State of Decay 2 wants to take a vote on who should lead us
We built this city on flesh and bone
The first State of Decay game sold 4.5 million units. Did you know that? For sure I would have guessed wrong by three million units. But that's not to say it didn't deserve that attention. Building a functioning society post zombie-apocalypse and getting an incredibly layered series of management tools and interpersonal squad dynamics to work in such an entertaining way is no small accomplishment. The original game's DLC dabbled in what could be, but a true sequel has been what I've been waiting for.
(Also I maybe ruined my settlement way too late in the game by accidentally betraying and murdering most of my fellow survivors and I was too prideful to start again. Get off my back. I just love betrayal sooooo much.)
State of Decay 2 comes to us sooner than you might expect, with a late May infection of your... nervous system? I dunno. This is the kinda of stretching I need to do for zombie sims. Decay 2: The Decayening has a focus on promoting the right people within your settlement to appropriate positions of power but also doing some serious gardening. The survivor system also allow your characters and their backstory to really dictate each person's motivations and skill sets. Choices have long lasting implications on the story, and this time the player gets to decide where to build their bases and make their stands. The multiplayer aspect allows others to pop into your game and help out, or you to pop into their game and see how different their world has gone based on the choices they made. Admittedly, this is the second most exciting thing to me: playing Bioshock Infinite with jumping across a multiverse to see who ruined what and how.
My main draw here is the hyper-specific squad management stuff, including promoting some folks to leadership positions, which motivates or upsets other survivors, makes me want to see where the game can go from here. The new trailer shows us a bit of what Undead Labs has in store for us.
STRAIGHT OUTTA PAX:
State of Decay 2 releases on May 22nd. It's a part of the Xbox Play Anywhere system, and also the Xbox Game Pass, like Sea of Thieves before it. The barrier for entry is $30 and they devs have promised no microtransactions. Earlier this weekend, I covered X-Com's follow up and the devs actively point to Games Pass as the kind of game delivery system that makes it hard for other indies to have stability. With that in mind it is hard to not see a slight nefarious edge here but also I desire to play the video games so real rock versus hard place situation here.