Review of the game State of Decay. State of Decay: system requirements and review of the game Two Steps from Hell

The zombie genre is going through hard times. The golden days of Left 4 Dead 2 and the first Dead Island are long behind us, and even Resident Evil has abandoned the classic living dead and mutants in favor of cannibalistic American psychopaths. What can I say - the total number of Walking Dead viewers is falling! People are starting to get frankly tired. It's in this climate that State of Decay 2 is being released - so let's see how the zombie stands on its rotten legs.

State of decay, five years later

The original State of Decay was released back in 2013 - then the zombie genre was at its peak and among the favorites. SoD 2 has to fight its way alone through “battle royales” and other hype trends. This is not so easy. Fundamentally, State of Decay 2 is the same SoD, only in profile.

Ammo is worth its weight in gold, and besides, shots attract (or rather, create from clean air 10 meters behind) zombies, so you will only use firearms 20% of the time - on special mutants in the style of Left 4 Dead 2. In the remaining 80% of cases - that is, the lion's share of the game - will have to be wielded with crowbars, machetes and other adjustable wrenches.

All this stuff periodically breaks on the durable skulls of the dead - it has to be repaired, which wastes precious resources. In general, if you haven’t played the first State of Decay, it should be said that clearing zombies is like clearing an area of ​​autumn leaves. Your main concern is painstaking resource management. Welcome to the zombie apocalypse of the middle manager.

List on the refrigerator

You are not just a lone wolf, and not one of four survivors who need to get from point A to point B. The role of the leader of a small community rests on your shoulders: hunger, thirst, disease, relationships with neighbors, attempts to avoid conflict within your own community - Congratulations, all this is now your concern.

The game is somewhat impersonal: the protagonist does not exist directly. You are the one who currently slept well and was not bitten by the dead. Simply put, you can take control of any of your charges at any time. On the one hand, this is incredibly convenient - there is almost always someone relatively fresh. On the other hand, I would like a little more emotional connection. It’s stupid to figure out which of all these politically correct mestizos and mulattoes is the “Hero”.

Although, in general, you won’t have time for completely epic heroism. Food, medicine, fuel - all this is not only inexorably consumed, multiplying by the number of your survivors, but is sometimes wasted. Call on the radio - “Oh, I accidentally spilled a barrel of fuel.” Like this. Fifteen minutes of your life, while you were looting this barrel, flowed like gasoline through sand. Timers, timers and more timers. The whole game is on stopwatches, like some Metal Gear Survive.

Four are more fun

It's time to talk about the main advantage of the game, which is also its key difference from the first part: a full-fledged cooperative mode. It wasn't included as a class in the original State of Decay. It was possible to take one NPC controlled by AI with you on the search for loot, but that’s all.

By the time SoD 2 was developed, Undead Labs realized: now multiplayer is above all else, and there is no way to do without it. In accordance with the spirit of the times, a four-player co-op appeared in the game. Let's say right away that this is without any doubt the most fun way to enjoy (let's not be afraid of this word) State of Decay 2. You can create unforgettable intense moments a la Left 4 Dead 2, temporarily forgetting about the notorious list on the refrigerator.

It should be noted here that the cars in the game are surprisingly well implemented: each car has weight, its own physics and character, sedans have a hard time off-road, pickups behave as pickups should, and so on. It turns out to be a kind of GTA in the middle zone of the USA, with the dead instead of ordinary passers-by. This adds a hefty dose of fun.

However, sooner or later, sobering up will come - for a very simple reason: three “freeloaders” (that is, friends invited to an online session) can have as much fun as they like, but the host will have to think about his own base. And there are unfed mouths and sick cripples: be kind enough to go on a raid for resources.

The Sims and “Santa Barbara” in a zombie apocalypse

Often the game is colored by random events of an emotional nature. Your NPCs are built like people in real life: sometimes they have psychological inconsistencies. Only here these “inconsistencies” are multiplied by 100 - that is, by the constant danger in the form of zombies and by the chronic shortage of simple consumables, like food.

Nerves are on edge, people can’t stand it, and you have to sort it all out. Moreover: the neighbors (everything is again like in life!) are far from the most stable creatures, and they are even capricious like small children. They constantly demand help in clearing zombies, they want ammunition, food, some nuts and bolts... and each request has a timer: know how to prioritize.

