We hope you enjoyed celebrating the two-year anniversary of State of Decay 2 with us last month. You might think that after a party like that – not to mention the release of the mighty Juggernaut Edition just a few months ago – that the entire dev team might opt to just sleep in... but NOPE! Instead we’re back with another exciting content update!
This month we’re debuting a BIG new feature designed for players looking for a slightly calmer post-apocalyptic experience. We’re calling it the Green Zone, and you can read all about it a little later.
In case that’s not your bag, you should also check out the Plunder Pack — a new array of pirate-themed weapons and outfits available ONLY from the Bounty Broker!
And of course, we have our traditional set of gameplay improvements and bug fixes. Here are some highlights:
- Increased fuel capacity for all vehicles
- Increased resource storage for all bases
- Easier-to-find containers in secured buildings
- Improved follower behaviors against juggernauts and plague hearts
- Tabs on the inventory screen to ease navigation
Welcome to the Green Zone!
We’ve added a new difficulty level to State of Decay 2! Think of the Green Zone as a more relaxed, accessible apocalypse, designed for all those gamers who’d like to explore what’s possible in State of Decay 2 without enduring quite so much stress.
Here are some of the key differences you’ll find in a Green Zone:
- Enemies deal less damage
- Your Stamina lasts longer in a fight
- Freak zombies are much rarer
- Crafting items and building facilities is cheaper
- Rucksacks provide more resources
- Scavenging delivers more weapons and skill books
You can try out the Green Zone by starting a new community and choosing Green Zone at the difficulty picker. You can also move an existing community to a Green Zone map by opening the Difficulty Screen and selecting “Green Zone.”
It’s a Pirate’s Life for You
Inspired by our friends at Rare (creators of the exciting pirate game SEA OF THIEVES), we’re expanding our buccaneering options with the new Plunder Pack!
This pack adds four weapons, two outfits, two hats, and one seriously sexy vehicle to the game. All nine of these wonderful items are available by completing bounties for the Bounty Broker.
- Sea Dog Blunderbuss: Some call this short-range shotgun-style weapon the original horde stopper.
- Spyglass Rifle: With a .50 caliber rifle like this elegant beauty, you can brave the darkest waters without need for a bigger boat.
- Dead Man’s Cutlass: This marvelous bladed weapon is just what you need to take arms against a sea of thieves. I mean troubles.
- Bilge Rat Shovel: It may not look like much, but this handy blunt weapon has plenty of “digging” left in it yet.
- Buccaneer Bandanna: This handy piece of headgear bears the insignia of the mysterious Order of Souls!
- Naval Tricorne: It’s the hat that plundered a thousand ships.
- Pirate Jacket: This tattered coat has seen more than its share of pillaging.
- Kraken Hoodie: Terrifying monsters inspire the most attractive outfits.
- Megalodon: A gorgeous muscle car modeled after the legendary marine predator.
What’s Coming and Going
The addition of the Plunder Pack means it’s time to say goodbye (at least for now) to the Trumbull Valley Pack. Remember that you keep anything you already own, but you can’t acquire more items from retired packs.
Our next update, in July, will feature the first return of a retired pack! The weapons of the World War 2 Pack (last seen in January of this year) will once again be available in the game. Most returning weapons will be available as loot, and the pack also includes new weapons and outfits that you can unlock by completing bounties. To make room, the Bundle Up Pack will be retired at that time.
Garden Gnome Contest
The winners of our Garden Gnome contest have had their nicknames added into the random name generator as of this update. Congratulations to all of our winners! (These nicknames are very rare, though, so we do not recommend sitting on the character-generation screen trying to make them happen.)
Fixes and Improvements
Gameplay
- You can now see all the containers in a building once the site has been completely secured, to address the frustrating experience of failing to find that one last container. (This ability was previously reserved for Scouting specialists. Scouts still keep their loot-and-scoot advantage, as they can spot containers without having to kill every zombie in the building first.)
- We raised the fuel capacity of all vehicles by 40%. Gas cans still contain the same amount of fuel as before, so it now takes more cans to fill a vehicle … but you can stock up and drive around longer without refueling!
- The right-side panels (Inventory, Skills, and Radio) now feature tabs, so it is much easier to navigate between them, and for new players to discover that the Skills and Radio panels exist at all. They’re not technically tabs, visually. They’re little button things. But they work like tabs.
- We improved the way your survivor determines when they can interact with items in the environment, checking both the character facing and the camera facing to determine your intent.
- Minor accidental noises from stumbling or falling short distances no longer attract zombie attention.
Combat
- Pump-action shotguns no longer take durability damage, and are effectively indestructible like revolvers and bolt-action rifles, to help balance their slower rate of fire.
- Your survivor now moves forward slightly when swinging a heavy weapon at an enemy just outside their reach, to avoid frustrating near misses, especially right after knocking a zombie back.
- We increased bonus melee damage to juggernauts from behind from +20% to +40%, to make it more worth the risk of trying to get behind them.
- We fixed a bug that could cause your survivor to get hung up on their own ally while attempting to charge and attack a zombie.
Followers
- Followers now engage more intelligently with the larger enemies (juggernauts and plague hearts).
- In most circumstances, they should now use guns when appropriate and avoid area-effect attacks more rationally.
- Followers now prioritize human threats a little higher than zombie threats, because hostile humans are scary.
- Followers wielding shotguns and fully-automatic weapons now experience projectile spread like normal people, instead of every pellet in a shotgun shell parading directly into their target in single file.
- We made it possible for community events to check if a given character is your follower, so that we don’t have followers claiming to have run off and collected supplies or something while you were staring right at them.
Base Management
- We’ve increased the capacity of all Storage facilities by 10 for every resource. This should reduce resource storage pressure, especially during the early game.
- You can now check community members into the Infirmary to speed up the removal of partial infections (prior to full-blown blood plague). This was a thing that many players assumed should be possible, so now it is.
- This effect stacks with the benefits of the Sanitizing Machine and the Cleaning Station.
- Finding a new map via the upgraded Command Center no longer has a cost associated with it. This should remove some friction from the process of switching maps.
- In Green Zones only, if you keep your Morale at 10 or higher, new potential recruits will show up at your base once per day and offer to join your community.
- This should hasten the process of acquiring new people for your community, though we’re deliberately making these fairly average folks with no dramatically awesome or terrible traits.
Other Stuff
- Our audio team restructured the in-game music playlists to minimize repetition. Players should hear a more interesting and varied mix of music across all game modes.
- We made a minor audio tweak to make it sound less like characters were eating their textbooks.
- As always, we fix minor map issues as they crop up, this time including an unfinished building interior that we discovered while playing multiplayer with fans of the game.