Project Zomboid: The REAL Secret of the Military Base [B42]

Before you continue reading, you should know this guide contains spoilers for Project Zomboid!
We will be talking about one of the most famous hidden locations in the game. If you wish to explore the game world and discover it’s mysteries yourself, DO NOT read this!

I have already written a really expansive guide to this place for the previous B41 version of the game.

You can find my previous B41 guide HERE!

I don’t like to repeat myself, so I won’t be quoting or copying sections of it here, but I will be referencing some info wherever appropriate and assume you have either read it or at least have some prior knowledge of the location and the surrounding area.

The Military Base – as it’s been called by veterans – has been the stuff of legend in Project Zomboid for many years. Given it’s very secluded location and questionable usefulness to gameplay few have ventured out here, if not for bragging rights or to see the place for themselves. It’s inclusion since the early builds of the game has sparked intense debates of it’s purpose and connection to the story and background lore of the game, but so far not much information could be gleaned just by touring the place, and many fan theories have sprung up around this mysterious location.

In previous builds of the game all we could ascertain is that this hidden compound has probably played a key role in the start of the zombie plague, but without being able to access the facility proper, all that remained are theories. All of which I explored in detail in the previous version of this guide.

However, with the arrival of B42, and with it basements, underground areas and major extensions to the game world, we can finally investigate this legendary location proper and hopefully figure out it’s purpose, history and how it all connects to the Knox Event and the lore of Project Zomboid.

With the arrival of B42 the game map has been massively extended in the south and west directions, and several new towns (Echo Creek, Irvington, Ekron, etc.) and points of interest have been added. Interestingly enough, however, the location of the Military Base hasn’t changed at all. It can still be found in the same exact place, deep in the wilderness west of Rosewood.

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The details on how to access the base, how to prepare and what to look out for can be found in the previous version of this guide, I won’t repeat all that here. Follow the directions outlined there and you should have no problem finding the base.

The only noticeable difference is the road cutting through the wilderness from the highway all the way down to Dark Wallow Lake, which should make approaching the base a tiny bit easier.

The other interesting lore addition can be found on the recently released Official Map of Project Zomboid which can be found online, and the full scale version can actually be found among the game files inside your Steam folder at

Small warning: the picture is full resolution (10234 x 8314), a massive 170mb, so you might have some issues opening it.

On this newly minted lore-friendly Knox Country map, there is a small notice about the Hog Wallow Forest where the Military Base is located.

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At the end of the little information box, it reads:
“Hunters and hikers alike should be aware that this land is open to the public by permission of the US Army. Please stay out of marked areas, and comply with instruction!”
Which is our first clue as to the real purpose of this facility…

As it’s been previously discussed there has been some contention if the so called “military base” is even that: a US Army installation. In previous iterations of the game there was actually no concrete evidence the US government had anything to do with this place, seeing as how the location and the compound was completely unmarked, it makes no sense from a strategic standpoint and the fact nothing related to the military could be found among the boring offices and utility rooms. The prevailing standing theory was, that even if the government had something to do with this location, it was either a hidden black site or maybe even a secret corporate facility (like Umbrellas Corp. from Resident Evil).

However, in B42 the devs have added a minor but absolutely crucial detail, that finally reveals the facility’s owner once and for all:

Newly added signs at the entrance of the building clearly state, that this is indeed “US Army property” and one should refrain from trespassing, which we will now completely ignore as we delve deeper into the secrets of the – now 100% proven – MILITARY BASE!

Before the recent update I probably would’ve told you to turn around and go back to whence you came, since there wasn’t anything worth dying for in this weirdly placed office building in the jungle and it’s also an extremely stupid place for a safehouse, unless you’re on a challenge run or something.

But everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked with the new inclusion of basements and underground areas! It turns out my theory was right and there is indeed a massive underground facility beneath the unassuming facade!

Not much has changed on the ground floor layout aside from some very crucial details.

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The offices in the front and the utility areas are all the same, but the empty closet next to the conference room has been turned into what looks like a server room.
Next to the back security checkpoint, the armory has been extended and now there’s a set of stairs leading up from the loading bay, that connects to a new helipad on the roof.

