Smell

Smell is one of the primary senses zombies use to hunt players. Even if a zombie can not see or hear the player, they can often smell them; a zombie will investigate the area if they detect a player's scent. Avoiding detection by smell is most simply done by moving around, but this risks detection by other means. A more specific solution is to mask one's scent through item use or to stay near world objects which have their own scent.

For example, objects like garbage cans are smelly. In practice, this means that in an area around a filled garbage can, zombies' sense of smell will be less effective at detecting any players in that area. Alternatively, a player could mask their own scent, making that individual player less likely to be detected regardless of where they are. Which objects are smelly can usually be logically deduced—it is not hard to imagine that a garbage can containing rotting food, diapers, etc. would have a smell. Sandswept has not confirmed whether there will be an indicator for smelly areas, however; there is still discussion about whether a HUD indicator or a visual indicator (such as gas particles around an object) are better.