One of the Best Zombie Survival Games
State of Decay 2 one of the best Zombie Survival Games out there. I think what sets it apart fromOne of the Best Zombie Survival Games
State of Decay 2 one of the best Zombie Survival Games out there. I think what sets it apart from other Zombie Survival Open World games is that each Save/Community can be viewed as a "Run" rather than just endless and infinite. When you play games like Project Zomboid and 7 Days to Die you can play until you decide that the game is over. State of Decay 2 has its own storylines that when you complete it, you have the option to end the run or just continue indefinitely. I always chose to end the community and start again on a different map and difficulty with new people.
The game isn't as mad and crazy in-depth when it comes to crafting and what not as other games are but everything you find has a purpose, you don't really get 'junk' items that just clog up space. Everything can be used in some way or another. You can't really have too much of anything.
The game plays where you start off with three survivors in a small base. The base each has different plots that you can use to build stations. Workbenches, infirmaries, watch towers etc, the list goes on. The core gameplay loop is going outside the confines of your base, helping survivors with jobs, growing your community, looting and clearing out Plague Hearts and moving from base to base to bigger ones which allow more development. Once you've done all the plague hearts and the Leader of your community's storyline, I'd consider that a completed run.
The gameplay is very arcade-like. Shooting and fighting feels good and I really enjoyed it. Looting takes some time, you can fast-loot but that runs the risk of making noise and attracting more zombies. This is obviously much more of a risk on the higher difficulties.
The game has the same traits as any zombie survival game, infection, fighting, shooting, sound, outpost management, special zombies, different ammo types and guns, everything you can expect. It is a very fun experience and it's a lot more streamlined than other zombie survival games, in the sense that there's more story to it and a little less about just making your own goals. Of course, you do make your own goals but you'd view them as more side quests for yourself than anything else.
However there are a few issues with the game I'd like to address.
Difficulty. There are five difficulty modes. Green (Beginner), Standard (Normal), Dread (Hard), Nightmare (Very Hard), Lethal (Insane).
Standard is fairly easy, once you get a few guns, some weapons and some survivors upgraded, you can basically take on hordes but yourself without losing too much except ammo and maybe some healing.
Dread. Dread is how the game is meant to be played in my opinion. The start of the game is rough and the mid game is rough. Resources are scarcer, cars break down easier, but it is manageable as long as you pay attention. You can't slaughter everything down nearly as easy as standard but it feels like this is the main difficulty. This is the one you should play on if you're either confident or have played on Standard.
Nightmare Zone is where I had a lot of issues. For me the game became... I don't want to say "not fun" but it became so incredibly difficult at parts, almost artificially, for no reason. Hordes are much bigger. For some reason pods of three Special Type Zombies spawn. Juggernauts are nigh impossible to kill and there's always something waiting to utterly shaft you given any opportunity. I didn't really enjoy Nightmare that much. It's definitely a challenge and kudos to anyone who completed it and I reckon I could have done it if I pushed all the way through. But I ended up not wanting to. Moving a base to another place is supposed to be exciting and good for you but you just end up losing so many materials, everyone gets stressed out. Places are so much harder to loot, infestations get way out of hand and are too frequent and annoying to deal with. I'd say play this if you found Dread too easy all the way through. But for me, it was just needlessly difficult but not impossible. I think when I play the game from now on, it'll be on Dread only.
Co-op is basically a bust. It's weird drop-in drop-out coop where your friend just comes to help you and that's it. Any resources they gather go to your pile that they can't use. But they can put stuff in their own supply locker? Just seems weird. If you're planning on playing multiplayer, let the other person know that they're just going to help your world and not really get anything in return except experience and of course, fun with playing with friends.
Feral's are Anti-Fun.
My last criticism is that of how special zombies spawn. For some weird reason, Special zombies and wandering hordes just completely and utterly surround your base. They don't come in, but they surround you.
8/10… Expand
