State of Decay Year One Edition, "SoD:YOSE" was a great prequel with interesting mechanics and overall an enjoyable Open World Survival Zombie Apocalypse experience which I would give a 7/10 today.
SoD 2 has made the first game redundant to a large extent. It has removed the most unique mechanic of the first game which had the simulation still running when you exited the game. This used to be an annoyance as you would need to prepare a bit before leaving the survivors to their own device. Building facilities isn't as time demanding as before which makes sense since you could start a build and exit the game before while the simulation was still running. It can still be a bit boring to wait but its a huge improvement over SoD:YOSE.

At first when I played SoD2 I missed a big thing from the first game: the campaign story. However with the Heartland dlc, aswell as the Wilkerson Storyline on a certain map this wasn't a missing feature anymore. The campaign simply wasn't played on the "campaign mode" as a whole. Overall the other enclave and personal missions are of a higher quality compared to the generic ones in SoD:YOSE.

The graphics and the addition of 5 more maps make a refreshing take on the visual aspect and the possible variety of the landscape you can explore and face off on against the zombies.

The 5 difficulties greatly balances the game to what is the most fun or balanced to you, aswell as the additional option to customize the overall difficulty with some option sliders. The progression system is very well made too. You can after upgrading your command facility enough decide to move with your community to any of the other maps and build up once again or you can follow through with one of the 4 leader types and establish a legacy through their quest lines. This adds them to a pool of characters available with their last equipped inventory aswell as skill set/level to chose for a new campaign run. Completing each legacy also unlocks boons for each leader type respectively. You can select up to 2 when you start a new run to get big starting benefits.

The DLCs are pretty good. Heartland serving as the "real campaign" in my opinion and is very well made with the new Plague Walls while Daybreak is good for the rewards and fun for a few hours before it gets repetitive.
They have also a tutorial in the campaign which is good for newer players who haven't played the first game. Otherwise they aren't too different so the transition from the first game isn't that bad.
Blood plague and plague hearts are big new mechanic of the games implemented well and adds a more typical approach to infection that you have to be careful around. It also helps with the feel of progression as you can't make outposts in places that are within the reach of the plague hearts influence and you want to clear the to avoid running into plague zombies. There are two stages to infection and when the bar of the second stage get full you turn into a zombie and the character is lost. While getting plague samples aren't very hard it isn't easy either so you try to be smart.
Cars are more important in this game and can be repaired even if the explode. They now require fuel to run so you need to repair them and refuel them regularly which is realistic and fair given that they are the best equipment in the game.
There is multiplayer which is pretty good, atleast with friends.

Glitches and bugs, while fun at times they can really cripple you and it shows that the game lacks some further polishing. Atleast 2 very grindy achievements. Playing Daybreak for 343 waves is probably 243 waves too much for most people. Surviving in a Dread/Nightmare Zone for 100 days with a single community is no more challenging after 7 days than it is at day 100. For most it will probalby be atleast 100h of boring grind as building up new communities are more fun I would guess to the most people.
The ai is very stupid so I stopped having them as followers when scavenging as they would run and attack juggernauts etc. and die...

In multiplayer if you get too far apart from eachother you teleport to the host.
The dialogues become tedious when they have been repeated 100s of times.
For best perfromance you have to edit the engine file. You can't remove flare lense and film grain in the game settings. Through a guide I changed this and got a lot better performance aswell as the game not being so extremely dark. I played on max settings and no longer hade any issues at all.

SoD2 is a big improvement over the first game. It virtually impoves on everything to some degree except that it naturally requires better hardware than its prequel to run well. Its well worth anything between 15-30€ or above and gives a lot of playtime and has a good amount of replayability. I would give it 9/10, multiplayer could be better and there are plenty of bugs/glitches aswell as some in my opinion unecessarily grindy achievements.

//ECE//

[h1]State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition [/h1] State of Decay Year One Edition, "SoD:YOSE" was a great prequel with interesting mechanics and overall an enjoyable Open World Survival Zombie Apocalypse experience which I would give a 7/10 today. SoD 2 has made the first game redundant to a large extent. It has removed the most unique mechanic of the first game which had the simulation still running when you exited the game. This used to be an annoyance as you would need to prepare a bit before leaving the survivors to their own device. Building facilities isn't as time demanding as before which makes sense since you could start a build and exit the game before while the simulation was still running. It can still be a bit boring to wait but its a huge improvement over SoD:YOSE. At first when I played SoD2 I missed a big thing from the first game: the campaign story. However with the Heartland dlc, aswell as the Wilkerson Storyline on a certain map this wasn't a missing feature anymore. The campaign simply wasn't played on the "campaign mode" as a whole. Overall the other enclave and personal missions are of a higher quality compared to the generic ones in SoD:YOSE. [h1]The Good [/h1] The graphics and the addition of 5 more maps make a refreshing take on the visual aspect and the possible variety of the landscape you can explore and face off on against the zombies. The 5 difficulties greatly balances the game to what is the most fun or balanced to you, aswell as the additional option to customize the overall difficulty with some option sliders. The progression system is very well made too. You can after upgrading your command facility enough decide to move with your community to any of the other maps and build up once again or you can follow through with one of the 4 leader types and establish a legacy through their quest lines. This adds them to a pool of characters available with their last equipped inventory aswell as skill set/level to chose for a new campaign run. Completing each legacy also unlocks boons for each leader type respectively. You can select up to 2 when you start a new run to get big starting benefits. The DLCs are pretty good. Heartland serving as the "real campaign" in my opinion and is very well made with the new Plague Walls while Daybreak is good for the rewards and fun for a few hours before it gets repetitive. They have also a tutorial in the campaign which is good for newer players who haven't played the first game. Otherwise they aren't too different so the transition from the first game isn't that bad. Blood plague and plague hearts are big new mechanic of the games implemented well and adds a more typical approach to infection that you have to be careful around. It also helps with the feel of progression as you can't make outposts in places that are within the reach of the plague hearts influence and you want to clear the to avoid running into plague zombies. There are two stages to infection and when the bar of the second stage get full you turn into a zombie and the character is lost. While getting plague samples aren't very hard it isn't easy either so you try to be smart. Cars are more important in this game and can be repaired even if the explode. They now require fuel to run so you need to repair them and refuel them regularly which is realistic and fair given that they are the best equipment in the game. There is multiplayer which is pretty good, atleast with friends. [h1]The Bad[/h1] Glitches and bugs, while fun at times they can really cripple you and it shows that the game lacks some further polishing. Atleast 2 very grindy achievements. Playing Daybreak for 343 waves is probably 243 waves too much for most people. Surviving in a Dread/Nightmare Zone for 100 days with a single community is no more challenging after 7 days than it is at day 100. For most it will probalby be atleast 100h of boring grind as building up new communities are more fun I would guess to the most people. The ai is very stupid so I stopped having them as followers when scavenging as they would run and attack juggernauts etc. and die... In multiplayer if you get too far apart from eachother you teleport to the host. The dialogues become tedious when they have been repeated 100s of times. For best perfromance you have to edit the engine file. You can't remove flare lense and film grain in the game settings. Through a guide I changed this and got a lot better performance aswell as the game not being so extremely dark. I played on max settings and no longer hade any issues at all. [h1]The Conclusion [/h1] SoD2 is a big improvement over the first game. It virtually impoves on everything to some degree except that it naturally requires better hardware than its prequel to run well. Its well worth anything between 15-30€ or above and gives a lot of playtime and has a good amount of replayability. I would give it 9/10, multiplayer could be better and there are plenty of bugs/glitches aswell as some in my opinion unecessarily grindy achievements. //ECE//