The back areas are also largely the same, with the medical rooms, kennels and the office, save for one crucial detail: The dead end at the end of the corridor how has been turned into yet another checkpoint with a set of stairs leading down into the belly of the beast!

Keep in mind, that right now this narrow corridor and staircase is the ONLY way into the underground facility! Even on normal settings the area is absolutely teeming with infected, and it’s very easy to get cornered here. If you are planning to explore the underground areas, make sure to clear the area of zombies before you begin your descent, or you might be in for a rude surprise when you emerge later.

Once you manged to fight through the hordes of zombies on the surface and secure the area, stepping into the stairwell is only the beginning of your adventure. Make sure you have enough ammo, weapons and supplies, because even reaching the bunker itself will be a fight and a half…

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The sprawling facility is found deep, deep underground, 13 floors down to be exact, which makes it THE deepest location in all of PZ right now. The deeper you go, the more resistance you’ll run into, and based on your RNG you might even have to turn back before you reach the facility proper. From what I heard it could take many (real life) hours just to clear the route all the way down there.

Now, the facility proper is spread out in five underground levels, from sublevel -13 all the way down to -17, each floor seemingly having it’s own purpose. I stress this enough, there is only one way in and out of the bunker, it’s very easy to get trapped down there, so please weigh your option whether you want to risk your entire run on doing this.

With that settled, let’s see what the secret facility has in store for us, one level at a time…

Once you have successfully massacred your way down the incredibly long and dangerous stairwell, you’ll find yourself on sublevel -13.

(Click to ENHANCE!)

At the bottom of the stairwell, through the door, there are decontamination showers. This immediately enforces the theory, that this is indeed a secret research facility that deals with dangerous contaminants.

Out in the hallway, the first room you find is what looks like a security center with radios, computers and rows upon rows of monitors, most likely connected to the CCTV system inside and outside the base. Further down the hallway is a security checkpoint and where the personnel elevator from the surface terminates. Turning left here leads to a residential area with several apartments, probably for the management class of the facility. Here is also where you find the elevator and staircase leading down.

At the end of the first hallway is where the cargo lift from the surface terminates and leads to a massive warehouse.

In terms of loot, there can be usefully stuff in the apartments, the locker room, and obviously the huge warehouse. Based on your loot settings, you might have to take several trips just to get all the good stuff out of this level alone… well, given you can clear a path through the humongous hordes of infected that you’ll meet down here.

Arriving to this floor you’ll be greeted with even more resistance than before. This level is the Barracks, sleeping quarters for all the Average Joes and Janes of the facility.

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Bunk beds and lockers. Just endless hallways of bunk beds and lockers. Aside from the showers and the laundry room, there is really not much else on this floor. There is still good loot to be had if RNGesus is nice to you. However, scouring the entire barracks might not be worth it considering the increasing number of zeds.

One thing to mention is the second stairwell found at the eastern part of the floor leading downstairs, which is a good thing to keep in mind as a secondary route.

It’s interesting to note the sheer size of the living quarters. More than a hundred bunks just on this floor, with full amenities. With the upper residential area and the rest of the complex – assuming people working in shifts – there must’ve been several hundreds (if not thousands) of people connected to this facility. Keeping this place operational must’ve been a logistical nightmare, not to mention the cost. Whatever they were doing down here must’ve been incredibly important to some very important people…

If you made it down here, that’s an achievement in itself. But we are not done yet, by far…

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On the south side of this floor you’ll find the heart of the facility, the command center, the war room and what looks like the office of the base commander, with some additional offices and an archives room. Looks like this is where the day-to-day operation of the facility was conducted from.

Next to the command wing we find the mess hall, the kitchen and the food storage. If you made it this far, you must be running quite low on supplies, so it’s a good idea to stock up here for what’s still to come.

You can also check out the rec room and the gym with a boxing ring in the northern part of the floor. Looks like they’ve spared no expense in making sure the base residents were well fed and entertained down here. I guess working in a hole in the ground with insanely dangerous contaminants also has it’s perks…

Well, here we are. If my theory is correct, this is Ground Zero, the very place where it all started.

(Click to unlittle!)

Getting this far is truly a feat to behold. Even on basic settings the sheer number of zombies and obstacles you must have fought through is incredible. Your reward for surviving all that is the truth.

