State of Decay was one of the Xbox 360's biggest pleasant surprises (it later got an Xbox One release as well). Thus, the announcement of a sequel at E3 2016 was hardly a surprise, but it was most welcome. Developer Undead Labs has stayed radio silent about the open-world survival RPG ever since (well, mostly). Until now.
Undead Labs CEO Jeff Strain (with an assist from design director Richard Foge) was kind enough to share a few new pieces of concept art and answer some of our questions about the sequel, which will support four-player co-op.
See if you can find all four survivor players in this "visual target" image amidst all the zombies.
First, Strain confirmed our assumption that State of Decay 2 would be in a new, bigger town than the first game, adding, "I know SoD fans are hungry for details on number and size of maps, regions, kilometers of playable area, etc, but we’re not quite ready for that. For now, suffice it to say that the playable area is substantially larger than State of Decay."
"The millions of State of Decay players have been clear about what they want in State of Decay 2: A bigger, better State of Decay they can play with their friends," he said. "We intend to deliver on all of those."
The group sighting a flare in the distance of this concept image is reminiscent of the scene near the end of the State of Decay 2 reveal trailer.
State of Decay 2 isn't a PvP game.
Speaking of friends, we asked Foge if your friends could suddenly decide to be un-friendly, considering the fact that State of Decay is all about managing your relationships with your fellow survivors.
“The primary goal for multiplayer is that other players bring an interesting new dynamic to the simulation," Foge said. "The heart of State of Decay is consequences, and we need to make sure that other players are more than just an awesome addition to moment-to-moment gameplay; they need to become a part of the story based on the agency they have in your world.
“Your guests cannot just say ‘screw it, I'm taking this to PvP-town!’ and directly attack you or any of your community members, because State of Decay 2 isn't a PvP game. They can't go into your base and tear down all of your facilities. But there are plenty of ways that they can be a hostile force in your world because they can directly affect the simulation in meaningful ways.
Quoth the raven, "Never more dead!" in this State of Decay 2 concept image.
“The simple example of this is someone making noise and the zombie simulation responding. You may find yourself in a situation where one of your characters ends up getting killed because your guest made a racket that you couldn't deal with. This goes both ways though. You may end up causing a situation that gets one of your guest's characters killed, permanently.
“A more complex example is killing enclave NPCs that aren't a part of your community. There might be great reasons for them to kill those characters or they might just be going Westworld Blackhat on your simulation, but either way you are going to have to deal with the consequences of those actions. In the case of killing members of an NPC enclave, your relationship with that enclave is most likely going to become incredibly hostile and they may attack your community on sight. Now you have to decide how you want to handle that situation.”
There may be times when it’s tactically advantageous to [split up] in multiplayer.
In one of the new concept images, we see a player arriving by car, apparently separate from the other three players in the same image. This hints that players might be able to go their separate ways and then reconvene. So we asked Strain, How closely are players going to be encouraged to stick together?
"We want it to be fun to play with your friends, so the design mechanics encourage teamwork and cooperation," he told us. "That said, 'encouraging' is not the same as 'forcing.' You will be free to get in a car and go anywhere you like, just as you would if you were playing by yourself."
"There may be times when it’s tactically advantageous to do so," he continued. "For example, you may be under the gun to get medical supplies back to your base, and you decide to split up and have two players scavenge the supermarket pharmacy while two others go scout for a car or SUV with a large amount of trunk space to get the goods home. Or you could even be working on completely separate objectives and only come together as needed to get each other out of a tight spot. Ultimately you’ll be more effective (and, if we do our jobs well, you’ll have a lot more fun) playing close together, but as always with State of Decay, your play style is up to you."
[Unreal Engine 4] makes it far easier for us to add new content and features to the game, both before and after release.
Finally, we asked Strain about the move away from the first game's CryEngine-based technology to State of Decay 2's Unreal Engine 4 underpinnings. What does it mean for players?
"The most visible benefit will be visual," he answered. "For the requirements of State of Decay 2, [Unreal Engine 4] gives us the tools and tech we need to create higher resolution environments and characters with more sophisticated lighting, shaders, and effects. Our art director Doug calls the artistic style for State of Decay 'Faded Americana', and one of the key aspects of that is a painterly style and color palette reminiscent of the old Kodak Ektachrome film. UE4 gives us the tools to get closer to realizing that style on your screen.
"Beyond that, the biggest benefit is simply efficiency in creating content. UE4 has sophisticated tools, such as Blueprint, that support rapid prototyping and feature development. That makes it far easier for us to add new content and features to the game, both before and after release."
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews and Xbox Guru-in-Chief. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Podcast Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.
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