Survival Hacks: Picking Zomboid’s Best Spawns (Build 41 vs 42)

🧟 Zombies: Low in residential and outskirts. More moderate around downtown shops and the trailer park. You can get unlucky with a spawn by the motel or trailer park where a bunch of zombies happen to wander through, but generally you can relocate to a quieter block easily.

🍱 Loot: Lots. Riverside is often described as "feature-complete" by players, meaning it has a bit of everything. Need books? The school and post office are loaded. Need tools? Two medium-sized factories on the west side plus a self-storage facility provide a good chance at finding generators, toolboxes, etc.

🏠 Base Spots: The gated community north of Riverside is a prime residential base area. These are big luxurious houses with tall fences – you can funnel any roaming zombies into chokepoints or even build walls to seal off the entire neighborhood.

🚗 Vehicles: Riverside has a large parking lot at the supermarket and another at the boat club, making it fairly likely to find a car or two. Additionally, the town's main roads are wide and typically not initially clogged with wrecks.

🌊 Unique Advantage – Water Access: Only Riverside (and Louisville) sit directly on the river. This means fishing is a survival game-changer here. With a fishing rod and some patience, you have an infinite food source on your doorstep. Learn the complete fishing system in our comprehensive fishing guide.

🧟 Zombies: Moderate. You'll often encounter small groups (3–5 zombies) wandering the residential streets. The main street might have larger groups around the tavern or gas station. But compared to West Point, it's very possible to stealth around or even outrun zombies in Muldraugh without getting cornered.

🔧 Loot: Industrial treasure. The warehouses in Muldraugh are arguably its biggest draw. You'll find crates with tools, car parts, generators, etc. Muldraugh also has two gas stations (north and south ends of town), which means fuel access is great if you clear them. For more tool locations, see our sledgehammer guide.

🏚️ Safe Houses: Muldraugh's best early safehouse options are on the outskirts. If you spawn in northern Muldraugh, consider clearing one of the small farmhouses just west or east of town (very few zombies stray that far initially). There's also a fenced junkyard to the west of town that can be turned into a base with some effort.

🚗 Vehicles: Plentiful. Muldraugh is along a major road and you'll often see multiple abandoned cars along the highway. Additionally, the used car lot in the center of town (near the gas station) usually has a couple of vehicles.

📍 Location, Location: Muldraugh's central position is a huge long-term advantage. You are within day-trip distance of every other major location. West Point is a few kilometers north, Rosewood a few to the southwest, Louisville to the far north.

🧟 Zombies: Expect many. West Point consistently has roaming groups in the dozens around its commercial zones. Even residential areas have clusters. If you're playing Apocalypse difficulty, stealth is your best friend here – avoid jogging down main roads.

💣 Loot: Guns, guns, guns. West Point's Courthouse Gun Shop is a prime target, containing rifles, shotguns, pistols, ammo, and sometimes rare weapons. There's also a shooting range outside town that can have ammo. The police station here is larger than those in Rosewood/Riverside and has an upstairs armory too. For strategies on breaking into gun stores safely, check our gun shop entry guide.

🏚️ Bases: Not many obvious safe bases inside West Point, sadly. Some survivors head directly for the outskirts – e.g., the countryside west towards the river or south toward the railroad – to establish a base and then make raids into town.

🚗 Vehicles: Surprisingly, West Point can be a good place to find a vehicle early – the huge parking lot near the grocery store and church often has several cars. The challenge is hotwiring or fueling a car without drawing attention.

🗺️ Meta Consideration: Surviving in West Point can actually prepare you better for late-game than an easy start would. It forces you to develop evasion and combat skills early. If you manage to last a week in WP, other towns will feel easier by comparison.

• 🏢 Try to get up high. If you spawn in a house, consider immediately moving to a second floor or higher building. Louisville has tall apartments; zombies can't climb sheet ropes by default, so escaping to a rooftop or upper story can buy you time.
• 🧭 Use the sewers and alleys. Louisville has some underground/sewer areas and lots of back alleys. You cannot outrun hordes on open streets, so duck between buildings to break sight lines and lose the crowds.
• 🔄 Don't expect to clear an area fully – aim to slip through, grab what you need (a weapon, some food), and find a defensible hideout by night. Then repeat, slowly expanding a safe zone.
• 🚦 Vehicles in Louisville are double-edged: there are many cars, but wrecks can block roads and engine noise will draw massive attention. Sometimes staying on foot and nimble is safer until you reach the more suburban edges.

🧟 Zombie Density: Minimal. However, Build 42's heatmap might cause one or two locations in Echo Creek to have a gaggle of zombies (perhaps the gas station or the bar could be local "hotspots"). But these would be on the order of tens of zombies, not hundreds.

🔧 Loot and Resources: Being small, Echo Creek doesn't have high-end stores. But it has enough basics to survive: food from the grocery and surrounding farms, tools from a local supply store, and common guns possibly from a hunting stand or the tiny police outpost.

🚗 Vehicles: You can get a car in Echo Creek relatively safely – fewer zombies around means more freedom to siphon gas and tinker. The main street usually has a few vehicles parked in front of businesses, and the residential areas often have cars in driveways.

🧑‍🌾 Ideal For: Beginners who want an even easier start than Rosewood, or veterans who want to experience the new content without immediately dying. Also, with B42 adding hunting, a rural start like Echo Creek means quick access to trapping small game, hunting deer, and maybe even domestic farm animals.

🧟 Zombies: High density, similar to West Point. The raceway area in particular can be a death trap with dozens of zombies clustered around the Fossoil station. The downtown area is also heavily populated with the undead.

💰 Loot: Irvington has rich loot spots: a decent-sized police station (with an attached jail), a hardware store, auto shops (great for car parts and tools), and some unique locations like a "Carnival Foods" grocery and the raceway facility which has lots of vehicle-related loot.

🏁 Unique Feature: The raceway area provides a bit of a different dynamic – wide open space (so you can see zombies far off, but also they can see you), which is both boon and bane. It's a great location for car parts and fuel if you can clear it.

🎯 Spawn viability: As a spawn, Irvington is a mixed bag. On one hand, it's new and exciting to explore, with plenty of resources. On the other, you're faced with a West-Point-level of zombie aggression from the start. I would rate Irvington as an advanced spawn choice.