Prior to playing State of Decay, I’d heard positive things about the game and how well it functioned as a zombie survival “simulator.” I was excited to try it out, and waited eagerly as it took its time loading after I began a new game. Suddenly, with no videos, introductions, text explanations, or even an opening monologue, I was standing in the middle of a clearing watching an NPC get his ass kicked by some zombies.
Okay then…
The game informed me that I could use the X button to fight, so I began mashing the X button and soon helped the NPC, who was apparently my friend, survive the zombie assault. What followed was an incredibly brief tutorial that covered the base mechanics of the game, such as sneaking by using the B button to crouch, jumping with A, and sprinting with the left bumper. My first real task upon reaching a shelter was to search the surrounding area for supplies, and so I set out toward some nearby cabins where I could use the Y button to search through highlighted containers.
I have to admit, at this point I was wholly unimpressed. Worse yet, I was skeptical that this sloppy mess could become a fun and coherent experience. Fortunately, if you make it past the game’s utterly horrible start and into the game proper – which begins right after you reach the church – State of Decay quickly becomes much, much more than its awful beginning leads you to believe it is.
State of Decay truly is a survival simulation, and that shows in part because of the uninspired combat controls. Fighting zombies consists primarily of abusing the X button, although the game does give players the option to use shoves and kicks with the Y button to create space, or counter and dodge with the B button. You can use the triggers to stiffly aim a huge selection of different guns at the zombies (or zeds, as the game calls them) or you can just do what I did for the majority of my zombie encounters: get in a car and run over everything. While it could be in large part because of the aforementioned automobile-turned-battering ram “tactic” I employed, I never felt threatened by the zombies, despite spending a great deal of time wandering around alone on foot. Even when I was unarmed, it was fairly easy to just kick all but the biggest hordes away until I could finish them off with a curb stomp.
While the game does use a stamina system to limit your actions somewhat (jumping, running, and fighting all use stamina) and force you to consider the best move to make before you just sprint everywhere or swing at every zombie, I never felt that it was so limiting that it would cause me much hesitation. My reaction was less one of worry, and more one of a farmer’s irritation at seeing weeds. “I need to get to that food storage, but there are zombies in the way. I guess I’d better kill them all so they don’t interrupt my scavenging.”
Curiously, or perhaps not as the game is billed as a survival simulation, it’s the scavenging that ends up being the most engaging aspect of State of Decay. Need medicine? Better check out the pharmacies or trade with a neighboring group of survivors. Almost out of food? Better raid the gas station to see if there’s anything on the shelf since you already checked the grocery. Are your friends are injured? You’d better look for building materials to upgrade your makeshift infirmary for a quicker recovery. It’s your constant effort to improve your living conditions and survive that makes the game not just fun, but outright compelling. I loved climbing high points to survey the area, noting places on my map to search. I loved rummaging through drawers and supplies to find hidden weapons. I loved searching for materials to improve the training area to improve my stamina, or watch towers to make guard duty safer and easier. I loved building a workshop that could produce better weapons for me to take out and use to find more supplies to build a better workshop.
I just wish the game did more to teach you about all of this. Once the game gives you the basics, there’s very, very, very little in the way of a tutorial on how the home base works, and there’s absolutely no explanation for the way the outpost system works. Outside of random windows of text that do very little to explain and even less to contextualize, players are left on their own to just figure the game out. If you pay close enough attention and experiment, you can figure the game out, but it seems sort of silly that learning the game’s systems is an uphill battle. Surely it wouldn’t have been that hard to include an NPC giving players a lesson about improving bases or explaining the point behind the damned outposts.
It isn’t just the home base or outposts, though. There’s a lot that’s left to be learned the hard way. While you can level up skills and choose upgrades at certain levels, you only have a brief description of the abilities you can choose, so you won’t know which ones are actually the best for each character until you’ve leveled up a lot of characters. You’re also almost always alone. Sure, you can radio back to base to call for other survivors to help you scavenge, but those survivors will only come get supplies and do nothing else. You can’t form a party to take with you on the fly, and unless you have allies along with you for a mission, no one will follow you around to help.
There are dozens of characters, even if they all share a handful of voices, and each one has their own inventory…which you can’t manage unless you’re playing as that character. This makes inventory management a colossal pain in the ass, forcing players to juggle characters and a supply cabinet to re-equip or un-equip anyone other than your current character. The characters also have unique sets of skills, although there’s no discernible difference in gameplay until you level them up enough to gain different abilities, and even then your abilities aren’t affected by the character learning them. There’s nothing of substance in the way of a story – it’s there, but barely, and seemingly only because someone felt like it needed to be checked off of a list. The dialogue is also extremely repetitive and that stands out even more with the very limited cast of voice actors. Although, the way characters will tell the person with whom they’re speaking to wait until they clear an area of zombies to continue their conversation is a nice touch.
I feel that I’ve listed more negatives than positives, and since I haven’t even mentioned how ugly the game is visually or how the sneaking is simultaneously unnecessary and still too easy, you might be surprised to find that in spite of its many flaws I absolutely recommend the game. Problems aside, there’s a ton of things to do, with sidequests popping up constantly. The world is persistent, switching from day to night seamlessly, and things change and evolve minute by minute. The map is enormous and there seems to be no shortage of places to search, explore, and scavenge. I feel like some of the flaws could’ve been ignored with the inclusion of co-op, as it would have at least negated the absurdity of going out for supplies alone while a dozen worthless characters sit back at base waiting for you to return.
At its core, State of Decay is undeniably fun, but it must be approached with caution as it still has some very rough edges. For those who can deal with the flaws, they will find a strangely engrossing game that offers more than enough to make up for what it lacks.
Score – 8 /10 – Review by Jared Brickey
