How Project Sophie Became a Top Project Zomboid Modpack with Deathstar at the Helm

Project Zomboid stays alive between official updates thanks to its modders, and one corner of that scene has grown into something bigger than most: Project Sophie, a curated Steam collection put together by HolyHosting partner Deathstar. The project now ranks among the most-installed Project Zomboid collections on the Workshop, runs an active community Discord, and recently branched into a RimWorld counterpart.

In a recent conversation, Deathstar broke down how Sophie started, what makes the curation philosophy different from the average modpack, and where the project is headed next.

From Personal Setup to Workshop Phenomenon

Project Sophie was never meant to be a community project. It started as Deathstar's personal mod loadout, the result of a lot of nights spent playtesting and tweaking combinations of mods until everything felt right.

"Project 'Sophie' started as a Steam mod collection for the game Project Zomboid and has since evolved into a community of people with a shared passion for modding," Deathstar explained. After hitting a setup he was happy with, he uploaded it to the Workshop along with installation guides built to be friendly for first-time modders.

The reception did the rest. Sophie is now the third most popular Project Zomboid collection of all time, with more than 100,000 impressions on Steam. The growth surprised the creator more than anyone.

What separates Sophie from the dozens of other curated Workshop pages is a deliberate stance against mod-packing. Deathstar refuses to repackage anyone's work, which means original authors keep both their credit and their download numbers.

"The 'Sophie' collections are more than just a hodge-podge of mods. They are a carefully curated all-in-one solution aimed at improving the games we feature, while still giving the individual mod authors the credit they deserve by refraining from mod packing."

That ethic, paired with a real feedback channel, pulled in players. The Sophie Discord now hosts more than 3,000 members, most of them invested in where the project goes next.

"It's not about fire-and-forget. It's about cultivating a shared passion."

The HolyHosting Partnership

Modded Project Zomboid is, to put it nicely, finicky. The game has a reputation for breaking modded servers in creative ways, and not every host handles it well. That reputation is how HolyHosting first crossed Deathstar's radar.

"I first heard about HolyHosting from positive feedback given to me by some members of the community, stating that it is a solid choice for hosting modded servers, which some hosts struggle with due to the many charming imperfections of our main game Project Zomboid."

Deathstar wasn't planning on pitching the project to anyone. The push came from a community member who suggested applying to the HolyHosting partner program. The application was accepted quickly, partly because the community had already been recommending HolyHosting on their own.

On a practical level, the partnership unlocked a setup that would have been painful otherwise: an official dedicated server running the full Sophie preset, ready to join with a single click. Players get smooth performance on hardware that can handle the mod load, and Deathstar gets a stable showcase for the collection.

The bigger change, in his words, was the shift in mindset.

"It's been a blast working on the project, and with HolyHosting's help, we've managed to elevate it from just a hobby into something more professional. As a marketing professional, it's been super interesting working on my own brand for a change. Passion is infectious, and you may be able to offer a lot of value to other people simply by doing what you love."

What Comes After

The roadmap is busier than you might expect for a project that started as one person's mod folder.

Sophie's dedicated game server is being scaled into a long-term community hub, with the goal of competing with older established Project Zomboid servers. To free up development time, Deathstar has brought on community volunteers as moderators for both the Discord and the game servers.

A sister RimWorld collection is already live on the Workshop, and Deathstar plans to keep adding new games under the Sophie umbrella as they make sense. The strategy is to apply the same curation discipline across titles rather than rushing to plant flags everywhere.

The big one on the horizon is Project Zomboid Build 42. The long-awaited update will demand a full revisit of the main Sophie collection, and Deathstar confirmed that a dedicated Build 42 project is already in the planning stages.

"The Main collection will continue to receive updates," he said, "and a whole new project will be published when Build 42 for Project Zomboid finally releases."

For anyone curious enough to give it a try, the Steam collections and Discord linked above are the best starting points. Modding Project Zomboid is rarely a clean experience, but Sophie is one of the few setups that takes the curation work seriously and gives players a real community to land in.