If you don’t have time to complete a few things, the neighbors will, at best, leave the map in upset feelings: they say, what kind of miser lives next door to us, let’s better go into the thick of the zombies, they even understand us better. And this, please note, is still a good scenario. Because in a bad situation, angry neighbors who did not receive less “tribute” - that is, voluntary help - will become your worst enemies. And a redneck with a shotgun is much more dangerous than a living piece of mindless flesh.

Time is running out

Smashing zombie heads with a wrench is a timeless activity that never gets boring. The whole problem is that the key is flimsy, like it’s made of plastic, and you have capricious “teenagers” around your neck who need to be constantly fed and treated, and also ensure that they don’t quarrel.

In principle, people still play Ark and Conan in sufficient numbers, and they are absolutely not afraid of either constant hunger and thirst, or the constant wear and tear of all resources and tools. In principle, talented resource managers who cut their teeth back in the era of the insane popularity of Rust will not be confused by anything in State of Decay 2.

Not only that: many gamers think that inexorable timers add realism and adrenaline - supposedly, constant pressure does not exhaust the brain and nerves, but excites the blood. Such heroes will not be embarrassed by the constantly regenerating “plague hearts” with special red zombies (and don’t try to clear the map completely!), nor by the heartless stopwatches, whose ticking does not stop for a second.

Full co-op mode for 4 players
+ Excellent car physics, you can have a GTA with friends and zombies
+ Large maps designed in the style of the southern states of the USA

The abundance of timers reminded me of Metal Gear Survive
- No radical jump in graphics compared to 2013 (the first State of Decay) was recorded
- The mechanics of “plague hearts” with their endless appearance looks like a not very honest trick

5 years ago, Undead Labs released its debut project about survival after a zombie apocalypse. Unlike many other games about the living dead, it offered not only dozens of “walkers,” but also touched on another side of survival - the creation of a community of survivors and the relationships of people in conditions of scarce resources. The sequel continues the development of the series in the same direction.

State of Decay 2 plot

The second part is not directly related to the characters of the original State of Decay, but in general a storyline in which humanity turned out to be absolutely unprepared for mass infection by a certain virus. Millions of people around the world died or became insane and bloodthirsty monsters.

But if in the original the characters essentially witnessed the beginning of the zombie apocalypse and built their community in the relatively comfortable conditions of a large amount of resources, then the action takes place about a year after the beginning of the end. There were fewer supplies, as well as still sane people.

Even the zombies have changed. Now, in the vicinity of a fictional US state, you can find zombies covered from head to toe in blood. They appeared as a result of the so-called bloody plague (Blood Plague), and its source is plague hearts - terrible accumulations of living biomass from the bodies of dead people.

That's where the interesting stuff ends. Alas, the developers did not implement a full-fledged storyline. Moreover, they decided to abandon mandatory tasks altogether and concentrated on expanding the possibilities of the open world. There is only one mandatory “plot”, and that one is essentially training before the start of the main game.

State of Decay 2 Gameplay

At its core, the game is a hybrid third-person action game. The player can freely roam the world either alone or with AI partners or even other people in co-op. Exploring the world in a zombie apocalypse is a vital necessity, because this is the only way to get supplies and resources to improve your base.

Zombies are almost everywhere in State of Decay 2. They wander through abandoned houses and farms, look for people on the roads and just hang around fields and in the wilderness. They may seem slow, but if you get their attention, they quickly remember how to run and jump over obstacles. They are dumb, so escaping from them is not that difficult.

There is no need to flee if you have a good melee weapon or even a “firearm” at hand. Basically, of course, you will have to fight close, because there is not so much ammunition, and the noise of shots often attracts even more “walkers”. The combat system is simple and somewhat reminiscent of bitmaps ala: one click - one hit.

Typically, there are no blocks, but there are rolls and dodges. “Pumped up” characters can use special attacks, of which there are only a few. You can also avoid meeting zombies using a simple “stealth” - move crouched, use silencers and hit the head from the back, instantly killing the enemy a second time.

Beginning of the game

State of Decay 2 is entirely in the open world, and now the random number generator not only distributes loot, places zombies and creates side events as the story progresses, but also completely creates all possible activity in the game, and also manages the generation of all without excluding characters, both under the control of the player and everyone else.

