State of Decay Reviews

Barely played. Coudldn't keep any interest for me.

I was going to write a zombie poem about this game. However, this game is no longer sold and no one will see this review... Damn you Xbox "Game" Studios.

they team behind the game stopped bothering, you cant play it even at 1080p. just remove it from the store steam

It's not bad enough to hate. But it's too outdated to matter... There’s really no reason to play this version of State of Decay in 2025. This is the original 2013 release, not the Year One Survival Edition, and while it laid the foundation for what became a much better sequel, most of what’s here now feels like a rough draft. You start the game and, sure, it opens strong. You're tossed into chaos with zombies everywhere, and there’s a surprisingly structured story that unfolds through early missions. The basic loop is here: scavenge buildings, manage inventory, build a community, fight off hordes. If you've played State of Decay 2, you’ll recognize a lot of these systems instantly. But that’s also the problem. Everything this game does, the sequel just does better. Combat gets the job done, and headshots still feel great. But enemy behavior is basic. Stealth and cover systems are awkward, and the UI often feels clunky or unclear. Lighting is overly dark even in daytime, and some mechanics like dodging or using a flashlight weren’t explained during my play session, or possibly weren’t surfaced clearly at all. Either way, the onboarding feels clumsy by modern standards. It’s technically functional for the most part, but there are signs of age everywhere. Animations are stiff. Visual clarity is inconsistent. Characters and environments often feel lifeless. And in this session, the game crashed at the one-hour mark, which pretty much sealed the deal. Yes, the core design philosophy is smart. Building a base, switching between survivors, managing community morale, that's all here. But these features aren’t deep enough or refined enough to justify going back, especially when State of Decay 2 exists, regularly goes on sale, and supports co-op. Also worth noting: this original version is no longer available on Steam. If you try to buy it, you’re redirected to the Year One Survival Edition, which still lacks modern polish and is priced higher than it should be for what you get. If you're looking for a nostalgic hit or want to see the roots of the franchise, maybe it's worth five minutes. But as an actual game recommendation in 2025? No. The sequel outclasses it in every meaningful way. Time is valuable. Skip this one and play State of Decay 2. Final Rating: 4 / 10 Functional, but fully obsolete.

This game aged very poorly. It was interesting when it came out in 2013, but playing it today (2025) it's just a boring openworld survival game. Not worthy replaying. The concept is intriguing by the way: you're in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and you must survive by gathering resources and people inside buildings and various places located in this valley. The base game has a main campaign where you follow the story of a hiker who finds himself in trouble with his friend. A distinct feature is that you can control any member of your community, which has its own inventory, skills and characteristics. You'll also end up managing a base for your survivors, with its facilities and resources in order to make the life easier for them. You can also develop your territory by creating distant outposts, which serve as shelters where zombies don't attack you and you have resources at your disposal. While the first hours are really enjoyable, due to easy combat mechanics and good world building, the game gets very repetitive with predictable missions like: [list] [*]Scout the area in order to map landmarks, buildings, vehicles, hordes and particular zombies [*]Gather some resource for your base from abandoned buildings (or command scavengers to do that for you) [*]Go hunt some peculiar zombie [*]Take the survivors to a zombie-hunt quest in order to calm their nerves (seriously), because you also have to handle their morale [/list] Other than this, there's a main quest and some plot lines which involve to interact with other survivors, but they're very basic and not so deep. Nothing memorable. You're going to find the "basic game" feeling also in the characters skill development, because you can level them up, but the game fails to explain that you can assign special abilities for each person when they reach higher levels. Surprisingly, there are no crafting mechanics, even though you have a workshop at your disposal where you can build objects that will make the journey more comfortable (gun silencers for example). I've managed to complete the base game in about 20 hours, doing some side quests and other assignments, but I think you can beat it faster. The base game also has a sandbox mode through the first DLC (Breakdown) but it doesn't add anything to experience, you just have to gather more resources and establish a base while recruiting survivors. Also, you'll be required to defend yourselves against the undead in special events called sieges, where lots of zombies will attack you. There's also another DLC with a military backstory with different characters, but honestly I didn't complete it because the difficulty ramps up to eleven for no reason. From a technical standpoint, the game runs on the Cryengine and has a lot of yellow filter / bloom aura of the 2010s games. It's not spectacular, but it holds up well even today. Unfortunately, I've encountered some minor bugs (on quest completion, graphical glitches) and some crashes. I've got no idea if these are resolved on the Year One Edition of the game, but honestly I didn't want to buy it again. In conclusion, it's a shame, because the game foundations are solid, even though it doesn't expand on its basic concepts.