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

Updated June 12, 2026 from the official release notes. PC experimental lands June 15; exact per-preset option values publish with 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 hits PC Monday, June 15 (streamer weekend June 12-14). Exact option values per preset publish with the build; we will fill in the numbers when they are inspectable. Until stable, run presets on a test world before committing your community save — and remember saves do not load backward.

Sources