creativity I could have just read the wiki but this is infinitely better

so well made and badass video :D all the work you guys did to bring this into reality is amazing. Looks great

I like the idea the Nox event was planned but only on a small group as a military test for a BioWeapon and it rapidly got out of control

So far the weirdest thing I've learned about this game is that everything started three days and about 500 miles from where I was born.

The lore is insane, loved the multiplayer bits recreating it

Ive always liked this type of story. Was bioengineered meat? Weird alien lights? Lab problem? The act of god? Dunno go hit some stiffs with metal pipe. Edit: clearly this was an outbreak of mass hysteria

Great work, you all put alot of effort into this and it shows!

I'm like 95% sure the burger origin is a reference to a treehouse of horror episode in the Simpsons where: Crusty burger unveils a new sandwich made from feeding cows to cows which quickly makes anyone who eats it turn into a zombie

Great video, thankyou for taking the time to collate all the PZ lore into one handy clump for us! I enjoyed the "real time" live tweets TIS did and I'd love to see more lore in the future from them, PZ is the type of creature that could easily have, and I like to think deserves, a hugely in-depth and properly fleshed out background story that explains what really happened up to the point the game starts. A little bit Romero, a little bit Walking Dead, even a little bit "Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue".. there's so much story potential there! 😁

Sooo nice to see that you actually blew up! Congratz man! :)

man this videos always let me with a weird feeling like a mix of nostalgia? idk its like when you get out of the cinema and you have the vibes of the movie the pz lore deserves his own movie or short film, and the music or sountrack always gets me, the tutututu tutututu tutututu tu,tu its just so good

this must of been hell to get all the footage for, great job man

I have to say, as a Louisville native, props for an acceptable pronunciation! Better than the Louis-villes or the Louie-villes ive heard from a number of other people talk about the game

Spectacularly put together, Rick. Had goosebumps listening to this throughout!

i just had an itch for zomboid lore that i needed to scratch, i love playing pz and just being there for the broadcasts and taking in bits and pieces of the world, this video brought that to life and ive just been playing it on repeat just enjoying the work you put into it. you better enjoy your rise to fame sir, you deserve it

Absolutely fantastic, you have outdone yourself, best project zomboid film I've ever watched!

Amazing content as always Rick!

earned my sub for you taking the time to put all this together, great work man