Project Zomboid, Stardew Valley Collide In New Zombie RPG You Can Play Free Now

Published Sep 4, 2026, 11:01 AM EDT

Tom Wilson is a Gaming Features Writer at Screen Rant. Over the past five years, Tom has worked as the Editor-in-Chief at The Game Crater, as a Staff Writer for GamingIntel, a List Writer at TheGamer, and, of course, as a Senior Writer at ScreenRant. Tom has experience writing reviews, guides, news, and features, and has been responsible for teams of writers, training them and editing their work.

Tom graduated with a Masters in Multimedia Journalism, and has since gone on to build up his portfolio of games journalism work.

Stardew Valley has become the quintessential farming life-sim foundation from which indie developers can build on. Its successful formula is the ultimate distillation of cozy farming-sim mechanics and vibrant pixel art, and is thus the ideal starting point for aspiring cozy game creators to draw inspiration and establish their own niche. Naturally, this leads to numerous comparisons between new cozy farming sims and Stardew Valley itself, all of which are infinitely flattering and, for the most part, well deserved.

Case in point, the latest farming life-sim to hit Steam is yet another game like Stardew Valley, only this time, it comes with a twist. While it is certainly packed full of very Stardew Valley-esque (and, therefore, Harvest Moon-esque) gameplay mechanics, it also borrows rather liberally from the likes of Project Zomboid and other horror-focused titles. For those who want a little more tension in their farming life-sim, this new indie game may just be for you.

This New Farming Sim RPG Combines Project Zomboid & Stardew Valley

Project Zomboid meets Stardew Valley is, surprisingly, not an uncommon combination. The two share a remarkable amount in common, even if one is a tense game about attempting to survive as best as you can until you inevitably die and the other is about raising sheep and flirting with your neighbors. They're both relatively slow-paced, see the player build up toward improving their situation, and, amazingly, have an almost cozy vibe.

Ashfield Hollow, however, looks like one of the best examples of this combination working so harmoniously. It takes the open-world survival crafting mechanics of Project Zomboid, along with its zombies, and supplants them into a life sim experience packed with fellow survivors to befriend, sheep, cows, and chickens to raise, and a whole farm to run. You can switch between blasting the heads off of rival survivors and zombies alike and tending to your livestock and milling about town chatting with your friends. Its Steam store page description reads:

"Ashfield Hollow is a 2D post-apocalyptic life sim blending real-time survival combat with farming, base building, and the slow work of rebuilding a life in a world that nearly ended. And still can."

These diametrically opposed concepts work perfectly in tandem because they elevate one another, with the visceral carnage and stakes of Ashfield Hollow's combat being made all the more important by the time and effort you've invested in your Stardew Valley-esque farm. In many ways, Ashfield Hollow eschews the inevitability of death in Project Zomboid by giving you something truly worth caring about, and that, in turn, makes it a far more cozy experience that fans of Stardew Valley will enjoy.

Ashfield Hollow Proves Farming Sims Need A Twist

It is staggering just how oversaturated the farming life-sim genre has become over the past few years. Indeed, one cannot go two minutes on Steam without running into a Stardew Valley-esque experience packed with hot NPCs to marry and an abundance of cute animals to raise. It's why games like Ashfield Hollow need to offer a twist on the core formula, and why horror games like Stardew Valley, or Stardew Valley-esque RPGs, are doing far better than carbon-copy replications of the now well-and-truly exhausted formula.

Ashfield Hollow, thankfully, manages to pull this twist off in clever and cohesive ways to make for an experience that doesn't just feel like a random mash-up of two genres. Its completely free demo offers a glimpse into the gameplay loop it promises and is the perfect way to see if a zombie-focused farming life-sim is the game for you. Ashfield Hollow releases in Q1 of 2027 (which is any date between January 1 and March 21), so there isn't much longer to wait before you can get your hands on this fun mix of Project Zomboid and Stardew Valley.

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