Recently we asked the Zombies, Run! community to send us examples of remarkable versions of Abel Township. With the first half of season 2 now being available to play, there are plenty of opportunities to pick up supplies and materials to really push the limits (literally and figuratively) of your Abel Township.

You didn’t disappoint. We got sent bases of all shapes and sizes. Some with clearly marked out residential areas (what is this, Sim City?) and some that are completely upgraded. Here’s a rundown of a few of our favourites. A huge thanks to everyone who sent theirs in; there were way too many for us to display them all!

First up is Timothy Chen Allen’s massive 12×12 base. That’s 144 square, um… squares of prime real estate. Clearly he has forgone upgrading his housing in favour of pushing those township walls out as far as possible. The upshot? The majority of the residents take nightly shelter in army tents strewn throughout Abel.

Next we have Blenderfox’s… unique vision of Abel Township. One that features seven fully upgraded training areas. Presumably so that Runners have no excuse not to keep active between missions. Though, at least they get to go to sleep in actual houses of an evening…

Rob Rowald’s base intrigues us, because there’s clearly some method behind his madness. We can’t help but feel that the ocean of emptiness is part of some master plan and that it’s only a matter of time until everything clicks into place, revealing the one, true Abel Township. We’ll be keeping an eye on how this one progresses throughout the second half of Zombies, Run! season two.

Christopher Garratty’s base bucks the trend by having not just one residential area, but two. Not everyone in Abel gets on as well as you’d hope, so having two housing zones on opposite sides of the Township keeps everyone happy. Having said that, it looks like the western residential area is favoured slightly more by the town planners. Not only do they have a nearby playground, but a bunch of adjacent amenities, too.

This base from CPTSmith has a full quadrant of upgraded housing, next to a bunch of amenities and a playground. This Abel Township is compact, functional and fully upgraded. It’s almost a shame to have to extend those walls out and build further. We rather like it as it is.

These were our five favourite bases, but we received loads more that we want to share. So check out our honourable mentions list below:

via Ancalime

via Bruno Ideriha

via Clint Porter

via Matt Tempo

via Michael McGee

via Mindy Tan

via Salil Pradhan

via Sean Laird

We’re back with the second part of our Actor Interviews series. This time we’re talking to Phil Nightingale and Olga Leon, who play Sam Yao and Archie respectively. If you missed part one, where we chat with Jennifer Tan and Nick Kay (Runner 4/Nadia and Runner 10), make sure you check that one out too!

So here’s Olga Leon, discussing her character Archie and her experiences recording Zombies, Run! This one is quite spoilerific, so if you’re still pretty early on in Season 2 (pre-mission 15), we recommend waiting until you’re caught up to listen to this one…

And finally, here’s Phil Nightingale, who plays your favourite radio operator, Sam Yao. This one is free of important plot spoilers, but does include a sneaky peek at an upcoming side mission…

We have video footage of Phil’s notable sound booth moments for you below, too. If you enjoy these, make sure you check out the Zombies, Run! YouTube channel for more behind the scenes videos.

The hiatus is over! We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming: Zombies, Run! Season 2. We have another ten weeks worth of new missions (30 in total!) to deliver to you, dear fans, so we hope you’re all caught up with the story. And if you’ve enjoyed the first half of season 2, just wait and see how much more epically bombastic things get in the second half…

If you already own a Season Pass Plus, all of these story and side missions will come at no extra cost to you whatsoever. You will simply need to head on over to the mission list, download the new content and away you go!

Earlier today we had a slight problem with mission downloads. We’ve since fixed the problem on our end, but if you’ve had difficulties playing the new missions, please delete them from the mission manager, restart Zombies, Run! and then redownload.

Don’t forget to check out the new achievements system over at the ZombieLink beta site. Can you collect them all?

*Jack and Eugene / Pacific Rim crossover fanart by the wonderful TheWonderSmith

Zombies, Run! achievements are now LIVE over at the beta version of ZombieLink!

We now reward you for running certain distances or at certain speeds, as well as building your base in certain ways or even listening to the same song on ten consecutive runs — yes, we track all that and more! There are over 70 achievements to unlock, so getting all of them should take you quite a while, even if you’ve been playing Zombies, Run! from the start.

We designed these achievements not only to help you to explore everything Zombies, Run! has to offer, but also to motivate you to improve as a runner. Every achievement falls into an “early-game”, “mid-game” or “late-game” category so you can always feel you have a new task or milestone within your grasp.

A final category, “hardcore”, contains achievements for those who have done everything there is to do in Zombies, Run! but who don’t want to stop running. Things like running for a total of 1000 kilometers or collecting 500 supplies within a week.

