Do you think zombies suck? Well, why not try this, with better animation, actual zombie hordes, and smarter IA with unique abilities this addon will make zombies an actual challenge without spamming your world with reskins of the basic zombie.

Addons about zombies are almost the same every time, they add resident evil like zombies, zombies with illogical abilities like spitfire and summon minions, or in the worst case, they just add buffed reskins of the vanilla zombie. I´m pretty tired that almost no one tries to make a vanilla-like addon about zombies, so that´s why I made this, an addon with challenging zombies but that tries to keep certain logical about what zombies can do as ex-humans, as well as adding new zombie version of other mobs, with abilities that change depending on how the zombification affects them.

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Current Content

This addon adds many variants to all humanoid zombies, improvements on IA, better animations, zombie hordes mechanics, and new zombie variants to other mobs, as well as the possibility for the player to turn into a zombie themselves. All to give a proper "Zombie apocalypse" feeling to your survival without turning it into resident evil.

Improved Animations

This addon changes the model and animations of all humanoid zombies, to make the zombies feel more "alive" (pun intended). This includes tweaked animations for basic actions like walk, run and hit, animations for special behaviors added on this addon, and even custom spawn and death animations, I´m not gonna enter on details here, you can see them across the videos showing the addon or while you try it yourself.

Changes to the IA and spawning.

All zombies in general are neutral to each other, and can´t be damaged by each other, this includes new zombies added by this addon that don´t exist in vanilla and the player if they become a zombie

Humanoid zombies now come out of the ground when spawned instead of just instantly appearing, they are hostile to all non-undead mobs, including other monsters, but focus on the player, the exception to this are zombie piglins, they ignore the player if it wears gold armor and has smaller detection range for non-piglin entities, including the player.

Zombies spawn less, but the ones that spawn can call reinforcements once when they target a player (this is to improve performance), and they sometimes can spawn in huge zombie hordes, explained later in this post.

Basic Zombies, Zombie Villagers and Illagers can transform into either a Drowned or a Husk. The Drowned transformation works as normal, except they don´t drop their armor now, and to transform into a husk they must take sun damage. Each time they do, there´s a chance they´ll turn into a husk and stop burning, which increases with the difficulty. This transformation doesn´t reset the entity; they keep health, names, trades (in the case of zombie villagers), etc.

General Zombification

Any non-undead mob that dies by a zombie tries to turn into a proper zombie variant now, vanilla or from the addon. If none are found, it spawns 1 "Fleshbound soul"  for every 10 hp of the total max health; this can be killed and transform into a ramzom zombie from the addon with 20 health or less after a minute

 

No Zombie Friendly Fire

All zombies, be it vanilla, from the addon, from other addons or zombified players, are unable to hurt other zombies; zombies from the addon won't target other zombies either.

Custom Commands and Gamerules

This addon has 3 commands to allow some customization to the experience, especially player zombification

• • /udc:zombify and /udc:unzombify: These two commands simply turn the selected players into zombies or cure them, more so thought for ease of use in creative mode.

  • /udc:gamerule: This command has a set of gamerules that allow you to customize the behavior of the add-on.

    • • help: Simply gives info on the existing gamerules.

      • zombiesIgnoreMobGreafing: Determines if zombies can break blocks even if the vanilla mobGriefing rule is set to false.

      • zombificationBasedOnDifficulty: If set to false, zombification is always 100% successful regardless of the world difficulty level.

      • playersCanZombify: Controls whether players are allowed to become zombies.

      • zombiePlayersCanRegen: If set to false, zombie players cannot regenerate health naturally.

      • zombiePlayersFoodPenalty: If true, the nutrition gained from eating food is halved and saturation is completely negated for zombie players.

      • zombiePlayersFoodOnKill: Controls whether zombie players restore hunger and saturation when they kill an entity.

      • zombiePlayersHealthOnKill: Controls whether zombie players heal upon killing an entity.

      • zombiePlayersBurnOnDayLight: Determines if zombie players catch fire when exposed to sunlight.

      • spawnFleshboundSouls: Controls whether mobs that lack a specific zombie counterpart turn into fleshbound souls upon death.

      • mobsCanZombify: Determines if mobs other than standard villagers can be zombified.

      • zombifyWithRottenFlesh: If true, players will become infected by eating rotten flesh.

      • cureWithGoldenApples: If true, zombie players can cure themselves by eating a golden apple.

      • goldBypassZombification: Allows zombie players holding gold items to bypass friendly fire protections to hurt other zombies, and prevents them from zombifying the mobs they kill.

      • netheriteBypassZombification: Functions identically to the gold bypass, but applies to holding netherite items.
        
        

 

New Variants

Regular zombies and zombie pigmen have new variants with special abilities, listed here. Zombie piglins have an extra one that uses a crossbow but behaves the same as a regular piglin with a crossbow.

