The radio can save a life.

For now, you play with your own people

There are no public games to sign up for today. Either you create the game and invite people, or you join somebody else's with the code they give you. There's no “find a game” button that drops you in with whoever.

So the usual thing is that you play with friends or family. That's not an oversight: it's what keeps the chat a quiet place and lets you know who's out there on the map with you.

Later on there will be public game events, open ones, where a lot of people can come in and play at the same time in the same world. When that lands, it'll be announced here.

From there on you walk the same world, with the same hordes and the same shelters, each of you on your own steps. Nobody plays for you and you play for nobody: you can travel together, split the map up or not run into each other for three days.

The radio reaches further than you can see

The radio reaches quite a bit further than you can see, and what you can see depends on your character too. The math is easy: you can talk to people you can't see. Not the other way around.

It's not a general chat: it's a radio, and radios have coverage. There are moments and places where everybody reaches you, and others where nobody hears a word. The signal shifts as the game goes on and depending on where you are, so it's worth checking how you're doing before you start typing.

“Horde on the north road. If you're heading for Alameda, turn back.”

Just another survivor · General channel

Messages are short: no room for speeches. Enough to warn, to ask for help or to keep quiet. All three are decisions.

Notes stay where you leave them

A note is written at a point on the map and only whoever walks right over it sees it. There's no alert, nothing pops up: either you step on it or you never know.

It's the way to talk to people you're never going to see: mark a house you've already searched, warn about a bad stretch, leave word that the Kilometer 9 shelter was empty on Tuesday. There they stay, for whoever comes past.

Fighting with company

When a horde comes down on somebody, every living player beside them fights alongside them without having to be asked. If two of you are in the same place and a horde turns up, you both defend yourselves at once.

You can also leave somebody steps: they drop on the ground like any other item and whoever comes past picks them up. It's the only way to hand another player a bag.

You can play without talking to anyone

Writing is optional. To use the radio and the notes you have to accept the rules, and whoever doesn't accept them plays just the same: walking, moving, searching and surviving all work in full without writing to a soul.

If you change your mind, you can switch it on whenever you like from the communication tab itself.

And if somebody goes too far

Every message and every note goes through an automatic check before it's sent. No person reads your conversations as a matter of routine: they're only looked at if somebody reports something specific.

• You can report any message or note from the message itself.
• You can block any player and stop hearing from them.
• No account is closed on its own. Blocking a message is done by the system; throwing somebody out is always decided by a person.

It's all spelled out in the terms of use and the privacy policy.