PC Gamer

One of the things that makesState of

Decay stand out is that you’re not

playing as a person, but a community.

You collect these survivors as you go

along, with most of them squatting in

your customisable

safehouse. If the

character you’re

playing as gets tired or

injured, you switch to

another. Each one has

randomised quirks and

skills, like Demond, an

ex-shop assistant who

loves music and

learned to hotwire cars during a

misspent youth.

Procedurally generated characters

aren’t anything new, but State of

Decay gives them a thick layer of

presentation. Ash’s movies comment,

for example, was linked to a quirk

which gives her a morale bonus if we

scavenge a projector in this blighted

hellscape. It’s not a million miles

away fromShadow of Mordor’s

Nemesis system, but tuned to

produce an endless supply of dour

survivors in hoodies.

You’ll spend most ofState of Decay

2 fulfilling these peoples’ needs,

journeying out into the wilderness to

collect supplies, or upgrading your

base to include things like an

infirmary to treat zombie bites. The

wilderness, of course, is small town

America.State of Decay 2avoids the

big urban environments in favour of

small clusters of buildings. There are

tons of diners, gas stations and

farmhouses, but none are more than

a couple of storeys high. Almost all of

these locations contains something,

and you’ll methodically clear them

out over the course of the game.

The map is always the same, but

dynamic events fire off around it.

Sometimes a particular house will

become infested with zombies.

Sometimes another band of survivors

will take up residence in a house,

trading with you and sending you on

quests. There are also

‘Plague Hearts’, nasty

lumps of gristle that

spawn the infectious

variety of zombie, and

act like minibosses

dotted around the map.

Kill them all and you’ve

pretty much completed

a map, and are ready to

pack up and move to the next one.

All this exploration leads to

satisfying melee combat – or

shooting, if you can spare the ammo

• although, for a survival game, State

of Decay 2 can feel oddly safe. The

game tells me that permadeath is in

effect, but in reality I found it hard to

get myself killed. The one time I got

into a truly life-or-death situation (a

comedy of errors involving a horde,

an exploding car and a powerful

‘feral’ zombie), I was offered enough

‘mash this button to avoid death’

moments to escape. During my entire

playthrough I didn’t lose anyone.

FRIEND ZONE

To make things easier, I could call on

my friends for help. Up to three

people can drop into your game at

any time. Joining someone else’s

game is like a working holiday. You

can still improve your skills, but you

don’t have to babysit your community

any more. It only works if you stick

close together, though. Stray too far

apart and you might start to get out

of sync with the host player.

There are also issues elsewhere in

the game. The first sign of trouble is

the ‘get me unstuck’ command on the

menu. Sure enough I ended up

abandoning two different cars

because I got them wedged on the

scenery, while a third developed a

strange tendency to flicker in and out

of existence until it was repaired.

None of these issues were

gamebreaking, but they did mean

losing a six-seater armoured truck I’d

invested a lot of resources in.

It’s worth restating that State of

Decay 2 is fundamentally a game

about filling up resource bars, and I

can foresee a time when I get bored

with it. But the size of the world and

the endless characters to encounter

keep things fresh, and I’m already

planning how to do a second, more

efficient playthrough. Life after the

apocalypse can’t go on forever, but it

can go on long enough to have fun.

NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS IT?

The sequel to the cult

hitzombiesurvivalsim.

EXPECT TO PAY

£25

DEVELOPER

Undead Labs

PUBLISHER

Microsoft

REVIEWED ON

Core i5, 16GB RAM,

GTX 970

MULTIPLAYER

Up to four players

LINK

http://www.stateofdecay.com

74

A solid survival

simulation vastly

improved by putting the

focus on the survivors,

not the zombies.

VERDICT

All this

exploration

leads to

satisfying

melee combat

M

y parents only let us watch old movies” says Ash, as

we’re rummaging through an abandoned pharmacy,

looking for medication. “I didn’t even realise they were

old, I was so mad at them when I found out Judy

Garland was already dead.” It’s a small character

moment, nothing to write home about, apart from the fact that Ash is a

randomly generated character. Just like everyone else in State of Decay 2.

SURVIVOR

STATE OF DECAY 2 shows there’s

no Z in team. By Tom Hatfield

SAVAGE WASTELAND

How well would editor Phil Savage survive?

PHIL

Phil Savage

Leader: Editor

Critical Eye

Former barman

Morale bonus from upgraded still

Regular smoker

Metal Gear Solid Lore

Tired

State of Decay 2

REVIEW