Enderpearl Zombie

This variant can throw ender pearls to reach its target if it is too far away, a simple yet effective tactic

Miner Zombie

 

These zombies carry a random tool with them, that can use to break blocks and open a path to kill you, unlike what their name could suggest they can also break wood and dirt-like blocks if they have an axe or shovel, there´s no block that the player can break and they can´t if they have the right tool, so you can´t just protect your house with a 2 block tall dirt wall, you can use obsidian since zombies with diamond pickaxe are rare, or if you dint like this variant just <mark class="marker-yellow">turn mob griefing off</mark>, it will prevent both creepers and these zombies to destroy your building if you don't like the idea.

Builder Zombie

The counterpart of the previous one, this variant is able to build bridges and stairs using dirt to reach its target, other zombies can use the paths they create too. Like the previous one you can prevent them from filling your building with dirt if <mark class="marker-yellow">mob grefing is turned off</mark>, but that´s the decision of each one.

Ranged Zombies

 

The last three are something special; these zombies are specialized on the ranged attack, but what variant appears depends on how they spawn. If a zombie spawns on land they have a chance of spawn as an archer, but if they spawn underwater the archers will be replaced for drowned with tridents, also all three of them have a greater vision range than other variants because of the nature of their attack and can detect things covered by blocks, but all zombies do that. You can see them in more detail on this video or read their own descriptions down below

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Archer Zombie

 

Archer zombies prefer ranged combat, so when they see a target instead of running at it they start to shoot their bow, they, however, are very different from your normal skeleton, they shoot fast, from really far away, and move a bit after each shoot trying to keep distance and avoid other kinds of ranged attacks like a player that is trying to kill them with its own bow. Kill one of these can be a pain without a proper weapon or if you are just bad with the bow, but if you can avoid the arrows and reach the zombie, killing it will be easy if the target is too close, they just give up and start attacking melee instead of just spamming arrows to something that is 3 blocks away from them as their cousins with less meat. 

Drowned with Trident

They are basically the same ones as the vanilla drowned with tridents, same range, but have the extended vision range, can see through blocks, and can attack melee if the target is close enough, and consider that tridents deal 9 damage per hit if used on melee combat plus the drowned base attack, archers are better fighting from far away, but this zombie can be considered a more balanced kind of fighter, it's kinda boring I know but they have a special subvariant.

Riptide Trident Drowned

One enchantment, one enchantment, and these things go from average to absolutely OP (for a mob at least). These zombies, instead of throwing tridents, throw themselves using their riptide trident, being able to take you by surprise and deal a lot of damage in the process, but the same as players, to use this ability they need some form of water, even rain, but they need it to do this attack. They are really OP on water or rain, zooming around and killing every villager or player with no armor they can see, but take them to a dry place and become nothing more than a basic zombie with a weapon that does 9 damage per hit; well, that's still hard to deal with XD. The good or bad part, depending on how you see it is that they constantly find nearby water to use their tridents, even if the target is nearest than the water, so if you outsmart the drowned you can either run away from it or kill it with a bow (easier said than done) and because they can drop their trident already enchanted can be a really good idea. 

New Zombie Mobs

This addon adds a few zombie versions of vanilla mobs that don´t have any abilities normally; they gain different abilities depending on how the zombification affects them. They appear either when a zombie kills their base form or naturally. Plenty more are planned for the future.

Fleshbound Soul

Spawned when a mob dies to a zombie and has no valid zombie variant, transforms into a random zombie after 60 seconds, harmless otherwise

 

 Zombie Slime

When slimes get infected, they start to rot and lose cohesion, but instead of a hindrance, this gives them the edge in battle, as the smaller ones can leave a poisonous trail behind them as they move, and they can fuse together, growing bigger, stronger, but also slower. If left unchecked, and with enough slimes, they can fuse and grow into gargantuan sizes, being able to one-shot a player without armor; however, if they receive damage, they split and each spawns smaller slimes depending on the damage taken, losing strength but also being able to recover if the smaller slime fuses back, or creating reinforcements for the bigger one.

Zombie slimes can swarm you easily, but due to their lack of cohesion, water harms them faster than they can fuse back together, making them the perfect counter. Being on fire also makes the smaller slime die after splitting, negating its main ability.

Zombie Creeper

When Creepers become zombies, their torso rots and barely stick to the body supported by few bones and muscle. It becomes very delicate and explodes with the slightest hit scattering blood and poisoning everything nearby, this of course doesn´t affect´s too much the creeper since is a zombie already, only having 10 hp instead of 20, but keeping their mobility and explosive capabilities.

Their rotted torso serves as a decoy, but also as a projectile that their explosion launches in the air if they still have it when excluding the tnt on their bodies. Because of this, it can be hard to deal with them. You can actually harm them without exploding their torso and getting poisoned, you have to hit their legs but this can be difficult, so instead is better to just make the torso explode using a projectile and then attack them safely, this can be an arrow, egg, snowball, or a pebble, new projectile added that is craftable by using just 1 cobblestone block, this actually deal some damage so you could use them to kill other zombies too, but aren't very effective.

Zombie Spider

Due to the curse of zombification, the body of the spider starts to give up, and silk starts pouring out all over their body. The spider uses this ability to shoot its head as a long-range attack and stick it to the target using the ball of silk on their forehead, to pull said target towards them.

