Microsoft has debuted State of Decay 2, its latest zombie-themed survival game, with deeper systems under its revamped gameplay. Your community will be a major part of the experience, shaping how you survive again the merciless undead hordes. We've wrapped up everything we know about survivors and progression so far, getting you ready for release.
Like in the original game, survivors play a vital role in State of Decay 2. While many titles establish the main protagonist, State of Decay places an emphasis on your community and the survivors it encompasses. Gameplay requires players to cater to survivor needs, keeping their health, stamina, and morale in check.
The depth of the existing survival system has evolved for this successor, with each character granted a unique likeness, personality, and backstory in the world. Each of these combinations is procedurally generated from a handcrafted pool, ensuring diversity isn't sacrificed for depth. This creates substantial profiles for characters, with personal ambitions and motivators in the apocalypse.
While expanding your following, it's best to find a group of survivors that work well together, while delivering varied skillsets. Differing personalities can clash, resulting in fallouts, fights and decreased morale. Conversely, you should gather varied backgrounds to cover all major pillars of combat, survival and base building.
Skills and progression explained
Survivor are assigned an assortment of personal skills, inherited from their history. For example, an ex-auto dealer may have great knowledge of vehicles, while a rifle collector will have more firearms experience. Backstories seamlessly shape a survivor's skills, which translate to in-game advantages (and disadvantages).
When first enlisted into your community, survivors are assigned with up to five basic starter skills. New skills can also be obtained, by gaining knowledge through scavenged books and resources. Characters are locked to a maximum of five skills, enforcing limitations on a survivor's skillset.
Skills are accompanied by a rating, between zero to seven stars. The survivor's proficiency with a skill will increase when used, leveling up the skill's star ranking.
After fully leveling a survivor's skill, you'll need to choose a specialization for the character. A specialization provides the opportunity to further refine this trait, by choosing to focus upgrades in a specific area. Similarly to a skill tree, specializing your skills unlocks new moves and abilities for that character. For example, this can include improved stealth, scavenging, and various other bonuses.
Heroes, leaders and more
Survivors are also ranked, with rewards in place for leveling up. By completing activities that help the community, that member will be rewarded with increased standing among their allies. New community members will join the team as 'recruits,' before progressing to 'citizens' and 'heroes.' By hitting hero, the survivor will gain special abilities tied to this status.
Communities can also have an elected leader, dictating how it approaches challenges going forward. Only one member can be promoted to leader status at a single time. Additionally, only certain survivors are eligible for a leader role, with their personality influencing how settlements are managed.
Each leader has a distinct leadership style, categorized under four leader types. 'Warlords' show their strength to establish peace, while 'sheriffs' allow ethics to play a heavier role in decisions. Alternatively, 'builders' are ideal for construction and expanding your settlements, while 'traders' are best at establishing deals with enclaves. Each leader type also gains access to exclusive base facilities, only accessible to that leader type.
Updated May 20, 2018: Updated following the launch of State of Decay 2.
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As you progress through the story in State of Decay 2, you'll eventually finish up the Friendly Neighbor mission, which will allow you to unlock a Leader that will help you on your way to making your community a large enough one to keep the town safe from the plague.
While changing your Leader does impact what quests you will have (and what Legacies you earn after completing the game - more on that below) as well as give you some extra facility options, it doesn't really change much in terms of gameplay.
Nevertheless, what kind of leader you want should be thought about for at least a few moments, as the facilities that they have and the legacies they will grant you will appeal to different kinds of players. So with that, let's get on to how to change your leader.
Changing Your Leader[edit]
If you've just finished the Friendly Neighbor mission and have yet to choose a leader, then you will have the easiest time with this. Simply have your character gain enough standing in the community to become a Hero (by doing missions and killing zombies), and then highlight the character in the Community tab of the menu. The game should tell you what button to press on the bottom of the screen for the leader, so press that, and then you'll be good to go!
It should also tell you what kind of leader you might have if you make that character your leader. You should know what kind of leader you want beforehand, as the legacies will change depending on your leader as well as the facility upgrades they offer.
If you already have a leader, then the only way to change the leader is to have them die or be exiled. Get all items off of them, go into a group of zombies, and let them kill the leader and you should be able to repeat the above for a new character.
