Developed by Undead Labs
Published by Microsoft Game Studios
Released for Xbox Live Arcade (6/2013)
Also on PC
State of Decay is an open-world zombie survival game. The premise and gameplay are both incredibly ambitious, perhaps a bit too much for the (at the time) aging 360 hardware. The game has a whole host of technical issues, all of which we'll delve into in this review, but despite this I still had a great time playing it. You rarely see open-world titles like this on Xbox Live Arcade, and State of Decay is one of the more in-depth zombie survival titles that I've played on a console.
Let's start off with the positive aspects of State of Decay. The premise is awesome and the game has a scope that no other zombie title (at least on the 360) had reached at the time of release. You're given a massive sandbox to explore and are able to setup a base, recruiting new survivors along the way. The character you play as has a stamina and life bar, and these will drain after a while forcing you to switch survivors in order for the current one to rest. Each survivor have their own individual stats which are leveled up as you use the affected ability and certain characters have unique stats to build up and will be able to unlock specific abilities.
It's important to stay stocked up on medicine and snacks, as these will help temporarily replenish your stamina and health. There are, of course, zombies scattered about the map everywhere, and I was quite surprised to see that throughout my entire playthrough that the undead were the only things I was killing (typically anything with zombies seems to have the survivors going at it with the zombies as fodder). Taking a cue from Left 4 Dead, there are special zombie types you'll have to watch for as they are tougher than your average undead. There are, of course, the big overweight zombies that are absolute damage sponges, feral zombies that can pounce on the player (very deadly!), bloaters that explode and leave a nasty fume that damages the player and armored zombies that are immune to bullets.
State of Decay features a perma-death system, so you need to be careful about playing as a single survivor for too long. When a survivor is murdered, you're treated to a gruesome death animation getting torn in half and your character will drop their belongings in a rucksack where they were slain, allowing you to reclaim your old possessions with a different survivor. I can't tell you how bad some of my character deaths pissed me off as they come unexpectedly sometimes, but let's just say I shut the game off a couple times in pure frustration. Typically when you go down, you'll be put into a downed state and are given ample time to mash the A button to recover and you'll initially think that your character going down is no big deal at all. It seems that if one of the "special" zombie types is anywhere near your character when they go down then you can kiss them goodbye as they killed me without even giving me an opportunity to recover on a few occasions.
Open-world games rely heavily on missions to keep the player occupied, and State of Decay is no exception. Typically your quests will involve fetch quests where you'll assist an ally and then escort them home, but there are a few variations on mission types. Aside from the missions, there are tons of places to scavenge for necessities like food, ammo and building materials. Your base will consume so much of each resource each day and it's up to you to make sure everything stays stocked up. With the building materials you can add specialized rooms to your base, such as a medical bay or workshop, that can give you certain perks. Basically, State of Decay has no shortage of things for you to do within its large open-world. I found myself annoyed initially by the way State of Decay bombards the player with quests, many of which will expire if not completed within a certain amount of time (similar to Dead Rising). The completionist side of me hated seeing these timed quests fail. At first I found very little time to actually go scavenge, but eventually you'll become familiar with which quests are important and which ones you can let expire. The zombie hunting missions, for example, are pretty much worthless unless you just need a little XP boost.
The combat in State of Decay isn't the games strongest point and when surrounded by a group of zombies you'll quickly realize how clunky it is, but this is not a game where you want to allow yourself to be surrounded as you will get overwhelmed quick. Every time you perform an action, a chunk of your stamina meter is depleted and this plays heavily into the melee combat. It's very hard to choose which target you wish to strike with your attack, and as a result it's a bit random who you will hit next some times, which can be a pain when you need to focus on a tough enemy in a group. The dodging mechanic is also a bit unreliable and your stamina meter will really inflate the difficulty of the melee gameplay. You'll need to constantly stop attacking to run away and recuperate or eat a snack before continuing to pound away on your enemies. The combat system is serviceable once you get accommodated with it and after you start leveling your attack stats up you can become quite the force to be reckoned with.
The game engine in State of Decay really struggles to keep up with everything sometimes, with rampant framerate stutters and graphic pop-in all over the place. The pop-in is especially noticeable while driving at top speed, and I even had one occasion where my car slammed into another vehicle I couldn't see because it hadn't loaded in yet. It promptly popped up after stopping my truck dead in its tracks. The framerate issue becomes prevalent whenever you're in an area with a high population of zombies. There was one occurrence where the framerate got bogged down so bad that the game froze, but other than this instance I was still able to enjoy the game despite the framerate issues however it definitely does take a bit away from the overall experience. There are also some pretty ugly low-res textures that look quite out of place.