Hitting the head, or cutting the blocking the string connecting head and body with blocks, will free you if the attack happens to land. Is also possible to move away from the spider despite the pull and overpower it , but this will still slow you down which could prove mortal depending of the enemies around.

 

Zombie Illagers

The pillager and vindicator work similarly to their vanilla counterparts, just inheriting the husk and drowned transformations, inverse effect from harming potions, and the targeting logic of other zombies.

The evoker does receive new abilities from being closer to death than life. Persistent vortex of soulfire replaces their fang attack, which works more as a temporal obstacles that harm any non-undead creature.  Reanimated zombie heads replace their vexes, which, while solid and unable to phase through blocks, explode on death, dealing damage in a small area.

Zombie Iron Golem

A rusted and broken iron golem infested with zombie silverfish, for now the only "mini boss" of the addon, though its drops aren't worth killing it, other than an iron golem getting killed by a zombie; it can spawn with 4 zombie illagers as part of a patrol.

Compared to a vanilla iron golem, this one has multiple moves it uses depending on the situation; for once, being inhabited by a colony of zombie silverfish, it drops one each time it gets hurt, and can also shoot them as projectiles if a target in too far away or unreachable for a melee attack (like a player pillaring) it has a "max ammo" of 5, which you can see pertriding from its bodt, but these regenerate oevr time too, on death it will also drop all silverfish that hasnt used.

Zombie silverfish behave almost the same as their living counterparts, except they have only 1 HP, and rather than hiding in stone blocks, they burrow into the ground to reach their target position if it is too far or unreachable by other means.

Other than this, the iron golem can also pick up and throw nearby melee undead mobs at its target to both damage it and help them reach the target faster. And when in melee range, it uses 2 attacks that it alternates between: an AoE ground slam that ignores shields, and a stab attack that lunges it forward that can be blocked. Both deal massive damage, but blocking the stab stuns the iron golem, allowing for either dealing damage or running away; do consider the silverfish will still fall from the iron golem´s body even while stunned.

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Player Zombification

This has been reworked from the previous iteration; now it doesn't modify the player files directly, so the addon is compatible with other addons and resource packs.
A player can become zombified by eating rotten flesh, or a chance based on dificulty if they die to a zombie (0% on easy, 50% on normal and 100% on hard) both of these are configurable by the custom gamerules.

Being zombified applies a bucnh of changes, both good and bad and also cutomizable whihc ones take effect by gamerules.

• Zombie players are imune to damage from zombies, and zombies from this addon wont attack them
• As a zombie you can´t hurt other zombies either, but this can be bypassed using gold or netherite items
• Killing anything as a zombie applies the standard roll to zombify the entity, same chances as the player based on dificulty, this can also be bypassed with gold or netherite
• Zombie players gain half as much nutrition from food items and no saturation whatsoever
• You can regenrate naturally as a zombie
• Killing non-undead entities heald you for 25% of their max hp, fill you hunger and gives you saturation scaling said hp too, you dont need to zombify an entity to get this bonus.
• Instant damage and instant health are swapped for zomby players
• You can´t trade with regular villagers, but you can with zombie ones
• Iron golems and everything tht attacks monsters is hostile to you
• You burn in daylight, a helmet prevents this at the cost of durabilitu drain

Eeating a golden apple will cure you of zombification instanly

 

Zombie Villagers

Zombie villagers behave almost like regular zombies, including their transformations into drowned or husk variants, which are new to this addon. They don´t have any special abilities like builders or miners.

Zombie Villagers now are able to stay in their villages even as zombies, they sleep during the day to avoid sunlight, and wonder at night even able to use doors, unlike regular zombies. They keep their trades and level from their non-zombie form and can be traded with if you are a zombie too since they don´t work their trades and restock after they sleep, so if you wanna make a zombie trading hall for some reason, make sure they have a bed.

They are cured like normal and keep their trades when being cured, but you won´t be able to trade with them until you cure yourself. So it will be up to you if keep them as zombies or not, depending if you can stay a human yourself (or if you even activated that option).

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Final Notes

-There's a lot of the addon that can be customized using custom gamerules to your liking, so feel free to tweak whatever you dont like.

-The addon is now compatible with any other addon and resource pack since it no longer relies on experimental features or modifying the player entity files.

-If you hae any issue or feedback for the addon, drop by my discrod server, i always answer perosnally

Removed Features

Zombie hordes: Old zombie hordes were removed due to lack and overall poor implementation, but I plan to add them later after a rework

Zombie enderman: Is getting a rework as a boss fight with a more unique concept

Animated mouths: These looked odd and made the future Java port a bit harder; needed Geckolib, so they are gone now 

Planned Changes

 

• Add many more zombie mobs
• Improve phantoms
• An infection mode that starts after the defeat of the Ender Dragon, with a second final boss tied to its progression, kinda like Terraria´s hard mode 
  
  
• A port to Java as a mod on NeoForge
• Some weapons and tools to make fighting zombies easier.

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1.0 Beta Review

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1.0.1 Beta Review

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2.0 Official Version Review

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3.0 Official Version Review

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