Zombie

Zombie

General

Type

Enemy

Biome

• Roots

Zombies are a hostile NPC encountered in the Roots when playing on Peak ascent or higher. They are corpses of Scouts, reanimated by parasitic fungi.

Spawning and behavior

Zombies spawn asleep, lying on the ground of the biome. If a player gets within the line of sight of a Zombie, it will wake up and begin to chase after them. Every 10 seconds, the Zombie will switch its target to the closest player. Zombies have infinite stamina and can climb any surfaces to reach their target players.

Once close enough to the targeted player, the Zombie will charge at them, ragdolling in the process. Zombies do not charge at players while jumping on bouncy mushrooms. If the Zombie makes contact with the target while charging, it will bite them, inflicting  10 Injury and  10 Spores, while also giving them the zombie infection. If the target becomes unconscious, the Zombie will select a new one.

Zombies act much like normal Scouts, meaning they can, among other things, trigger Explosive Bombshrooms, be shot with a  Blowgun and fall asleep, be pulled around by a  Rescue Claw, or be crouch-jumped under to be hurled into the air.

After chasing the target for ~2 minutes, or shortly after the campfire at the top of the biome is lit, the Zombie will pass out and die, leaving a skeleton behind.

Zombie infection

Zombie infection is the result of a Zombie bite. An infected player will gain  0.5 Spores every second (2.5 every 5 seconds) until cured. The infection can be cured by any item that removes  Spores. Dying with at least  50 Spores makes the player's corpse into a new Zombie.

An infected player will receive the  Undead Encounter Badge once all of their  Spores are removed.

Gallery

• 

  A zombie chasing the player.
• 

  A zombie charging at the player.
• 

  A zombie climbing a cliff.
• 

  A zombie taking the appearance of a player.
• 

  A zombie jumping alongside a player on a Giant Bounce Fungus.

Trivia

• The zombies appear to reference the parasitic behavior of various cordyceps mushrooms found in nature.
• If a player's body is reanimated through zombie infection, the newly created zombie retains all cosmetics of the host, with the exception of the eyes.
  • The eyes and spores of zombies are compatible with living Scouts, but it is impossible to obtain these cosmetics without using mods.

Patch history

1.40.a (2025-11-05): Introduced.

1.42.a (2025-11-05):

• Removed zombies entirely from Tenderfoot difficulty.
• Significantly reduced the number of zombie spawn points on the map, slightly reduced zombie walk and sprint speed, increased the amount of time a zombie will take to recover after a lunge, reduced the radius at which a sleeping zombie will wake up and begin chasing the player and reduced the distance at which a zombie will go from a walk to a sprint.
• Zombies now attack skeletonised players.

1.43.a (2025-11-07):

• If scouts have been infected by enough spores, your death timer still decays when carried. So, they can now turn into zombies while being carried by another scout!
• Zombies will now recalculate their aggro target and begin chasing the closest player every ~10 seconds.
• Fixed an issue where a player's zombie could bite you on the first frame they turned into a zombie.

1.44.a (2025-11-13):

• Fixed an issue where Zombie footsteps would play from the wrong position.
• Fixed an issue where a spawn point could spawn a zombie more than once if an old one died, resulting in some comedic infinite spawns if the spawned zombie ragdolled off a cliff.

1.45.a (2025-11-17): Fixed an issue where players could still become zombies in Tenderfoot, despite zombies not spawning in the world.