Starting down the corridor you’ll run into the engineering bay where all the base’s utilities (HVAC, power, plumbing) are operated from and a few storage rooms lining the other side of the corridor.

Turning right at the intersection will take you medical and some storage rooms which might have some loot for you.

Down the hall you’ll find the security center and the decontamination airlock. I mentioned rewards, right? There is a huge armory behind the checkpoint that can have several guns, ammo and gear you can take for your efforts so far.

Keep in mind, that the airlock is the only way in and out of the lab area!

Inside you’ll find several rooms with research equipment, a large kennel for most likely lab animals, and in the very back, there are operating rooms for what looks like human testing. There is also a separate utility room for just the lab area to avoid contamination.

At the end of the first hallway there is an elevator and stairs, the only way to reach the morgue on the lower level.

If you are low on medical supplies, this is the place to stock up, although from an in-game perspective I’m not sure how safe it is to take anything out of there knowing what all of that stuff was actually used for, but it’s ultimately up to you..

If you head down the stairs from the Lab area, you’ll find yourself in the Morgue.

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With several rows of cadaver coolers, an autopsy table and a body scanner in the back, this is where all the test subjects (be it animal or human) eventually ended up. Aside from a records room at the end off the hall, there is really not much to find here, but given it’s location, it is very easy to get trapped in here if you are not careful. When you are done looking around, get out of here as soon as you can, there is nothing worth dying for in here.

Back up and through the airlock, take the stairs down to the bottom level. At the end of the hallway you’ll find the last security checkpoint.

(The cake is a lie!)

Aside from the utility room there is really nothing notable here, so head to the checkpoint and through the doors to the final area of this sprawling complex: the cave!

(Aah, I’m trapped in a Steam guide! Send help!)

Bashing through the doors at the end of the hallway will lead you into a sprawling cave system. Fair warning, it’s a literal maze in there for very little gain, if any, so unless you know exactly what you’re doing I would suggest not going to the caves. Being the lowest, most secluded part of the entire game world of Project Zomboid, it’s a veritable suicide to venture into this pitch black, dank maze teeming with the undead.

The winding paths all lead to dead ends and there is absolutely nothing down here loot-wise. The only thing that could be of interest is a closed off cavern at the very end to the east. It’s littered with sleepin bags, a lean-to, campfire and some rubbish which suggests some people have taken shelter here, most likely when the outbreak happened. It did not help them. If you absolutely, positively want to see it for some reason, follow the path marked in blue on the picture.

One interesting thing to note is that several dead ends in the cave are marked with traffic cones, the same way the developers have marked parts for map extensions in the past. This could very well mean, that the cave network will possibly be expanded in the future and maybe more exits added, providing an alternate route into the secret facility.

And that’s it!

We have explored the legendary Military Base from top to bottom! There is nothing more to see here (yet). If you have gotten this far in the game, I tip my hat to you. It’s a nearly impossible undertaking given how extremely dangerous this whole undertaking is. The “stairwell of doom”, the dark rooms and hallways and of course the never ending tide of the undead. While there is possibly some loot to be had, the sheer effort and danger involved makes it an utterly asinine undertaking, all things considered.

Surviving all the way down to the bottom, even into the caves is a stupidly hard feat to accomplish. And you have to do it all over again, only backwards! This whole facility is a death trap, having only a single entry/exit means you now have to fight your way out of here, up through the bunker, straight back into the stairwell of absolute horror, the surface building and then brave the infested jungle back to what remains of civilization.

Good luck!

But it is truly one of the most iconic places in the world of Project Zomboid with lots of mysteries to uncover. I think everyone should, at least once, make the pilgrimage to this secret location, if for nothing else, bragging rights.

Thanks to B42 and the tireless work of the developers, we can finally explore this legendary place in the world of Project Zomboid. Since the game is still very much in beta, it’s very likely this is not even the final form of the Military Base. With every major update we understand a little more of the world of PZ and it’s lore, not to mention the incredible work of the devs on gameplay and much more.

As for the Military Base, as I have previously theorized, we finally have definite proof that it is indeed a secret biological research facility and command center, hidden deep in the wilderness of Knox Country. And what’s more, it is more than likely ground zero for the whole zombie apocalypse.