After completing the tutorial, the player takes control of 4 characters, the first 2 he selects at the beginning of the game, and another 2 are generated so that one is a soldier and the other is a medic. Thus, there is no need for a “restart”, because these 2 additional classes are already the best that a newly formed community can get.

Next, the game offers 3 cities to choose from. Each is located in its own separate location, which is approximately the same size as the starting region in the first part. Later, the group may even move to another region if resources around it become very tight. Thanks to this, State of Decay has a good foundation for replayability from the very beginning.

Generating tasks

But then the complete “randomness” begins. State of Decay always begins some important task for the player: the appearance of an unfamiliar survivor asking for help, a joint foray to the nearest cluster of zombies, a trip for missing medicines, meeting a new group of people who have settled nearby.

There are dozens of options for random quests, and the coolest thing compared to the original is that they are practically not repeated and often influence further events. Each character has his own unique task - searching for relatives, hunting for the infected, and so on. You can stumble upon entire lines of quests associated with other groups.

For example, one of them constantly asks for resources, and quite aggressively. Community members begin to suspect that this is extortion and are advised to ignore any requests. If you continue to fulfill your whims, then one day they will demand that you give up your base and move to another place. If they refuse, they will open fire to kill.

There are a lot of similar moments in State of Decay 2, and often they are not just presented “as is”, but appear depending on the player’s previous actions. For example, if you elect a former military man as the leader of the group, other survivors will begin to consider him as something like a sheriff and will periodically ask him to judge conflict situations.

Often assignments are also given based on the current state of affairs in the community. If the player avoids collisions with groups of zombies, then after a while they will begin to gather in packs and, by their very existence, reduce the morale of the community. And if there is no room at all for expansion at the base, then one of the characters can set himself the goal of finding a better place.

Undead Labs' main achievement in implementing such a dynamic quest system is that it looks believable and not like it was created by a random number generator. Tasks have natural prerequisites and consequences, and the player almost always has the opportunity not to take on the task or influence its outcome.

Blood Plague and Co-op

One of the features of State of Decay 2 is the mechanics of infecting party members with a mutated blood plague virus. If a character was bitten by a bloody zombie, then he has an infection level. When the number of such bites reaches a critical value, an infection will begin, which can only be cured in one way - by making a special vaccine.

To create it you need samples of the plague. Sometimes they “drop” from defeated zombies, but you can get them in the right quantity only by clearing one of the plague hearts. They appear in the world and are one of the most dangerous places where zombies gather. To destroy a heart, you need to gather a whole group of people, because it is extremely difficult to do it alone.

The second key innovation of State of Decay 2 is the long-awaited multiplayer. Many of the fans of the first part dreamed of surviving in the company of friends, and now this has finally become possible. Connecting another person to the game is arranged as if he came from another region, and in total there can be up to 4 players in one session.

The cooperative has no restrictions - people can freely move around locations and work for the benefit of the community of the host player. Also in multiplayer there is one exclusive feature - raids to plague hearts. During such forays there are more enemies and they are stronger, but valuable items can be found in the plague lair.

Characters and RPG elements

As noted above, almost everything in the game is randomized based on the player's actions. In the sequel, the developers paid a lot of attention to the characters. Now these are not “dummies” with a predetermined set of characteristics, but full-fledged individuals. Each of the community's residents has their own level of morale and an opinion that they are not afraid to express.

But the RPG system around which character development is built is much more important. At the start, each of them has a set of 5 skills, each of which can subsequently be developed into one of 4 specializations. It is important to always have as many different specialists in the group as possible, because without this it is impossible to build many improvements on the base.

For example, without an experienced physician it is impossible to cure the bloody plague, and expanding the base will sooner or later require automation with the help of electricity and computers. By the way, the construction of the base has remained almost unchanged, except that new improvements and options have appeared when using ready-made buildings.

Graphics and sound

While the first part was made on the CryEngine 3 engine from the famous German studio, State of Decay 2 runs on Unreal Engine 4. This made it possible to significantly transform the rather primitive image of the original, enriching the game world with many new detailed objects, clearer textures and nice effects.

The graphics in the game have become noticeably better, but they do not reach the level of modern AAA projects. Moreover, the technical implementation is very, very mediocre and does not particularly correlate with the system requirements. If you run the game on the “recommended” Intel Core i5-4570 and GeForce GTX 960, you can witness constant drops of up to 30-40 FPS.

