All 11 V3.0 "Dead Hot Summer" Presets - And Which One to Run on Your Server

Updated June 16, 2026 from the official release notes. V3.0 experimental is live now (since June 15) - opt in via the Steam beta branch latest_experimental, and Steam and console stable are targeted ~June 29. Exact per-preset option values are now inspectable in the build; this page covers everything TFP has described.

V3.0 replaces the old difficulty slider with composable sandbox rules: 150 options, shareable player-made presets, and 11 official preset modes with names worth the price of admission. For server owners the presets are the headline - they are ready-made server identities. Here is each one as officially described, and an honest read on which work as community servers.

The official 11

  • Undead Matinee - vintage-movie melee mode: slower zombies, swarming numbers, scarce ammo, and the new headshot finisher setting. The "Romero mode" the community asked for by name.
  • Madmole's Mayhem - fewer supplies, harsher penalties, including the new item loss and item durability loss on death, under constant pressure.
  • Almost Creative Mode - "the apocalypse, minus the actual apocalypse. Because dying is inconvenient."
  • Bite Club - hardcore permadeath: one life, use it wisely.
  • Legacy Survival - "old-school survival with modern consequences. Play like it's 2014."
  • 7 Days Later - modern-movie chaos: fast-moving hordes.
  • Caveman's Life - "an apocalypse where tools peaked at sticks."
  • Dumpster Diver - scavenging-first: "turning garbage into greatness."
  • Dying World - fading resources on a clock.
  • Disaster Film - "catastrophes stack faster than you can fix them."
  • Chibi Mode - "not only are they cute… they're fast, too."

Which presets work as community servers

  • Best public-server draws: Undead Matinee and 7 Days Later. They are legible from the name alone - slow-zombie cinema versus fast-zombie panic - and "Romero server" has been requested in this community for a decade. Expect these two to dominate server listings in week one.
  • Best event mode: Bite Club. Permadeath plus a fixed start date is a ready-made seasonal event; one life per player turns a server wipe into a tournament.
  • Best for veteran groups: Legacy Survival or Madmole's Mayhem. Legacy resets the habits 12 years of QoL built; Mayhem's death penalties give private groups the stakes public servers cannot afford.
  • Careful with: Dying World and Disaster Film on long-term servers. Escalating-pressure modes are designed to end; they suit seasons, not persistent worlds.
  • Chibi Mode is the novelty draw - a strong week-one population spike, unknown retention.

Custom presets: the real feature for server owners

The presets above are starting points. V3.0 lets you build, name, and share your own preset from the full 150-option set (player damage, zombie speeds per time-of-day, blood moon rules, loot abundance per category, trader rules, quest settings, even zombie digging and headshot mode). A community server's ruleset becomes a shareable artifact - expect "preset codes" to circulate the way seeds do. On dedicated servers the chosen ruleset is carried by the new SandboxCode property; the mechanics are in our SandboxCode serverconfig guide.

Timing

Experimental is live now on PC (since Monday, June 15; opt in via latest_experimental), after the June 12-14 streamer weekend; Steam and console stable are targeted ~June 29. Exact option values per preset are now inspectable in the build. Until stable, run presets on a test world before committing your community save - and remember saves do not load backward, and a 3.0 client cannot join a 2.6 server.

Sources