One has to wonder how this hidden complex came to be. A massive and elaborate facility like this must’ve taken years and insane amount of resources and manpower to build, and hundreds of active crew to operate. Not to mention the sheer influence and reach to keep it hidden from the public. And we don’t even know just how long the facility has been operating in secret under everyone’s noses before the Knox Event. One thing is for sure, the US Government and the Army not only knew of the existence of this base but commissioned and built the damn thing.

The final answer: biological weapons!

It’s the only thing that makes sense:

• The place is owned and operated by the US Army, as the signs clearly state.
• It’s 13 floors deep underground, which is massive overkill even for a nuclear bunker.
• It’s hidden deep in the wilderness, far from any population centers, which makes sense if you are working on dangerous contaminants.
• The base and especially lab area is obviously set up for dangerous chemical/biological research, with the decon showers, airlocks, sealed and separate HVAC systems, etc.
• The final nail in the coffin is the kennels and signs on animal (and possibly human) testing.

Given the timeline of the Knox Event[pzwiki.net] pieced together from lore snippets found in the game (TV/radio broadcasts, newspapers, etc.), we know that the outbreak started inside the exclusion zone. Many have reported a foul smell lingering in the air, not far from the base, several days even before the first reports of the sickness took off. Which means the infection started out as an airborne contaminant. We don’t exactly know what it actually was, bacteria, virus or any number of other man-made horrors, but what we do know is it spread extremely fast and was very lethal. Well, at least until the dead started coming back to un-life and attacking the living…

We also know, that phone lines and communication channels were cut and the containment zone was erected around Knox Country even before the first reported deaths. Which means the powers that be had prior knowledge of the outbreak! That could only have happened if they knew something extremely dangerous got loose and they couldn’t stop it at the source.

From what we know, we can formulate a strong theory of what happened:

Some form of accident or sabotage took place in the underground facility, and the zombie plague got out of the labs. The base probably went into lockdown immediately and high command outside the base was alerted. The plague quickly spread throughout the facility, and those who didn’t get sick later died to their own reanimated colleagues. The theory they actually didn’t know they were dealing with an airborne plague is demonstrated by the fact, that the surface area of the facility was hastily evacuated but nothing else happened. If they’d known it was actually airborne, I assume they would have firebombed the entire site into a smoldering crater. But that’s not what happened. The base was abandoned and the powers that be most likely argued over what to do with it until it no longer mattered. We know this, because the foul smell – the stench of the dead and zombies emanating from the overrun base – was reported weeks before the epidemic started. So they knew they opened Pandora’s box! They knew and did nothing! At least not until it was way too late…

It’s also interesting to note the transmission and lethality of the infection. We know, that the first wave of the zombie plague was airborne. Early reports from the army and survivors describe people with flu-like symptoms and many others dying and reanimating who never came in contact with the infected. However, the mere presence of survivors means that a sizable portion of the population was actually immune to the infection, at least initially…

From playing the game proper, we can assume our character was immune to the first (airborne) infection, since we don’t get sick from even being in close proximity to the zombies. Which means the infection either mutated to being transmitted through only blood and saliva, or we are in fact dealing with TWO infections: an airborne illness that causes flu-like symptoms which weakens and kills it’s victims, and an entirely separate infection that reanimates the dead. It could very well be, that the former could’ve been just a normal flu, which simply coincided with the zombie outbreak. The latter being able to spread more rapidly due to weakened immune systems and deaths. In short, a completely normal flu masking the presence of the zombie plague, having most of the same initial symptoms, at least until the dead started coming back to life, at which point it was already too late.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading!

With all the new stuff added in B42, we could finally explore this mysterious location and learn a lot more about what could possibly have happened at the start of the outbreak. We now know the Military Base most likely played a key role in unleashing the zombie apocalypse on the world, however many details are still shrouded in mystery.

Until the inclusion of the Story Mode in a far away update – possibly years to come – we can’t know for sure how it all started and what exactly happened at this hidden facility. But with more and more bits and pieces of lore popping up, we can slowly piece the truth together.

If you are badass enough, it’s high time to take a pilgrimage to this legendary location and figure out it’s mysteries for yourself.

If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment below!

And once again…

Stay safe, fellow survivors!