Build 67 · Animation, first person & balance11 November 2026

Beta 67: Hands On

Occupational Health has finally run the manual handling course. Everybody now holds things with both hands, and nobody's mouth falls open when they turn their head.

Beta 67 is mostly animation. The first-person view has been rebuilt from the shoulders out, every survivor has a new skeleton, and every zombie's animation now lives on its own model. Round 7's boss has learned to charge. There are also a few balance changes, and every lamp in the office casts its shadow again.

Both hands on the gun

Your first-person arms used to hang from the right hand on the grip, so the left arm came in flat from the side of the screen wherever the stance put it. Now they come from a body. The shoulders sit where yours would be behind your eye, turned side-on for a long gun, and both hands are placed on the weapon with the elbows down. Two-handed guns are held by the grip with the butt in the shoulder and the other hand on the front, at the hip and in the sights.

Your own hands. Each survivor sees their own arms, gloves and grip in first person, not survivor 1's.
Fingers that close. When you equip a weapon, every finger closes onto that weapon's own handle, so the grip fits the gun instead of floating near it.
A reload with hands in it. The gun tips over and your other hand goes down to the magazine and back, timed to the reload, rather than the gun simply dipping out of view.
Carried closer. Weapons at the hip sit nearer the eye, and the Motion Carried is carried bigger and gripped properly.

First-person view in the atrium holding the blue Sales Rifle at the hip, the right hand on the grip, office zombies walking towards the camera between the desks. — The Sales Rifle at the hip.

First-person view down the Sales Rifle's sights, both hands on the gun, zombies approaching across the atrium floor. — And in the sights, both hands on it.

First-person view mid-reload: the Sales Rifle tipped over to show its magazine, the left hand gone down to it. — Mid-reload: the gun tips and the other hand goes to the magazine.

First-person view holding the dark Motion Carried carbine at the hip, larger in frame than before. — The Motion Carried, carried bigger.

First-person view aiming the Security Pistol with both hands wrapped round the grip. — The Security Pistol, two-handed in the sights.

First-person view holding the yellow Facilities Shotgun low at the hip in the atrium. — The Facilities Shotgun at the hip.

Melee you can see

The melee weapons are held in first person for the first time. The Fire Safety Axe is held across the body, ready to hack. The Executive Letter Opener and the Golf Club are held in both hands, and the Employee of the Year trophy is held one-handed by its figure. Every melee swing is now an overhead chop: back over the right shoulder, over the top and down, landing with the head on the crosshair. The swing's timing and damage are unchanged. Its reach changed for two weapons, covered under balance below.

First-person view holding the red Fire Safety Axe across the body in both gloved hands, head up at the right. — The axe, ready.

First-person view in the middle of an overhead chop, both arms raised and the axe handle angled high across the view. — Mid-chop, on the way over the top.

First-person view holding the Executive Letter Opener, a katana, upright in both hands by its handle. — The Executive Letter Opener, two-handed.

First-person view holding the Golf Club in both hands at the grip, the head raised towards the upper right. — The Golf Club.

Four survivors, rebuilt

All four survivors now share the round-7 boss's skeleton: a straight four-bone spine, three bones in every finger and level collarbones, which is what lets the first-person hands above close properly. All four stand up straight now, and each was fixed on the way:

Survivor 1 has a rebuilt neck.
Survivor 2 has a straightened spine and fixed thumbs, neck and beard.
Survivor 3 has new five-fingered hands in place of the slab he had.
Survivor 4 has a fixed neck, chin and collarbones. His loose watch strap no longer draws a line across your screen.

The four survivors standing in a row on the car park crossing, facing the camera: from left, one with the Fire Safety Axe, one with the Security Pistol, one with the Motion Carried and one with the Sales Rifle, the gate and parked cars behind them. — The four survivors on their new skeleton, captured in the game.

The undead, re-rigged

Every zombie's animation now lives on its own model, rather than in separate files baked against a skeleton that could move on without them. Moving them across fixed a lot along the way:

HR has rebuilt weights, a re-footed walk, moving fingers and wrists, and a new overhead two-armed slam. The blow now lands at 0.47 seconds into the swing instead of 0.33, when her hand is actually furthest out, so you have a beat longer to get away.
The Middle Manager has all fifteen of his animations on one rig, and his climbs over boarded breaches are re-solved. An arm crossing his body no longer folds and snaps open, and his hand no longer whips across the last 30 cm onto the fence.
The Employees play from their own four models, and the Scapegoat carries its own nine animations.
Round 7's boss no longer stretches his mouth open whenever he turns his head. His face was weighted to his shoulders.

Round 7 charges

The Executive who runs round 7 used to be a very long health bar that sent Scapegoats. He now charges. Every six to ten seconds, if a survivor is 5 to 25 m away on his floor with a clear line between them, he drops into a lineman's crouch and holds still for 1.9 seconds. That is your warning. Then he launches at 2.3 times his own run, faster than you can sprint.

Round 7's boss crouched low in the car park beside a planted tree, squared up for a charge. — The tell: 1.9 seconds crouched and still.

The boss bearing down across the car park in a head-down run towards a survivor standing in his path. — The charge, straight at the survivor in his way.

Step aside, don't run. He turns slowly, at most about 50° a second, and not at all in the last 3 m.
Whoever he reaches loses 70 health and is thrown aside. He runs on through them until a wall, a door, a breach or a large prop stops him.
He hits it shoulder first and stands dazed for 4.3 seconds, clutching his head. That is the time to empty a magazine into him. Foam stops a charge dead.
His ordinary swipe now takes a fixed 50 health, because the charge is the blow to fear.
The elites from round 24 wear the same body and do not charge.

Balance

Coffee Bombs from supply crates, again. A supply crate gives every survivor with an earned Coffee Bomb slot empty one cup back, on top of filling their guns. It never adds a slot, and a full refill is still a completed TeamSync call.
Shorter blades. The Fire Safety Axe reaches 1.00 m, down from 1.20, and the Executive Letter Opener 1.00 m, down from 1.15. Neither can now hit across a boarded breach.
Round 7: the charge above, and a fixed 50-health swipe.
HR: her new slam lands later in the swing, at 0.47 seconds instead of 0.33.

Also in this build

Change your name in the game. The name box on the multiplayer page is now editable, with a Save button. Names are unique, so nothing is kept until the server accepts it, and a refused name puts your old one back.
Access keys no longer expire. A key works until it is revoked, and the game just says “You are in.”
A trail to follow in the induction. A trail of blood on the floor leads from you to the next station. It goes round walls and through doors once they are open.
Every lamp casts its shadow again. Beta 66 gave a shadow only to the lamps nearest you, which left the building dark away from you. The Lamp shadows setting is gone from the Advanced tab.
The office desks now face their chairs.
The macOS app has a new bundle identifier, com.damn-zombies.game. Your saves stay where they are.

Download Beta 67 for Windows, Linux or macOS, pick up a rifle, and look at your hands.