News

Note: Just because you notice something does not mean it has recently been implemented. Check the official news archives to see if it has already been implemented, and check the talk page for other players observations.

2021

May 27th

Urban Dead will be offline for several hours later today, while the server is relocated to a deeper and darker basement.

2015

July 3rd

• Urban Dead is ten years old today. Take the 2015 State of the Apocalypse Survey to let us know what you've thought of the end of the world so far, and what you think should happen next.

2014

December 30th

• Sadly Urban Dead is being hit by the "VATMOSS" change in EU tax laws on digital products on the 1st of January 2015, which will make it impractical to continue offering donation rewards to players in the European Union (outside of the UK). Anybody playing from Europe outside the UK who wants a donation flag applied to a character can pay for one today or tomorrow, but not for the foreseeable future after that.

February 1st

• Urban Dead will be temporarily unavailable from 10pm (GMT) on Monday the 3rd while its server is physically relocated to a building with stronger barricades. It will be back online within eight hours.

2013

October 31

• Something in the air is once again making full-face masks harder to ignore, while survivors crunch through their dwindling candy supplies and zombies thump door-to-door.

July 9 (Date Approximate)

Unofficial Notes

• Party hats return. As usual, survivors may equip a party hat as an article of clothing and zombies may click a button "Wear a party hat". This year's party hat is a plastic crown.
• Bellows issued by zombies are now distinguished as "familiar" to members of its own horde, similar in the way that the Feeding Groan mechanic works.

2012

October 30

• It's the time of year for zombies to thump at safehouse doors in the fog. Perhaps they'll get some extremely stale pre-apocalypse confectionery, perhaps they'll just smash the carved pumpkins of the living and cover the place with gore.
• Full-face masks worn during halloween will be displayed in place of the character's name for any action they take, but other players can click through to see who's behind it.

July 6 (Date approximate)

Unofficial Notes

• While inside a club survivors can equip a new hat and zombies can press a button "Wear a party hat" so that With careful deliberation, you manage to pick up and wear one of the discarded tinfoil crowns.

February 24

Unofficial Note

• After a long, harsh winter in the Quarantine Zone (likely a result of Post-Apocalyptic climate change) the snow has finally melted.

2011

December 21

• With only a few looting days until Christmas, the weather turns colder. Those wandering the streets of Malton will leave footprint trails and/or bloodstains in the snow as they go about their business.
• Dwindling mall backrooms still seem to have enough decorations for safehouses, for a few days.

April 21

• The Urban Dead wiki is updated to MediaWiki software version 1.16.4. Significant features and security updates were included with the update.

April 1

Unofficial Notes

• For two years in a row, there was no April Fools joke.

2010

December 22

• As the year ends, survivors take up their seasonal traditions of dragging pine trees through the cold streets, and leaving footprints and blood in the snow as the undead trail them to their decorated safehouses.
• Although it's freezing in Monroeville and Borehamwood, the snow isn't heavy enough to leave footprints there.

October 29

• Halloween just doesn't have that old pre-apocalypse atmosphere, in a city of walking corpses, but survivors continue to harvest and carve pumpkins, and wear unconvincing plastic masks.
• If zombies knock at your safehouse door over the weekend and you don't give them any stale candy, they might use their advancing memories of life to defile any graffiti you've written outside.

October 6

Unofficial Notes

• xkcd's second edition of the Map of Online Communities has been released, and Urban Dead is there. Check it out.

August 16

• Survivors and zombies alike are finding it easier to navigate the familiar wreckage of the city streets. Survivors can get directions to a nominated safehouse; zombies automatically focus on the most recent groan or scent trail.
• Settling in for the long haul, some survivors have been modifying and memorising their safehouses. Those able to scout a safehouse can spend 30AP to survey the building, giving them approximately 5 extra AP per day within their nominated safehouse, until they die or the safehouse is ruined.
• A few zombies have been heard bellowing with rage when faced with large numbers of survivors, issuing a louder feeding groan which attracts the dead from further afield.
• Zombies are lurching into the deepest shadows of dark buildings, making it harder to escape their tangling grasp in the dark.

July 3

• Five full years of quarantine since the first outbreak in 2005, and the world still ends. New game mechanics are coming later this month in early August, but for today, and today only, zombies and survivors can scavenge cardboard crowns from the floors of the city's nightclubs.

Unofficial Notes

• While inside a club survivors can equip the new hat and zombies can press a button "Wear a cardboard crown" so that With careful deliberation, you manage to pick up and wear one of the discarded cardboard crowns.

April 1

Unofficial Notes

• For the first time in Malton's history, there was no April Fools joke.

21st January

Unofficial Notes

• The snow which covered Malton during the festive season has now melted.

Archive

• 2005 News
• 2006 News
• 2007 News
• 2008 News
• 2009 News
• 2010 News