Introduction
State of Decay 2 is a survival video game developed by Undead Labs and published by Xbox Game Studios. The game is a followup to State of Decay and was released for Windows and Xbox One on May 22, 2018. Like its predecessor, players are tasked with building a community, managing resources and surviving against the horde of zombies. State of Decay 2 received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its difficulty, musical score and combat, but criticized the technical issues and the lack of depth in the survival and management mechanics. The game had over 10 million players by August 2021. A sequel, State of Decay 3, is under development. State of Decay 2 is developed by Undead Labs and published by Microsoft Studios. It was developed using Unreal Engine 4. The game was announced on June 13, 2016, at Microsoft's E3 Xbox briefing, and initially scheduled to be released in 2017 for Windows 10 and the Xbox One. At Microsoft's E3 2017 Xbox briefing, it was announced that State of Decay 2 would release in Spring 2018. Additionally, the game would also be available to play at no cost to Xbox Game Pass subscribers at its release.
Gameplay
State of Decay 2 is a zombie survival game, with an emphasis on scavenging for items, in which gameplay is experienced from a third-person view. The game is set in an open world environment and features cooperative gameplay with up to three other players. The player can choose from several locations to build a base, then reinforce and improve it with various facilities like watchtowers, gardens, sleeping quarters, kitchens, workshops, medical bays, etc. to help keep survivors safe and healthy. Part of the game is balancing the use of resources: food, medicine, ammo, and construction materials. They can be obtained by scavenging or trading with NPCs. The player can interact with survivors outside of their group: trading with them, helping them or recruiting them. Only one survivor can be controlled at a time, though the player can ask an AI-controlled survivor to accompany them, and in certain missions, one or more AI-controlled survivors will accompany the player. Cooperative multiplayer is also available allowing to players to recruit a friend to temporarily join their game to assist them with objectives. Each character has a fixed set of "traits" which give them advantages or flaws (such as tire out more easily, or can improve a certain skill faster). Except for the story-related characters, most characters can be assigned to survivor groups and be recruited. Each character also has a morale parameter, affected by game events (a near death experience, death of another character, or having accomplished a difficult task).
Other Mechanics
- Base building - The base building mechanic allows the players to create an idol base that allows a stronger and better futures for the people that risk their lives to help others and help their own, although the base building doesnt allow the player to enjoy a free expreience, you will need to explore the map to find resources which are called ruck sacks that can carry food, medicince, ammo, fuel, and build materials. The building feature allows the player to create a infermary, beds, gardens, workshop and other important buildings to further boost the story of the game.
- Community Relationships - State Of Decay 2 has a feature which is relationships between your community and other communities even survivers this can provide great benefits if you max out the relationship like medic advice, rooftop snipers or carepackages that can help out in the later stages. The relationship system can allow the player to recuit anybody from that community and choose who they might want to add to there group for the later game or for something that requires that special traits.
- Influence - Influence is the games form of currency, after the world has collapsed the form of money has fallen and become useless to people as tehy believe the world will never be able to recover from this for of plauge but as the game progresses from you completing missions, side missions, killing plauge hearts, helping out survivors, or helping communities you are able to get yourself a set amount of this currency that allows you to buy weapons, items, healing, amount and resources to help benefit you or your community, while it also allows you to buy bases with a set amount or call in stuff over the radio which can be benefical.
- Recuiting - State Of Decay 2 has a feature where your able to recuit other characters that can come with prefixed traits like strenght, endurance, luck and more with a special traits like mechanic or technology, but some survivers have no special trait but if you give them a book once they read it allows them to gain the knowledge a special trait that can range from a variety of them like painter, drive or craftsmanship. Through the selection of a map they come with bigger and better bases that need a certain amount of survivers from the range to 1 through to 8 with a set amount of influence this can range from a regular starting home all the way to a baseball field.
Gameplay
Opinions
State Of Decay 2, and Undead labs have a special place in my heart as i love the effort and work they put into the game making sure its still something the players enjoy with enough content to get people to recommend the game and allow sales to continue to grow, even when they are focusing on another game they been working for a while they still focus on dishing out updates allowing the game to look renewed in a sense of entertainment. My true opinions on the game is perfect yeah they there is a few mistakes like game crashing or a few object collsions that shouldn't happen but in the end no game is fully perfect but in my eyes i see this game as something i could and will still be olaying even in my 60's i would recommend people to play it and test there skills on survive, even do some challanges out of it as well.