The optimization in State of Decay 2 is such that the game can be played even on an i7-4790 in conjunction with a GTX 1070 Ti. We can only hope that drivers will be released that will fix most of the performance issues. In the meantime, the drawdowns will have to be compensated for by a very cool country soundtrack, which is still as good as in the first part.

What will you do to survive the zombie apocalypse?

State of Decay 2 is a surprisingly good sequel. It would seem that the project is hardly capable of generating anything and everything. Even AAA games often fall victim to this approach, with players increasingly complaining that the RNG itself can't provide a great experience. However, Undead Labs showed that it’s all about the proper use of “random”.

Indeed, their new game is even more random than the original, but at the same time, what is happening suddenly seems more logical and reasonable. Alas, the plot fell under the knife, but if you perceive the game as a survival simulator in a zombie apocalypse (surprise, State of Decay is what it is!), then everything falls into place.

We also cannot help but praise the developers for adding multiplayer to the game. It's much more fun to play with him. And the idea of ​​the virus mutating into a bloody plague was cleverly implemented. The only thing that worries me is that the optimization is not the best, especially coupled with the very high price of 1949 rubles.

You have finally managed to get out of the noisy, stuffy city into the picturesque expanses of the American outback: a small town with countryside and farms, mountains, lakes, and autumn forest. You involuntarily begin to think about fishing, hiking and other delights of a leisurely, measured holiday in nature, but literally from the very first seconds, thanks to the cries of your friend, surrounded by a couple of taciturn people of not the very first freshness, who want to take at least a bite out of him , it becomes clear that this is not what the game is about at all.

About 4 years have passed since the release of State of Decay, however, there are still people who have not heard of it, or have heard of it, but due to the large number of bugs, they decided to bypass it. Today it’s still far from ideal, but things are much better than at the start, so let’s figure out what State of Decay is and what it comes with.

Let's start with the plot. In short, there is none. Instead, there is a completely predictable plan/goal - to escape from the zombie invasion. Accordingly, there are also “plan points” - they are also mandatory plot tasks, the completion of which opens up new opportunities in the game and brings you closer to your cherished goal. This approach is organically combined with the open world, since it provides greater freedom of action: you can stretch out the passage for over 100 hours, simply delaying the completion of any story task, including the last one, or, on the contrary, “gallop” and set your own record for the speed of completion. The lack of a full-fledged plot is more than compensated by the presence of additional tasks. At the same time, they are a “fly in the ointment”: they are quite monotonous, often scattered throughout the map, and at a certain moment there are so many active tasks that the mere thought of completing them makes your eye twitch. Of course, it is not necessary to carry them out, but you won’t be able to ignore them completely, at least painlessly: morale will drop among your survivors, you may be missing several characters, etc.

I won’t write much about the locations; I’ll just attach a map and mention that almost the entire area is available for exploration from the very beginning of the game.

Despite the presence of an open world, at the first opportunity, I strongly do not recommend turning on explorer mode and rushing headlong to the other end of the map to explore as much as possible - unlike GTA, Mafia and other open-world games, the price of such an action may turn out to be very high. There are no checkpoints and the ability to restart the game in case of failure, the price of which is the life of one of the characters, so having “favorites” is more expensive for yourself, and also pointless, because you will still have to switch between them quite often due to their fatigue. There are places for rest at the base, which can be improved at your discretion by building a honey. point, warehouse, vegetable garden, workshop, etc., and also, as you progress through the game, move it to another place. You can secure your base with the help of outposts, which can also be improved.

To save effort and time, the game has vehicles, which are few, both in terms of variety and quantity. Yes, yes, cars do not spawn at all: if you take a car from a certain place, and then crash it or throw it in the middle of a field, then a new one will not appear. This is a huge plus for realism. It’s almost the same story with resources, so if you play the game for a very long time, there will definitely come a time when it will be impossible to find them, because everything that was there has already been found and used a long time ago.

