The first State of Decay was a sleeper hit on the Xbox 360 when it released back in 2013. It was one of the few zombie games that focussed a lot on the survival aspect instead of the combat, like most other titles in the zombie genre. Now, five years later, its sequel has been released and is marketed as a bigger and better version of its predecessor.
Minimal story
If you haven’t played the first State of Decay but want to play its sequel, then you don’t need to worry about missing anything of the story. The original game already had a minimal story and State of Decay 2’s story is even less developed. Is this a bad thing? Well, in this case, I would argue that it isn’t. The focus of the series was always on the survival mechanics, not its story. There’s enough narrative reasoning to set you off towards your next goal, like searching resources to build an infirmary in your home base to help one of your community members, to give one example. Just don’t expect any cutscenes or overarching plot. And you know what? The lack of story actually works for the best in State of Decay 2. Once you’ve passed the tutorial, you can play the game however you want at your own pace, without any down moments caused by story-related cutscenes or events. Every time you’ve completed a task, you can immediately continue to the next one instead of waiting for the story to catch up, like having to do a story mission to unlock a part of the map. Everything is open to you without any artificial limitations.
Improved survival
What made the first State of Decay such a hit was its focus on surviving in a zombie-ridden world. You had to gather resources to sustain your community, build facilities like infirmaries and defend home bases from zombie hordes. The game made you experience a more “realistic” portrayal of a zombie apocalypse that made you suffer the consequences if you weren’t careful enough by killing community members if you failed to fortify your base or ignored its need for resources. State of Decay 2 plays the same, but with some noticeable improvements and additional challenges. There are now Plague Hearts, large bodies of flesh that spawn Plague Zombies. These zombies are more aggressive and can infect you or your team members with the Blood Plague, an infection that eventually turns its carrier into a mindless zombie. This infection can be cured, but you have to act fast either by bringing the carrier to an infirmary or by collecting enough Plague samples to create a cure. To stop the threat of Plague Zombies in your settlement, you have to find the local Plague Heart and destroy it. Be careful though, attacking it will attract a lot of zombies so be sure to bring some backup with you.
Another addition is your reputation with other survivors that have their own encampments. Every now and then, you’ll hear them calling for help over the radio. You then get to decide if you want to help them or not. If you do, then you get some useful bonuses like gear or high-skilled survivors to add to your community. Should you choose to ignore them, then there’s a chance they’ll become hostile towards you and shoot you on sight when you’re near their encampment. This mechanic has caused some interesting scenarios during my playthrough. Once, I was gathering food for my community when I heard a call for help on my radio. I decided to check it out, hoping it would give some nice loot. When I arrived at the scene, I saw two people trying to hold off a large horde of zombies that included some Plague Zombies. Since I was alone and didn’t have any strong weapons with me, I decided to abandon them, thinking they wouldn’t survive this encounter and thus be no threat to me. But I was wrong, a few hours later I passed them on the road and they immediately started shooting me with everything they got. It was then that I realized they survived the earlier encounter because they both were very skilled. This meant that I passed on an opportunity to add highly skilled people to my community. This is what I like about this mechanic, whatever choice you make, there are going to be consequences.
Outside of these two additions, State of Decay 2 plays pretty much the same as the original game. Since I like the first State of Decay, I didn’t mind this but I can see that the low amount of additional mechanics and content may turn off some people, especially those who didn’t like the first game. But then again, if you didn’t like the first one, why would you play the sequel anyway?
Previous-gen graphics
The graphics in State of Decay 2 are not that great, or even good. That may sound a little pessimistic, but it’s been a while since I thought to myself: “This game is ugly”, which I, unfortunately, did with this game. It looks slightly better than the first State of Decay, which already wasn’t that visually impressive. Textures look muddy, flora is placed sparsely with big gaps between trees and patches of grass, the draw distance of objects is sub-par and the characters look like they’re made of plastic. But the worst part is that the framerate has some serious issues on the PC and, to a lesser extent, on the original Xbox One. My PC build is close to the recommended system requirements, yet I occasionally had my framerate drop below 25 fps and constantly witnessed micro stuttering, even when I lowered some of the graphical options. The Xbox platforms have the same problems, but not as grave as the PC. The original Xbox and Xbox One S both run at a framerate that rarely drops below 30 fps, while the Xbox One X maintains a framerate of 60 fps. All Xbox versions also suffer from frame drops but to a lesser extent than the PC and they manage to maintain their minimum framerate throughout the game. Unfortunately, these versions also suffer from micro stuttering, which can be annoying when you’re playing on a large TV that has a high display rate. Is the graphical quality of the game so bad that it becomes unplayable? No, of course not, but it will turn off some who are curious about it and be an issue for most of its player base.
Co-op
Fans of the first State of Decay were constantly begging the developers to include a co-op mode in their game, as the gameplay perfectly fits a co-op experience. The developers didn’t include one in the first game, but they did in State of Decay 2. You can now play with up to three other players and go explore the world and build communities together. However, there are some downsides. Every player has to keep within a certain amount of distance of each other, limiting the gameplay experience somewhat. You can easily liberate a settlement by splitting up and enter it from four different directions at the same time, but you can’t, for example, have two players searching for resources while the other two are saving survivors from a zombie attack. Every task in co-op has to be done by all players present. The other issue I have with it is that there’s no benefit for players who join a host’s session. Your progression in co-op won’t carry over to your personal game. However, you can bring over the loot you’ve found and the Influence Points you’ve earned to use on your own settlements.
Conclusion
State of Decay 2 should be enjoyable for most fans of the original game. The additional mechanics are all an improvement in terms of gameplay, although it may not be enough for some to warrant a sequel. The visuals are the game’s biggest problem, but they’re not the focus of the game, the survival mechanics are. The co-op can be fun, but its limitations are keeping it from being a recommended way of playing the game. Overall, despite its issues, it’s still an enjoyable game.