The car handling is a bit off, particularly the braking. Your car can go from 60 to 0 on a dime and you'll notice very quick that fences and several other objects about will stop you as well. It's a bit ridiculous seeing a picket fence stop a pickup truck ramming it at full speed. There's also some pretty severe clipping issues going on, with zombies popping through walls quite frequently. Again, not a game-breaker but it is quite obvious and does detract from the immersion. Also, be cautious using the exit game feature on the main menu as this would lead to a black screen and would never load back to the dashboard. Instead, exit the game using your Xbox button to go directly to the dashboard.
While State of Decay does host quite a few technical issues, the good outweigh the bad and none of it stopped me from having a good time while playing through this one. If you're able overlook the games flaws then you should enjoy this one. The developers are obvious fans of classic horror films and there's tons of references to classic icons of the genre to be found. It's a good game that could have been a great game if some of the technical problems were ironed out. After completing the game and seeing how small the development crew was, it became much easier to understand why the game had as many technical problems as it did, as the game is huge as far as Xbox Live Arcade titles go and easily provides enough content to compete with many retail titles. In 2015, Undead Labs would release a revamped version of the game for Xbox One & PC, titled State of Decay: Year One Survival Edition. I'm looking forward to revisiting the game at some point on the One and see if the developers were able to work out some of the kinks.
Final Verdict: State of Decay does contain a fair share of technical problems, but the game still remains a very playable and fun open-world zombie survival action title.
Related Links:
Buy State of Decay - Microsoft Store
Undead Labs - Official Site
State of Decay - Metacritic
State of Decay - GameFAQs
State of Decay Achievement Guide - Xbox Achievements
State of Decay - True Achievements
Breakdown
DLC Released on 11/2013
Breakdown was the first batch of downloadable-content for State of Decay that was released five months after the games initial release. This mode takes place on the same map as the main campaign, but adds a few wrinkles in the formula. New to this mode you'll be able to find an RV, which after you fix and get it running can be used to leave the map and will start a new scenario. With each new scenario you enter, the game ramps up the difficulty by spawning more zombies, hordes and freaks while also providing fewer resources and vehicles. For anybody that felt like the initial campaign was too easy, this mode will definitely ramp up the challenge in the later scenarios and will provide a much tougher challenge than the vanilla campaign.
Breakdown features a host of challenges that the player can tackle as they play. There's a batch of things to do for each scenario level up until five, and some of these will eat up a lot of your time. Each time a challenge is finished, a hero will spawn on the map who can be picked up and recruited to your home base. These were characters from the main campaign story and will often have a handy special skill unlocked already. Any heroes you've unlocked can be selected as your starting survivor when you start up a new game which is a nice bonus. The challenges are fun to unlock for the most part with only a few that stand out as requiring too much grinding.
That's basically Breakdown in a nutshell. It omits the story-driven missions of the original campaign but does still have several types of quests you can embark on if you need to gain influence. These usually involve helping random survivors who can be recruited if you earn their trust, hunting a particular type of zed freak, clearing out an infested building or assisting an ally in trouble. These missions will spawn consistently until you've repaired your RV and decide to move on to the next scenario.
While I enjoyed my time with Breakdown for the most part, I found little motivation to come back after completing all the challenges. There's also an exploit that allows you to load your entire party on the RV and bring everyone to the next scenario rather than the limited amount the game intended you to have. Of course you can use restraint and not use the exploit, but it does grant the player a distinct advantage when moving onto the next scenario (I've read that this was patched in the Xbox One version). I'm not certain if this was an issue in the main campaign, but some of the survivors' voice actors are just plain wrong. Several of the characters ethnicities just don't match up with their voices which can end up being funny actually but is yet another oversight. The bugs I encountered were mostly superficial, and Breakdown is worth getting if you've completed the main campaign and want some more mileage out of State of Decay.
Lifeline
DLC Released on 5/2014
Eleven months after the games official release we received Lifeline, and this time Undead Labs delivers a new map for you to survive in. This time around the story involves the military, so typically you'll be much better equipped for action. The map, while smaller than the original, is a welcome addition and makes up for Breakdown taking place in the same map as the initial campaign.
The map consists of a highway, with the exit out of town conveniently blocked off. There are several off-ramps you can use to access little parts of the city, but overall you're a lot more restricted than the original map. There's a story this time around, you need to require important people to try and continue the research of doctor who died early on.
Overall I found Lifeline to be an excellent addition to State of Decay, even better than the original campaign in some respects as it is a much more focused experience, and definitely worth the purchase if you enjoyed the vanilla game. If you only get one DLC for State of Decay, skip Breakdown and get Lifeline.
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