Legacies[edit]
Legacies are bonuses that are obtained after completing the game with a specific kind of Leader. Each one has a different bonus, and there are some that will appeal to other players more than another.
This is why it is important why you choose a leader after you decide on what you want out of your bonus. When you start your next community, you get the option of choosing up to 3 legacies that you've unlocked prior, so it might be in your best interest to pick a specific Leader so that for your next community, you get the best bonuses to make the missions that much easier.
State Of Decay 2 Hero Bonus Reddit
Warlord Legacy[edit]
Receive a giant pile of guns, ammo, and grenades when you settle your first home.
Sheriff Legacy[edit]
Receive a pile of high-quality loot from old friends once a day.
Trader Legacy[edit]
Receive a visit from a friendly trader (and 4000 influence) after you settle your first base.
Builder Legacy[edit]
Base-wide power and water with no fuel cost or threat.
Comments
How to Choose a Leader in State of Decay 2
While your community of survivors doesn’t need a leader, it’ll certainly help to have someone lead the way and offer some guidance to your people. State of Decay 2 does allow you to choose a leader, but they’ll essentially need to prove themselves first.
Each member of your community has the potential to be a leader in State of Decay 2, as they’ll raise their standing within the community by scavenging resources, killing zombies, destroying Plague Hearts, and helping out other communities. They’ll go from Recruits to Citizens, and then from Citizens to Heroes. Any heroes you have in your State of Decay 2 community can be promoted to the leader position, but it’s worth noting that all heroes have bonuses to offer the group, so make sure you’re using all of your survivors to get all ‘dem bonuses.
When you’ve got a hero that you want to make your leader, press the View button and then use RB to navigate to the Community page. In the center of all of your characters, you’ll see the State of Decay 2 logo on the ground. Press A when you’ve got this highlighted and you’ll be able to select any of your heroes. Confirm your choice and that character will lead your community in the game.
Depending on their background, your leader will also have a unique facility that can be built at your base. These are incredibly powerful and will greatly help your efforts pushing back the Blood Plague, so don’t forget to build these as and when you have the option to.
For more on State of Decay 2, be sure to check out our ever-expanding wiki.
Sims 4 how to garden. State of Decay 2 for XONE and PC is an official sequel to the successful zombie-apocalypse game by Undead Labs. Similarly, to its predecessor, the title is a survival production with RPG elements, set in an open world. The players’ main task is to survive, which requires them to gather resources, enlarge their group, build a shelter and defend it from undead attacks. State of Decay 2 introduces a multiplayer mode in which survival depends on cooperation with other participants.
Plot
State of Decay 2 takes us to a world after a zombie apocalypse. On the remains of the destroyed civilization, few survivors struggle for survival every day, while desperately looking for a safe shelter to protect them from hordes of the undead. The action is set in the United States—towns that used to teem with life are no full of the forever hungry living dead.
Mechanics
State of Decay 2 for XONE and PC is a third-person action game in which we get a chance to lead a group of survivors. Instead of one main protagonist, the production offers over a dozen of characters with their own biographies, skills and traits, between whom we can freely switch. Together, they build and develop their own hideout and gather resources necessary for survival. State of Decay 2 features a character development system similar to that from The Elder Scrolls series — skills are mastered by performing adequate actions. With time, various relations are formed within the group —friendly or hostile — and the most influential individuals can become leaders of the society. In case of a character’s death, they are gone forever.
The most basic activity in State of Decay 2 is searching nearby buildings for resources. It usually requires us to sneak inside and silently eliminate the undead roaming inside. Fighting them, we can use various kinds of melee weapons (improvised, most of the time) and firearms, although open combat is the last resort since it draws attention of zombies. The fun is enriched by story missions and additional quests as well as varied random events.
Game modes
The primary gameplay variants in State of Decay 2 for XONE and PC are story campaigns and the infinite survival mode. Apart from solo play, the title allows us to cooperate with four people, each of whom manages their own group of survivors.
Technical aspect
State of Decay 2 for XONE and PC offers clearly prettier graphics than its predecessor, although the visual style is similar. In the game, we see typical American landscapes, full of vast fields and remote towns.