Sometimes small choices send ripples, especially when they involve a feature called “autodrink” and a substance known—at least, colloquially—as “battle milk.”

Project Zomboid is a hardcore zombie survival game that’s been in development since 2013 and still carries an early access tag. It is a labor of unfaltering commitment—an instance where both developers and community share a tinkerer’s obsession with small details. 

Their priorities are not always 100 percent aligned, however. In the unstable version of the game’s latest patch, players noticed that autodrink—a toggle-able feature that causes your character to automatically drink water when thirsty—now only applies to 100% water. This means your character will no longer slam mixed drinks… like battle milk.

“You'd get a water dispenser jug, drop in 1L of whiskey, 6.4L of milk and fill the rest up with water: battle milk,” explained one player on Reddit to others unfamiliar with the not-quite-exploit (via Ed Smith). “The water being at 51% or higher would trigger autodrink, and the milk portion would add calories, and the booze would temper panic/anxiety.”  

“My brother and I do a full rain barrel,” said another. “Same ratios. I put a barrel in the upstairs bathroom at The Rusty Rifle [in-game bar] and plumbed it to a sink in the bar. We had battle grog literally on tap. This is so disappointing.”

A similar mini-mutiny broke out on Zomboid’s Steam forums.

“Definitely one of the ‘fixes’ that I believe to be completely unnecessary,” said a player. “It was great that you can mix different drinks and autodrink them to get the mixed benefits. Especially the fatigue reduction from some of them. Very handy option to keep yourself from getting tired in the middle of a combat.”

“RIP my new favorite thing,” said another. “Just found out about it, and it was so great not having to constantly be eating when I'm just screwing around on easy mode. What's the point of mixing fluids now anyways? There's so many useless fluid types that don't do anything.”

Aftermath reached out to Zomboid developer The Indie Stone for a clearer explanation of why it decided to neuter battle milk but did not receive a reply as of this publishing. Perhaps outcry will cause it to reverse course, but in the meantime, pour one out for the little concoction that could. 

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AftermathLuke Plunkett

Steam is without a doubt one of the best places to discover new open-world survival-crafting titles, with games like Palworld, RuneScape: Dragonwilds, Enshrouded, Sons of the Forest, and Once Human being some of the platform's more recent hits. The genre has seen a steady flow of new entries over the last couple of years, and when a genre grows because players keep showing up for it, adding more games to the lineup is rarely cause for an eye roll. On that note, Revelation Games' As One We Survive is coming to Steam Early Access very soon, and its combination of elements from games like Valheim, State of Decay, and Project Zomboid makes it look like it could be the next best thing for fans of those titles and the open-world survival-crafting genre in general.