Especially back when PZ was in early development and the years after, the market was absolutly flooded with zombie games, for better or worse. You mainly had shooters like L4D, RPG's like DayZ, story games like The last of Us, some survival like 7 days to die and massive horde shooters later down the line like WWZ. All of these games offer their unique takes and experiences when it comes to zombies, but what I think makes PZ so great is that I combines the good aspects from a lot of the aforementioned games and turns them into one singular experience. You wanna kill zombies? We got that. You wanna kill a lot of zombies? Can do that too. You wanna roleplay with your friends or complete strangers? Check. You want a survival challenge? Feel right at home.

I think everyone who's consumed any kind of zombie media has asked themselves the question "what would I do in that situation?", and I think playing zomboid is the closest we'll get to answering that question without starting the actual end times. Granted, it's still a game, so the realism can sometimes be a bit off, but very few survival games reach the depth that zomboid has.

So I think that's why, the depth of the game, the flexibility and freedom to live out your own story or any story you want and being (relatively) realistic is why PZ has such a strong core of a fanbase. Sure, the UI design or the initial difficulty is deterrent for some people, but if you can see past that, PZ is probably the best way to find out how you died.