The achievement list will not necessarily tell you how each one is unlocked. Some you’ll be able to guess from the name. Others you’ll unlock accidentally, but we have no doubt that the community will figure them out before very long…

Crucially, achievement unlock retroactively, so prolific Zombies, Run! players may have a bunch of achievements already – in fact, over 150,000 achievements have already been unlocked! If you don’t have any unlocked, you simply need to sync a new run in order for your achievements to be generated.

So head over to the Zombies, Run! Beta site and sign in to visit your Achievements page to see which, if any, you’ve already unlocked. And which you should work towards next…

We had some of the Zombies, Run! actors in the office recently, for nefarious reasons that may or may not be related to this piece over at Polygon. While they were here, we had a short chat about their Zombies, Run! characters and their experiences recording for the game.

Today we’re talking to Jennifer Tan, who plays Runner 4 as well as Nadia. Check out her interview below, including a sneaky snippet from an upcoming side mission. Don’t worry, we’ve kept clear of spoilers.

We’ve embedded the video that Jen mentions during her interview here, in case you want to see what it looks like when actors are trapped in a hot, dark box and told to come up with a tune to fit around a set of lyrics. On the spot.

Turns out they invent a frustratingly catchy earworm of a song, which spreads around the office like wildfire. Thanks guys.

Next up is Nick Kay, who played Runner 10. This interview is a little more spoilerific, so if you haven’t reached the end of Season 1 Mission 19, we recommend doing that before taking a listen…

We’ll be back at a later date with another pair of interviews. So look forward to hearing from Phil Nightingale (Sam Yao) and Olga Leon (Archie) in the near future…

Even though the paint isn’t even dry yet on ZombieLink Social, we have a lot more exciting Zombies, Run! updates for both iOS and Android users that we just can’t wait to show you. This new update to the app, which is available right now,  is the biggest update we’ve released since the game was launched in April. Read on to find out how we’ve made the Zombies, Run! experience even better!

You have probably been wondering what those numbers at the top of the Zombies, Run! base screen mean. They’re your defence and morale ratings and you’re suddenly going to be paying them a lot more attention than you had before. That’s because we’ve just given Abel Township a shot of adrenaline and upgraded it to what we call a “living base”.

Players will receive gifts from people inside and outside of your base, giving you a small boost in supplies. However, Abel is also now under threat of zombie attack, so you may find that the undead have taken a bite out of your defence tower. Fixing this up will require spending a few supplies, so you’ll need to keep running to keep the people of Abel safe. 

The Zombies, Run! news feed will alert you whenever these things take place, so check the app every morning to stay up to date with the comings and goings of your base.

Alongside the Living Base, we’ve also brought Radio Mode back to Zombies, Run! on iPhone and iPod Touch (Android users have had Radio Mode since April 26th).

We think you’ll be pretty pleased with the way we’ve implemented it, too. You can pick between starting your latest run by listening to either Season 1 radio mode (all Jack and Eugene, all the time) or Season 2 radio mode (Phil and Zoe). And if you manage to get to the end, simply hit “Restart mission” and you can start over from the beginning again.

But you won’t be running out of content any time soon, because we’ve just added a huge batch of new Radio dialogue. Jack and Eugene are back! Not only that, but we’ve been adding some context sensitive audio clips. So depending on the state of your base, or the happiness of the Township inhabitants, you may hear different snippets of dialogue. Keep an ear out for special clips that play only on certain days, too.

This update also includes a bunch of little tweaks and fixes for the iOS version, such as the ability to jump to the next unplayed mission straight from the app’s news screen. We’ve also expanded the distance estimation feature from the Race Missions so that they can be used in any mission. You’ll be able to choose a constant speed, as well as inputting your stride length so that, even without GPS, you’ll have a good idea of how far you’ve run.

If you’re using a treadmill, chances are you’ll already know how far you have run. So we’ve allowed you to input this distance into the app once the mission ends. Just click on the distance on the Mission End screen and you’ll be able to update the value manually. And, finally, you will now be told which buildings and upgrades you can now afford whenever you finish a mission.

Check out the App Store and Google Play Store for the full change logs for each version.

Did you miss our Zombies, Run! writers Q&A, featuring lead writer Naomi Alderman and co-writer Rebecca Levene? Fear not, you can watch the full, unedited video (yes, including the obligatory “how do I turn this thing off?” at the end) on YouTube. We’ve embedded it above, so you don’t even have to steer your browser to a new page. Aren’t we kind?

We had a great time running this live Q&A for you and we hope to have more in the future. Not just with the writing team, but other members of the Zombies, Run! team coming to talk to you about the future of the game and Six to Start. A big thanks to everyone who attended the live hangout and sent in questions. We hope you had as much fun with it as we did!