The day and night cycle
Each day is a few minutes of daylight to scavenge and build (the first day is longer), followed by a night siege. A clock at the top shows how long until nightfall and when the next daytime horde is due.
- Day: zombies wander the town and come to noise. Gunfire carries a long way; a bat is quiet.
- Night: the horde marches from the edges of town straight for your campfire. Every zombie that reaches it takes a bite out of its health.
- Dawn: anyone who went down or bled out comes back at the camp, and everyone finds a few supplies: three planks, two scrap and a can of food.
Nights get harder as the run goes on: bigger hordes, tougher zombies. Know what’s coming before dark.
Scavenging
Walk into any house (the roof lifts off) and search what’s inside: fridges, cabinets, crates, bins, lockers, cars and bodies. Hold Use next to one for a second or two. What you find depends on the container:
- Fridges: food and soup.
- Cabinets: bandages, cloth, first-aid kits, pistol ammo, batteries.
- Crates: planks, scrap, ammo, grenades, sky flares.
- Lockers: guns, ammo, grenades, flashbangs, flares, first-aid kits.
- Cars: scrap, ammo, guns, batteries. Careful: about a third of cars set off an alarm that brings every zombie nearby.
Watch for supply drops parachuting in with rare guns, roaming hordes sweeping through town, and houses with zombies asleep inside: tread quietly or they wake.
Throw a rock (the grenade button when you have no grenades) to make a noise somewhere else and pull zombies away.
Hunger, healing and crafting
Your hunger bar empties over about seven minutes; at zero you start losing health. Eat with T (D-pad left on a gamepad) and heal with H (D-pad right). Open your backpack with B to see everything and craft:
- Bandage: 2 cloth
- First-aid kit: 2 bandage + 1 cloth
Building the camp
Planks, scrap and cloth pay for build pieces in Explore. A good first night:
- A ring of wooden walls around the fire, a few tiles out.
- A gate on the side facing town so you can get in and out.
- Spike traps just outside the gate.
- Upgrade the side the horde hits hardest to reinforced walls.
Zombies smash walls before they reach the fire, which buys you time to shoot them. Repair damaged walls with planks between waves. The building guide has every piece and its cost.
Holding the night
- Be back at camp before dark with food in your pack.
- Spread out around the ring so no wall goes unwatched.
- Keep a sky flare for the second half of the night, when the big ones arrive.
- Torches pull zombies at night: put one outside the walls on the far side to split the horde.
Questions
What happens if the campfire goes out?
The run ends. Protect the fire with walls and keep the horde busy smashing them.
Is the town the same every game?
No. Explore generates a fresh town every game, with new houses, loot and a new camp location.
How do I come back after dying in Explore?
Players who bleed out come back at the camp at dawn.