Now let's go over the AI, gameplay and other nuances. Zombies are quite lethargic and not very active (just like nerds with a sedentary lifestyle), but don’t delude yourself: as soon as they notice you, they turn into Olympic athletes - it’s almost impossible to escape without a noticeable head start, they climb over fences no worse and can -efforts to break down a door or window. You can only be saved by their stupidity, myopia and... a lucky ladder that they don’t know how to climb. But still, the most important weapon of zombies is their number, with which they can easily “crush” even the most pumped up and well-armed character, so you should think twice before getting involved in a fight. Regarding the quantity, it is worth mentioning that the “crowd of zombies” in the game numbers no more than 10 enemies, which, by the standards of fans of games and films of similar themes, is very small, but in fact this is not the case (for a walking character). If you encounter a crowd of zombies while in a car, you can play bowling, but the “pins” will not stand still, but will try to stick around your car from all sides and cause as much damage as possible, so don’t play too much, otherwise some kind of At this point you will have to walk further.

As for the total number of zombies, we get another fly in the ointment, and a big one at that. Against the backdrop of a rather severe limitation of resources and transport, endless “stocks” of zombies look somewhat out of place. Combined with the isolation and sparsely populated area in which the game takes place, this feeling only intensifies. Yes, the game does not pretend to be a simulator, but still.

Unfortunately, it is worth recognizing that the rest of the survivors are not much smarter than the zombies, and they are also helpless (if they are not under your supervision). An order to deliver the supplies you previously found can easily result in a side quest to rescue the dispatched character, even if these same supplies need to be brought from the house closest to the base. A co-op mode would be very useful here, but alas it is not there (they promise to add it in the second part of the game). The only thing that other NPCs are good for (except for the role of reserves and workers at the base) is force support. Still, it’s much easier to fight together than alone, but again, many “mixes” begin precisely thanks to these “helpers.”

There are a lot of weapons, but it would be better if the developers took quality rather than quantity. The difference between copies of the same type of weapon is so difficult to notice that it can be divided into two types: lethal and everything else. For the sake of realism, weapons can wear out and break, so it is advisable to have a spare one with you, which is difficult to do due to weight restrictions and small equipment. Of the modifications, only the option to install a muffler is available, and even that is not for everyone. Shooting is also not very convenient, but it can be worse.

Other elements constantly remind us of the arcade nature of the game, from vehicle controls to the battle mode, which consists of just a couple of buttons, although the latter is rather a reminder that this is a console port. The graphics quality, which is not very friendly to the eyes, deserves special mention, but it can be “tamed” with the help of third-party mods.

As a result, we got a rather controversial game, where elements of arcade and realism coexist, and the beginnings of an interesting idea are at war with crooked implementation, which makes it difficult to give an unambiguous assessment of this project. On the one hand: there are enough “jambs” to permanently erase the game from your computer and never install it again, but on the other hand, there are many interesting aspects that I would like to see in other games and which make me return to this “decaying state” again and again. again. Common sense and the presence of other good games do not allow me to say that State of Decay is my favorite game, but if you choose only from games about zombies, then perhaps it is so.

He is his own director and actor in The Walking Dead.

Gambling addiction https://www.site/ https://www.site/

First State of Decay came out very on time. In 2013, the “survivalists” had not yet had time to begin their victorious march through Steam Early Access (there was a year left until The Forest and six months before Rust), on consoles the genre was even more of a novelty. The third season of The Walking Dead recently concluded, and the series was at the peak of its popularity. Almost everyone wondered how he would lead his own group among the fierce hordes of zombies. Especially after watching the mistakes of beloved, but not very smart heroes.

And then a game appeared where anyone could lead a handful of very different characters through the hardships of a decaying new world. With base management, crafting, open world, transport and meeting the needs of the wards. The weak technical part inherent in “independent” developments did not scare off potential buyers, and it came to a sequel.

And since the customers liked it, there was no point in changing anything, only improving it.

State of Decay 2 release trailer

Two steps from hell

Such games often simply don’t need a plot, so State of Decay 2 They made do with a training mode with a formal beginning for each pair of survivalists: by and large, this is just a way to describe the relationship between them. After training, the heroes are sent to one of three areas. Everything is in the style of typical American suburbs: rare low houses, a lot of free space, trees, mountains and few people. Here you will experience the beginning of the end.

Here's your first base, a set of random survivors - have fun as you want.

And respond to community requests first. Build beds for everyone, provide water, electricity and other things so that everyone is happy and does not want to run away like cockroaches. And each character - consider one life. If someone dies during a raid, then he dies forever, and control passes to someone else. No saves.

Basic needs include five resources: food, building materials, medicine, fuel and ammunition. If at least one of them ends, everyone will become despondent, at the first opportunity they will begin to get into a fight and further ruin the lives of those around them.

