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A claim in Zeverland is marked with a territory flag. Planting one makes an area yours, and the game's protection rules attach to that area rather than to individual walls, doors or boxes. Claiming is also the normal way to make a home: the studio has confirmed that every point of interest on the map can be claimed, so an existing building can become a shelter without being built from scratch. See Base Building for the construction side of the same system.

What a Claim Protects

That third line is the one the studio has repeated most often, and it hardened over 2026. The post that closed the second test on 2026-07-02 opened with players finding homes stripped bare and chests broken, called the fault its own, and named PVE protection as one of three things being fixed for the next build. A month later the studio said it was setting PVP content aside for now and further improving base and offline protection in the next playtest. The wider stance is covered on PvE and PvP.

Damage Logs and the Intruder List

On 2025-11-17 the studio said the territory flag would be given detailed logs recording who opened your boxes and who dismantled your walls, together with a list of intruders. That is an announcement from late 2025 and no later post has reported it as built, so it belongs in the announced column rather than the confirmed one.

Demolition Inside Your Own Claim

Players asked why they could not freely demolish a building standing inside their own territory. The answer, given on 2026-06-30, is that the restriction is deliberate. Because every point of interest on the map can be claimed, opening up free demolition would let a player claim a high-tier location and strip it for materials at almost no cost. Keeping precise demolition closed inside a claim is how the studio keeps those locations expensive to take. Scavenging them instead is covered on Looting and Scavenging.

The Official-Server Rule of August 2026

On 2026-08-03 the studio announced a change to claiming on official servers: key locations, with gas stations and quest points given as the examples, can no longer be claimed as private territory. The reason follows from the second test, where gas stations running dry and city loot refreshing slowly were recurring complaints. A shared location sitting behind one player's flag is a location nobody else can use. The announcement was made about official servers and did not say how the rule behaves on an officially hosted private server. See Servers and Multiplayer.

The Three-Plot Limit

Territory was limited to three plots in the second pre-alpha tech test, and a player raised that as too few in the feedback the studio quoted on 2026-08-03. The studio did not confirm a plot cap as a permanent rule, and that build was wiped along with everything in it. Three plots is a dated figure from one pre-alpha build, not a rule of the shipping game. The build it came from is covered on Second Pre-Alpha Tech Test.

Other Things Attached to Territory

• The fly-cam build mode the studio reported finishing on 2026-08-03 works while building on your own territory, and not elsewhere.

• Recruited survivors relieve themselves on the spot unless a toilet is placed in the territory, which the studio listed as working as intended rather than as a bug. See NPC Companions.

• A second-test bug left items and the microwave unusable inside a territory. It appeared on the studio's own logged issue board.

• Zombie heads and other junk accumulated on the ground during the second test; decay for them was announced on 2026-07-01 and has not been shown.