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ZA-Z server history: a timeline from launch to Day 105

Checked | 4 min read

ZA-Z opened to the public on 23 August 2026 with its world still on Day 1, 9 July 1993. By 30 September 2026 Knox Country had reached Day 105, 21 October 1993. This page lists the milestones in between, with the in-game day wherever the records pin it down, and links to the full story where there is one.

#How do real dates line up with in-game days?

One in-game day lasts 3 real hours on ZA-Z, but the world clock stops whenever nobody is online, and a night skips when every survivor online is asleep. So the days do not spread evenly over the calendar: the first two real weeks covered about 23 in-game days, the three weeks after that about 80. The current day is always in the server's name in the in-game browser and on the live status page.

#August 2026

  • 23 August (Day 1). ZA-Z goes public: a Build 42 server in Johannesburg, no password, safehouses to claim. Every ZA-Z day is counted from 07:00 on 9 July 1993.

#September 2026: the first weeks

  • 4 September. Survivors learn the hard way that animals towed in a livestock trailer can vanish, a Build 42 bug. See Vehicles and driving.
  • 7 September (around Day 23). zazomboid.com goes live with the live status page, leaderboard, map and armoury. That evening the radio ticker starts scrolling the emergency broadcast across every page. More on The ZA-Z website.
  • 9 September. The KY-60 tracker goes up: every survivor on the highway is timed, and the first timed Run down the Rosewood straight is logged the same afternoon. See KY-60 highway.
  • 10 September. South African snacks start turning up in containers around survivors: biltong, droewors, boerewors, and tins of Sparletta and Stoney. See South African Food.
  • 11 September. The Knox Antidote enters the world as very rare fridge loot: a drink that clears the zombie infection. See Knox Antidote.

#September 2026: the grid goes dark

  • 12 September. The power grid fails across Knox Country.
  • 13 September (Day 51). Three survivors fuel and start three generators inside the Rosewood South substation. The moment the third one runs, power returns for everyone (players who were already online had to relog to see it). The same evening mains water is promised until Day 100. The full story: The Substation Restart; where things stand now: Power and Water.
  • 20 September (Days 79–81). Beds start working: when every survivor online is asleep, the night skips. In Muldraugh a survivor drinks a Knox Antidote and the infection clears, the first recorded cure. The mods vote opens at zazomboid.com/mods. And at the Irvington Speedway two survivors put down 1,609 zombies in one in-game day, then leave in a stock car.
  • 21 September. The zombie density layer goes up on the live map.
  • 24 September. Safehouses now last 14 real days without a visit, up from 7. See Safehouses.

#September 2026: the raid and the mods

  • 25 September (Day 95). Rebel News prints its first issue. That night a crew goes seventeen floors down the secret military base west of Rosewood, the deepest anyone has been: The secret base raid.
  • 26 September (Day 96). The mods go live around 19:00 SAST, days before the vote was due to close: KI5 cars and trucks, the flyable UH-1B Huey, Vanilla Weapons PLUS, Vanilla Foods Expanded, The Real True Music and more, plus ZA-Z's own Essentials and Ink. That night the raid crew opens the camp door at the bottom of the secret base. Four of six do not come back.
  • 27 September (Day 97). Rebel News issue 2. New clothing mods arrive with ZA-Z's Gear and Clothing, and the Huey's cargo hold grows to 500.
  • 28 September (around Day 101). In the early hours the server freezes during a Huey flight over never-visited ground and comes back at its last save. At 19:05 SAST Build 42.21 lands: every mod downloads again, and joins fail until leftover files from the old build are cleared, which takes about an hour. A count of the save finds 59,122 zombies on the map, up from 33,803 a week earlier.

#30 September 2026 (Day 105)

  • ZA-Z's own mods update together. ZA-Z's Smoker's Pack and ZA-Z's Tracers join the server, mythic gear from ZA-Z's Gear and Clothing starts turning up as world loot (about one container in ten thousand), and the Huey flies at 119 km/h with a roomier seat panel.
  • Rosewood becomes Knox County's quarantined safe zone: no PvP, zombies cleared out, and a quarantine fence with watchtower checkpoints going up round the town. See Rosewood Safe Zone.
  • At 14:06 SAST the Rosewood tattoo parlour opens its doors under the TATTOO 42 sign, with ZA-Z's Ink now at 81 designs across seven body areas. How to use it: Tattoos and the Tattoo Parlour.

The server now runs 24 Workshop items; the full list is on Mods.