Last paragraph = TLDR. Topics are also in bold.
These are my thoughts for the Juggernaut Edition all the way up to patch 29. I had no idea how the game played before this point, and lets face it, SoD2 is probably one of the best showcases for the benefits of being a patient gamer.
I keep obsessing over this game. Truly. I spent 50 hours on one map of the main campaign alone, and before I dive into Heartlands I decided to try a few games that were leaving Game Pass to see if they were something I wanted to play. But all I keep thinking about is which map to choose next. Which legacy survivors to take with me. Which new strategies to try. Which custom difficulty to go with. Which leader type to choose for my next run. Which builds to experiment with. State of Decay 2 has me hopelessly hooked.
There is something about its gameplay loop that is hard to pin down, since on the surface, most of its ingredients have been explored, and at times better executed by other games. But if I had to guess, I’d say the permadeath feature, just like its predecessor, is a big part of SoD2’s secret sauce. To me, this design choice deserves a lot more praise than it gets. Off the top of my head I can’t think of many single player games that do community permadeath aside from XCOM and Darkest Dungeon, but for me, the very specificity of SoD2’s world, combined with the fact that its combat is far from a turn-based experience, elevates it above all else. I can’t express how much I adore the feeling that every supply run, every mission, every single outing can be my last with a character that I developed, nurtured and got attached to. And that’s one of the main things that SoD2 does better than the first title: even though characters are RGNed, they make sense. They come with their own ‘backstories’. If a character has a fondness for dogs, he’ll be talking about it often when you venture out together. If they had knee replacement, they will never be able to get past a certain level of physical ability. If they’re optimistic by nature, you’ll often hear them spreading good vibes around your community, and everyone will react to it. If they’re miserable sods, they’ll be picking fights with others more often than not. They’ll often have a small string of personal missions related to their former lives. You grow attached to these personalities, you learn to care for them, and when they die, you mourn not only the time you spent building them up, but the person that is now gone.
Additionally, I really appreciate how the world gets progressively yet subtly harder as your community evolves. The manner in which this game lures you into a false sense of security, only to often, and violently, pull the rug from under your feet, is beautiful. In a way, I find it fascinating how this permadeath system can simultaneously feel less punishing yet more emotionally gruelling than the usual, single character type, and there’s no doubt in my mind the SoD franchise would be a much less enjoyable game without it.
This, however, is far from being the only thing I love about this game. Almost every single one of my criticisms of the first SoD have been addressed one way or another: the game is now much more polished, and even though you still find the occasional bug, my experience was almost never hampered by it (though almost never is the keyword here); visuals have also received a needed overhaul, both in texture work and in aesthetics, and the nights finally strike a perfect dark tone that makes flashlights essential (most encounters are tense when you’re unprepared, but some are truly terrifying after dark); the fact that you can customise the difficulty of your playthrough is a game changer; you can now directly access your community members’ inventory, even if they’re not following you at that particular moment, and you no longer spend any influence when you ask someone to venture out with you; combat is clearly improved in gameplay, animation quality and engagement options; outposts are greatly expanded, and they now serve important purposes beyond just creating a safe area around them; fences are now destructible, as they should’ve been from the start, greatly improving navigation; the existence of hostile NPCs, which can be really tough cookies if you lack the proper confrontation tools, adds depth to your combat experience; speaking of NPCs, they are not much more cautious about shouting out stuff near zombies, which mechanically means nothing but significantly helps immersion (voice acting is also better by the way); skills are now communal, meaning that even if your specific skill member is away from base, you still have the exact same options when improving, building or customising your base; survivors are now much better RNGed also in terms of starting level, and you sometimes get some with a few skills already properly developed unlike in SoD. I could continue, but suffice it to say SoD2 really does a phenomenal job improving the aspects that were lacking in the previous title.
Not that I'm done complimenting it, though. One thing I honestly thought I would miss from the original SoD was the lack of a story to anchor the experience. I didn’t, not one bit, and this was in great part because (not even mentioning the narrative added by Heartlands) the story is there, at least in the vein of the first one. The tutorial starts off pretty much in a similar way to SoD, there are general guidelines from there on, you have a final goal, and so on. I don’t understand those who claim the first game has a story and this one doesn’t, because to me they are both exactly the same in this regard - I don’t really think the military stuff adds all that much to the first game except for maybe the very last scene. To me, SoD2 undeniably offers similar story beats within the massive sandbox of smaller personal tales it comes with - this is, after all, a game in which you create your own narrative as you see fit. Besides, the ability to craft your own narrative completely eclipses the need for an actual involved story, something that, as a narrative-driven player, never thought I would enjoy as much as I did.
A big chunk of this is also due to the degree of customisation this game has. The staggering amount of clothes, weapons, consumables and skill specialisation on offer means you can now experiment with a ton of different builds (stealth, melee, assault, explosive, etc). This translates to base management as well. Bases are limited in the number and types of slots they come with, but you’re able to create a ton of different facilities, customise them with an even bigger ton of mods, and choose from a variety of big, visually distinct maps. On top of this, different leader types offer different goals and benefits to both your base and your community. All of this combined adds great individuality and replayability to your experience. A testament, then, to SoD2’s level of expansiveness, and again, to its effectiveness in allowing the player to craft their own narrative without the need to anchor it to any specific storyline.
There are flaws in this game, of course, as with any game. Like I said before, there are still the occasional bugs - humans turning hostile if you speak to them after negotiating a peaceful outcome, or having to reload a save for things to sometimes register or reset properly, for example. LOD and zombie pop in aren’t ideal. Cars sound really weird this time around and I have no idea why. From the first game I miss the barricades, the runners, the environmental kills and the fact that you didn’t have to restart your searches when you got interrupted. There is also a much steeper learning curve here, especially with how minute and overly intricate the skill/trait system can be, which is bound to put some people off. These are all real and all there, but as negative as some might look, the incredible amount of things this game gets very right more than makes up for some sparse frustrating moments.
I can’t remember the last time I played such an addictive title. Is State of Decay 2 the ‘best’ game I played this year? No. That accolade probably rests at the feet of New Vegas or Mass Effect 2. Is it the game that offered me the most positively tense experience? No doubt. Is it the one I personally enjoyed the most? It might very well be. Flaws and all, the undeniable fact of the matter is that after day 2 I was hooked. I went to bed thinking about it. I dreamt about it. I woke up aching to play it. The potential to create your own smaller, personal stories within its broader world in a masterfully realised post-apocalyptic backdrop resonated with me in a way I hadn’t anticipated at all. It is by far the most impactful representation of a survival sandbox I have ever experienced, one of my absolute favourites over the past few years, and a franchise that I have now come to love more than I ever thought possible. 9.5/10
