Project Zomboid is The Indie Stone's Open-World, Survival, Role-Playing, and Simulation game released in 2013.
Project Zomboid includes the following genres of gameplay.
- In an open world style of game the player is allowed to roam freely through a normally massive environment. This style of games is usually not on rails, meaning that the player gets to go anywhere and solve problems in the order that they choose.
- In a survival game you simply need to stay alive. Some have waves of enemies that get harder with each wave. Many are horror based, supernatural, or post-apocalyptic. They generally focus on conserving resources such as ammo and health, and sometimes employ elements of stealth.
- In a role playing game, or RPG, the player takes on the role of the main character and helps the story line to unfold. It usually involves a very long play time, inventory management, and a deep leveling system. RPG's are usually the longest style of game. Skyrim and Fallout are amongst the most popular RPG style games.
- In a simulation game the primary goal is to simulate a real life situation either for education or entertainment. Simulation games have a huge vareity of types including sports, driving, flying, and dating. Some of the most popular sims of all time are SimCity and Madden NFL.
Forward Ports for Project Zomboid
When you are playing Project Zomboid you might need to forward some ports in your router. Forwarding ports is a useful trick in gaming because it can really help to make your network connection most stable and intermittently even faster. Routers were not designed to allow incoming network requests and some games can play tremendously better if an incoming connection is forwarded through the router to the game.
Use a VPN Instead
Have you considered using a VPN instead of forwarding a port? For most users, a VPN is a much simpler and more secure choice than forwarding a port.
We use and recommend NordVPN because not only is it the fastest VPN, it includes a new feature called Meshnet that makes forwarding a port no longer necessary for most applications. With NordVPN Meshnet, you can connect to your devices from anywhere in the world, completely secure, over a highly encrypted VPN tunnel.
When shopping for a VPN, make sure that they meet the following criteria:
- Your VPN provider should have a no-logs policy. This means that they do not keep any logs of any kind.
- Make sure that your VPN provider has lots of exit nodes all around the world.
- Check that your VPN will not affect your speed.
- Verify that your VPN provider uses WireGuard as the underlying protocol.
- Many people prefer a VPN provider that is not based in the United States.
This is the list of requirements that we used when we were shopping around for a VPN provider. There are lots of free, shady VPN providers out there that we looked at and dismissed.
Based in Panama, using diskless servers, and with over 6,100 servers in 61 countries, we can safely say that NordVPN satisfies all of these requirements.
Once you've set up your NordVPN account on multiple computers and enabled Meshnet, you can seamlessly access all of your devices as if they were on the same network. You don't even have to log in to your router. It's very simple.
Every time you click on one of our affiliate links, such as NordVPN, we get a little kickback for introducing you to the service. Think of us as your VPN wingman.
Before You Forward a Port
Before you can forward a port you need to know the following things:
- The IP address of your router.
- The IP address of the device that the game will play on: either your computer or your console.
- A list of TCP and UDP ports to forward.
How to find your router's IP Address
The easiest way to find your router's IP address is to run our free Router Detector utility. It's a part of the Network Utilities suite of tools and it's completely free to use.
How To Forward Ports
Quickly get your ports forwarded using Network Utilities. Then when you are done you can just as easily close your ports back down to keep your network as secure as possible. You can also do it manually.
The normal process for forwarding a port is:
- Open a web browser and navigate to your router's IP address.
- Locate your routers port forwarding section.
- Put the IP address of your computer or gaming console in the applicable box in your router.
- Put the TCP and UDP ports for your game in the corresponding boxes in your router.
- Frequently you have to reboot your router for the changes to take effect.
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Which Ports Does Project Zomboid Require
The network ports for Project Zomboid are as follows:
Project Zomboid - PC
- TCP: 16262-16293, 27015
- UDP: 8766-8767, 16261-16262
Project Zomboid - Steam
- TCP: 27015, 27036
- UDP: 8766-8767, 16261-16262, 27015, 27031-27036
We have guides that are custom tailored for Project Zomboid that will show you the ports that need to be forwarded in your router.
That's all it takes to forward your ports. Have more games that need a boost? Check out our growing list of games and applications.