HumanitZ 1.0 Review: Promising Zombie Survival Sandbox Held Back by Frustrating Bugs and Dated Mechanics

Zombie apocalyptic games have been around for years, and I’m always eager to explore new crafting survival games set in this genre. This time, my survival adventure comes from YoDubzz Studios as I set out across Anytown, USA, in an isometric, open-world zombie survival sandbox.

Humanitz was first released into Steam Early Access on September 18, 2023. That means three years later, YoDubzz should have plenty of feedback and time to polish the game before its full release on February 6, 2026, with its 1.0 release. I started my journey like most survival games, learning the basics of gathering fibers and sticks, starting a fire - the usual survival necessities. What I didn’t expect was the frustrating controls and a game that quickly shifted from the excitement of the unknown to rather unfortunate broken mechanics that hindered my experience, rather than allowing me to fortify my headquarters to my heart’s content.

My Calling

The overview of Humanitz has everything I look forward to in a zombie-driven survival game. Creating my survivor is easily one of the most important factors in the genre - crafting a character that is uniquely… YOU. I want to feel the weight of my character’s importance in the world, even if I choose not to play with permadeath enabled. Crafting my character’s appearance, though this felt minor in Humanitz, was still satisfactory. Classifying my character’s professional history as a thief, which awarded me the benefit of not setting off car alarms, was great for avoiding unsuspecting Zeeks nearby.

With my newly created thief, I was bound to explore until my pockets were full or would eventually fall to a surrounding wave of Zeeks. I knew I shouldn’t have shot that gun. Shattering a glass window because the front door is locked may look tempting, but the consequence may be less than rewarding. How equipped are you to tackle the wave of Zeeks heading your way because you alerted far too many? Crawling, running, or oversized Zeeks will have you asking yourself, ‘just how far can I push myself while searching my newly found loot heaven?’

Searching across Anytown within the zombie-infested landscape, I hoped to find a fan belt that would allow me to fix up the broken-down truck immobilized at my starting home. Gathering materials to craft a workbench brought on new, needed materials for further developing my ever-growing quest of survival needs. Not to mention fighting off the infected and relentless zombies the team calls Zeeks as you search nearby locations for food and other resources. All set upon an isometric view, which presents a much easier tone for those less prone to creepy or horror-like titles. This had everything I was looking for.

Dangling the Carrot

There is always that one thing just out of reach that sends you out to scavenge the area in hopes of finding the missing material, allowing you to craft a new weapon, farming equipment, or better yet, a vehicle to run down the Zeeks. The world can be big and resourceful, but it comes at a price. It’s the risk and reward that pulled me in - searching, looting empty houses, breaking down rundown cars that might leave behind something useful. It’s exciting to see how far is too far out in the wilds of Humanitz.

While searching across Anytown, you’ll encounter NPCs who will either look to trade for other resources, give you lore about the world’s backstory, or want you dead. The zombies aren’t the only hostile enemy types you’ll come across. These enemies felt varied enough, but it wouldn’t hurt to see a few more types to help break up the repetitive nature of the world.

Old and Dated

The zombie survival genre is certainly popular, with lots to choose from. Having played so many of these games over the years, it’s nice to see something new in hopes of bringing something fresh to the genre. However, this doesn’t feel like the most innovative zombie survival game I’ve played - in fact, Humanitz felt dated, presenting itself with a UI that feels old and run down, like the zombies themselves. The controls were unfortunately incredibly frustrating. Although I was able to change these in the settings or use a controller, I still experienced cumbersome movement and camera lockups that forced me to go back to mouse and keyboard.

The inventory and use of weapons also became an issue, with missing gear when switching from one item to the next. With a pipe in hand, I was able to take down the crawling and sprawling zombies headed my way. I switched out my trusted pipe for a headshot-splattering gun, which felt great and rewarding - until I went to equip my handy pipe again after running out of ammo.

The inventory system is clumsy and irritating. Though I had just used the pipe and switched to the more powerful gun, when I ran out of ammo and pressed the number 1 key on my keyboard (which had the pipe assigned), it was no longer accessible. It was slotted at the number 1 key, with my gun at number 3. Instead of being able to equip the pipe again with a simple press of the key, I was forced to open my backpack, locate where it had gone (if it hadn’t disappeared altogether), and re-equip it to the previous hotkey.

I can’t tell you how many times this happened during my playthrough, or the number of times I’d be in my backpack moving items around only to lose the arrow icon for relocating items and have nothing appear on screen at all. Trying to juggle items while guessing which one I was selecting was certainly frustrating.

A highlight to any survival game is the ability to live and die with others. When playing co-op, we began supplying our newfound home with building new equipment, crafting items, and quickly loading up on supplies that would encumber us due to limited backpack storage space. In order to offload our fully equipped backpacks, I built a few storage crates, only to find that when I returned for my next session, I couldn’t access the storage crates I had made. The game said I didn’t own them and couldn’t access the crates. I’m the one who made all three crates, yet I was no longer able to use them. This added to my unfortunate experience, with more time spent fighting the game than the Zeeks themselves.

You’re Infected

Though Humanitz isn’t perfect - which, after a three-year early access period, I expected more polish - there is an adventurous grind for players willing to push past some issues and tackle the Zeeks lurking throughout the large map in search of resources, lore, and the grind that can often become infectious with zombie survival games.

There are moments of enjoyment, even when dying. As I struggled to find water early within the game, I would come to my demise as I sat alone, watching my health drain before my eyes as I faded off into the darkness. The need to find water and survive is a part of the game. I can face the fact that after searching through house after house, through car after van, I wasn’t able to find the last drop of clean water I would need for survival. What I didn’t appreciate was heading back to my created respawn point and being stuck to the pole as if it were winter and I thought licking the pole would be a bright idea and not dare move to tear off the top layer of my tongue. Another glitch in the system - glued to my respawn point.

Just like fading off into the darkness without the necessary findings of water, I found myself fading away from the game due to frustrating mechanics. Though the game modes, maps, and location all have the makings of a great zombie-infested apocalyptic game, it just falls short of being worthy of grinding due to the many struggling infected pointed of frustration.