Do not starve

At first, you will have to extract resources yourself, outside the shelter. With crowbars and bats in their hands, our brave Zed fighters go out onto the high road, where it turns out that not everyone is equally dashing and running. Some people fold in half from shortness of breath after three blows, while others seem to have already survived one of the parts Resident Evil, shoots accurately and runs a marathon with full equipment.

The main parameters grow as you use it, so you can turn a dead guy into Rambo, the main thing is practice. Each character has special skills: one is a good shooter, the other is good with computers. Further, the differences will become even more obvious, and you will have to choose between two branches of development.

You should be especially careful when choosing tasks for specific survivalists and remember everyone by name. Otherwise, you’ll accidentally leave your only gardener, who hasn’t had a sniff of life outside the base, in the middle of a dark street near a bunch of brain-eaters.

Inventory is limited, and you should only take what you need for the job, because the loot also needs to be stored somewhere. There is a separate slot for bags with basic resources, as well as for firearms and melee weapons. Two cells are responsible for pockets, the backpack adds a few more (depending on size) for the rest of the junk.

The cartridges take up space, the objects have weight, in a word, everything that needs to be taken into account in such cases is taken into account. You can’t carry much, and here you also have a choice: sacrifice something necessary, constantly drag yourself to the base and back, or find a car with a spacious trunk.

The catch is that useful things are not lying around in plain sight - we are forced to look for them in designated locations. The search mechanic takes time, so the strategy of “run into the building, grab it and get out before the hungry creatures inside understand anything” will not work. For ten whole seconds you must stand motionless, except perhaps looking behind you, so that no one creeps up. Didn't reach the slider all the way because you had to defend? Start again.

You can speed up the process using a special button, but you risk making a splash, and a whole horde will come after your souls, which was not in sight a second ago. The system for zombies appearing on the map is extremely mocking. The generator doesn’t care that you spent a good ten minutes burning out everyone and everything behind you - it will still throw you a couple more when you turn your back.

The same will happen in story missions: mechanics and the desires of the writer in this game are more important than common sense.

Arithmetic of the Zombie Apocalypse

It takes the hero 10 seconds to repair and refuel the car. The same amount is required to search any box. There are on average five of them in each building. How many minutes will it take you to find a can of gasoline and drive away in a broken and empty sports car? Answer: too much.

Over time, your base begins to produce some of the resources itself, and here the main indicator of the success of your game comes into its own - the morale of the settlers. It is he who needs to be raised at the base with all his might, pleasing those whom you have tamed. M e hundred and you have very few resources for this, and, as usual, there are tons of requests.

But now you already have a garden where food and medicinal herbs grow. Here is the infirmary - there you can treat injuries and the infected. Here is a workshop where they repair broken weapons and create useful items. Don't forget to give everyone a bed - the settlers are not made of iron, they get tired, and because of this their maximum endurance decreases.

Occasionally, the base is even attacked, especially if you are building something or a noisy generator is running. The only pity is that everything listed is, by and large, just icons and numbers. There is no way to add personality to a new home. I would like to arrange the objects the way you like best, put up different wallpaper... but no.

Zombies haven't eaten all my neighbors yet

In this world you can not only search abandoned houses, gas stations and farms. Sometimes other groups of survivors will randomly appear on the map. You build relationships with them yourself. Neighbors on the radio ask you for help in this or that matter, and you can always refuse. If you ignore someone for too long, they will simply leave the area, so you will not receive useful bonuses from them and will not be able to recruit.

A very important difference from the first part lies in the fact that NPCs can come at you with weapons if you treat them too roughly. True, don’t even begin to imagine tough confrontations from DayZ or PUBG. State of Decay 2- a game designed for co-op.

The local artificial intelligence does not shine with ingenuity. The phrase “dumb and dumber” best describes him. Enemies don’t understand very quickly who to shoot at, and if you arrive at the “strelka” by car, they completely ignore your opponents or hide. They can win only in two cases: if they are better armed (and this is a fairly common scenario) or if they take you by surprise.

They wanted us to share weapons. I couldn't let this happen

Friendly communities not only sometimes throw in excess resources, but also issue tasks for which you receive local currency - “influence”. For it you can buy things from merchants and organize outposts in cleared buildings: this way you can compensate for the extraction of resources for which there is not enough space at the base. “Influence” is used to pay for any tasks at all. Even for killing ordinary undead they don't get much credit.

