Hello survivors!
Update 0.2.4 is here, and the main addition is something I’ve been working on for a little while now: the Dog Companion system!
Your German Shepherd is now much more than just something following you around. It has its own commands, storage, progression, defensive behavior, and a few small interactions to make it feel more alive.
🐕 Dog Companion
Every player now starts with their own German Shepherd companion.
Using the F6 Dog Menu, you can:
Follow – your dog follows you while exploring
Stay – your dog remains at the selected location
Pet – interact with your dog and trigger different animations
Access its 6-slot storage
Rename your dog whenever you want
Select between Passive and Defensive combat modes
Your dog also knows how to recover if it gets stuck or falls too far behind.
When entering a vehicle, the dog temporarily disappears and safely returns near you after you exit, instead of trying to chase the vehicle across the map.
⚔️ Passive & Defensive Modes
The dog can now help protect its owner.
Passive
The dog will never attack.
Defensive
The dog protects its owner only
If a zombie is actively attacking you, your dog can engage it
It focuses on one enemy at a time
Once that enemy is dealt with, it can move on to another threat
In co-op, your dog will not automatically protect another player's character
The dog is designed as a defensive companion rather than an autonomous zombie-hunting machine.
🥩 Dog Levels & Zombie Meat
Your dog can now level up by feeding it Zombie Meat through the F6 menu.
The maximum Dog Level is 99.
Progression starts at:
Level 1 → 2: 10 Zombie Meat
Level 2 → 3: 20
Level 3 → 4: 30
Level 4 → 5: 40
Level 5+: 50 per level
Each new level increases the dog's bite damage by +5 damage.
The menu now includes a progression bar showing your current Dog Level and how much Zombie Meat is needed for the next level.
💥 Explosive Mutant Warning
Your dog can also help warn you about one particularly dangerous enemy.
If an Explosive Mutant gets close, your dog will stop and bark to alert you.
For now, the dog will not attack the Explosive Mutant.
🎒 Safe Mobile Storage
Your dog includes a 6-slot storage inventory.
Items stored on your dog are kept separate from your normal player inventory and remain safe through normal death and respawn.
The storage is owner-only in multiplayer, so other players cannot access your dog's inventory.
🔊 More Dog Personality
The dog now has additional behaviors and sounds:
Barking
Pet animations
Resting while staying in place
Command acknowledgement
Warning behavior
More interactions and animations can be expanded in future updates.
🎥 Free Camera Returns – J
The J Free Camera has also been added back with an important fix.
Previously, the old Free Camera could cause the player's character to move or effectively teleport when returning from the camera.
That is no longer possible.
Now:
Press J to enter Free Camera
Press J again to return to your character
WASD – move
Mouse – look around
Space / Ctrl – move up/down
Mouse Wheel – adjust camera movement speed
The Free Camera now moves only the camera.
Your actual character remains exactly where you left them, so the camera can no longer be used to teleport around the map.
This feature is available to the Host / Solo player for screenshots, videos, trailers, and content creation.
🔫 SIG MCX Ammo Fix
The SIG MCX has also been corrected to use:
5.56mm ammunition
instead of the incorrect ammo type.
As always, thank you for playing, reporting bugs, and helping improve Not Quite Dead.
The Dog Companion system is something I plan to continue expanding over time, but this update gives it a much stronger foundation to build on.
Have fun — and take care of your new companion! 🐾❤️
— Mazxz