You've probably already noticed that I describe the mechanics in some detail. But in survival games this is important. First of all, the game should be engaging with the main “cycle”. Go to the city, return with materials, rebuild the base, fulfill the wishes of the residents, change the character, repeat.

You didn’t think that “dynamic narrative,” as the developers called it, would really be a powerful tool for creating heart-warming stories? Of course, some heroes have personal missions: find a gift from their son, remember the lyrics of a song they once wrote, and other nonsense, but all this is somewhere in the background. Just another tick on the daily to-do list, routine for the sake of routine.

If you don't like her, then nothing else will matter.

Pool of monotony

But the technical part was brought to a decent state, and the engine was changed from CryEngine to Unreal Engine. The animations have become much more natural, the overall mood has become darker, and the interface has become simple but readable. Cars have pretty nice physics.

If the first part was simply painful to look at, then the same cannot be said about the sequel. Shooting and hand-to-hand combat are also adequate. Therefore, there is no need to doubt the gameplay basis - it is truly addictive.

The crowning number of State of Decay is to open the door on the move to grind another walking dead into mince.

But there is no variety of events and situations. The open world offers a sparse selection of weak side quests, as if taken from a larger story game. No matter what happens, you will rummage through abandoned houses in search of various objects. Not for yourself, but for your neighbors. Not gradually, but over a limited time.

You will still destroy plague hearts (foci of infection), since this is your main mission. You will look for new trunks, new resources, but only to continue doing the same thing. And now your community feels good thanks to the sum of many random parameters, and this is expressed by a smiley face in the menu. It's hard to take seriously something that is essentially described by parameters rather than by words or deeds. Because of this, soulless systems, mechanics and deliciously bursting zombie skulls come to the fore.

Nowadays, apocalypse, post-apocalypse and the walking dead are becoming a popular topic of conversation, as well as a main plot and genre for films, books, and also games. And this is not surprising, because with the development of modern technologies and various biological weapons, many possibilities become available. Not too long ago in 2013, these conversations and ideas did not bypass such a game studio as Undead Labs, as a result of which it was born, and after it several additions.

Represents survival horror in a small but still open world. The world that we will explore is one of the provincial towns with surrounding areas and villages, which in turn consist of several houses. The main reason why you should check out this game is how different it is from other survival horror games. That is, during the passage you control not an individual character or several specific individuals, but an entire settlement. That is, as you progress, you will have to develop your community, the skills of your people, and also take care of providing them with a certain amount of food, ammunition, materials, fuel and medicine (you should also take care of treatment and protection). You can only establish a base for your people to live in, as well as for storing supplies, in certain places, but you can place outposts in almost any building that has been cleared of the walking dead. It is logical that in order to place a base and outposts you will need materials and influence over your group.

The world of State Of Decay also has vehicles that tend to break down and which can be repaired (but the physics of movements and collisions leave much to be desired). The character leveling system is logical and simple - whatever we do, those skills develop (that is, if we shoot, then we develop shooting skills, if we run, then endurance improves). Also, when you reach a certain level of proficiency with a particular weapon, you can choose from the proposed special skills, the use of which will also make survival easier.

State of Decay plot

The storyline, as well as the side quests, leaves much to be desired. From the first minutes, the game captivates with its plot and dynamism, but as you explore the world, the tasks tire you with their sameness. Basically, we will have to kill someone, or save someone, or simply come and negotiate with other survivors about solutions in difficult situations. When completing the main storyline, we will not have the opportunity to complete story quests one after another. The reason is that main quests only appear after a certain time has passed. In general, the most exciting thing about the game, in my opinion, is developing your own base, upgrading the skills of your people, and also resolving intra-community conflicts. The storyline, side quests, car physics and the lack of any destructibility of the world are more disadvantages than advantages.

The graphics and picturesque views will also delight many. Many combat techniques also look impressive, and the combat system is quite well developed. You'll have to work out tactics for combat, movement, and gathering supplies, as shooting and making noise can often attract large groups of zombies, which most likely will not increase your chances of survival (that is, there will be something to think about and experiment with). In any case, the game is well designed, although it has certain shortcomings, it certainly deserves your attention.