State of Decay: YOSE Reviews

i bought after playing state of decay 2 and i loved state of decay 2 but didnt like this

For someone who has 914 hours in State of Decay 2 on the Windows PC Store since September of 2022, I must say I really enjoy the franchise. So this was on sale on here, and I had never played the this one before. So the base game is harder than standard zone of State of Decay 2, this one has no difficulty settings, but regular settings between both games, this one is harder. The mission structures with only being able to do one at a time is different, but understandable because this is the first game. This game runs on Crytek Engine, with the second one being in Unreal Engine. Can't drive through fences in this one, trying to kill a Juggernaught with a vehicle will burst the tires, and will destroy vehicle if done from the front, but can still be done even with the car running on the rims. So try to use the back of the vehicle to get most zombies, if a vehicle flips over and you can't flip it back with another vehicle, it will explode later, so keep that in mind for anyone new coming in to play. I'm playing Breakdown currently after beating the base game, and then beating Lifeline, I have not gotten everyone away safely in LIfeline, but it's fun to keep on trying again until you get everyone. I like Lifeline better than Daybreak in State of Decay 2 due to more people on your side, and you can drive around the city and do missions, so that is different. If does have a time crunch element to it with the sieges coming to attack the base. This game still holds up well now in 2025, just good fun that you can play over and over. So if you wanted to get into the State of Decay Franchise this is a good place to start. It will be challenging, but it's nothing you can't handle, keep on and have fun doing so!

I would like the game as a classic zombie game these day, but it gives me eye strain and makes me nauseous. The camera is really bad. It zooms in and out too easy, and is too tight to the mouse. If there were a mod/patch to make the camera and controls like State of Decay 2, it'd be much better game as it'd actually be pla able for more than 30 minutes at a time.

It was a really fun game it wasn't extremely hard or hardcore survival but very arcady and enjoyable. Had a blast playing through the game. It did had some jank and some bugs but other than that it was a fun experience.

The idea of this game is interesting: a post-apocalyptic zombie survial game. But the implementation went very wrong because of a whole series of bad development choices. They tried too much to create the feeling of a hard survival sandbox game, with all the consequences that go with it. While playing this game a thought was popping in my mind very frequently: "was the developer's wish to create the most frustrating title on earth?". Because that was the feeling while playing this. I will list here some of the examples why I found the mechanics of this game so frustrating: - the zombies respawn! what? how on earth is that realistic. in my first playthrough I was naively trying to "thin the herd" by killing hundreds of zombies all around the map, then I realized they respawn and you can't win the game by attricion. there is no end to them - there is a limited amount of weapons, cars and tools. and they decay and break down. with each precious car you can squash only a limited amount of zombies before the car gets destroyed, so you have to be careful with weapons and cars because like I said, zombies respawn. - the thing that most I didn't like is that you are bombarded with a large number of main quests and secondary quests at the same time, and they are all time limited. you literally don't know what to do first, and they keep adding more and more. those secondary quests are mostly some crisis that pop up all around like "infection detected in a building", "group of survivors under attack", "dangerous high level zombie detected" etc....... Those are random events that raise the threat/danger level of the map, so you have to solve them as quickly as possible to lower the danger level to your base. In my first playthrough I thought it's better to do this secondary quests first, but I was wrong. Those are just random "daily quests" that pop up all the time, you can't resolve them because they will pop up again in another part of the map. In the meantime the timer of the main quests would run out so all the quest line would be messed up. Then I realized that the only way to solve the game is to push through the main quest line, and do just as many "daily quests" as is needed to keep the threat level under control. - you have to search for all kinds of tools, weapons and resources in the hundreds of buildings of the map, but you actually have very limited time, because as I said you are covered with timed missions to do, so you never have the peace to go from house to house to clear them of resources. in my first playthrough I wanted to be methodical and slowly go from house to house, but this game isn't about that, it isn't about being rational and methodical, it's just frantic time management with the little time you have. - in a real world scenario a group of survivors would pick a good place for a base, and it would stay there for as long as they can, they would fortify themselves there, develop the base and clear all the buildings nearby and conquer as much space. but in this game you get to stay in a base only for a short time before the story forces you to move somewhere else (to another base), so you can never fortify yourself and slowly develop the surroundings. so all those common sense strategy elements are completely absent. - there are so many limitations in combat and doing anything: you can run only a small amount before the stamina bar gets to 0 and then the stamina bar gets smaller and smaller so you ultimately can't do anything anymore. so the main character has to rest to restore the stamina bar. also you have to get medical treatment for the infection eveytime your character gets a bite from zombies. all those things need time. and when your main character rests or gets medical treatment you have to play with another character. but you can only chose another character from those people who have "friends status", but they could be currently absent (they could be somewhere scavenging - you can't control other survivors they do what they want, often behaving irrationally, they do dangerous stuff and die and get infected easily), and also they have a much smaller skill set then your main character so it's harder to do anything with them. - combat is not done well. there are hordes of zombies spawning all the time so I quickly understood that the only effective way is to put them down with cars, while the melee weapons and firearms are ineffective against unending hordes of zombies. - there is permadeath. in my first playthrough the main character died and the rest of the group didn't have the adequate skills to continue. It's very hard to describe the feeling while playing this game, but in essence it often was like this: " I can't solve problem A before I solve problem B, but I can't do that because currently I have problems C,D and E....". In my second playthrough I realized the only way to finish this frustrating game is to rush through the main quests, and so I did. But when you do that you realize that this game is actually quite short when you focus on progressing the story. All the rest is just sand box content: "random daily quests", scavenging etc.... There are dozens of mods online made by the fan base that correct all the frustrating elements of this game. That fact alone tells you how badly the developers screwed up many parameters, making this game a horrible mess.

It’s far from perfect and plagued by technical issues that hold it back. The graphics, even in this "upgraded" version, feel dated and underwhelming. Textures are muddy, character models are stiff, and the world lacks the polish expected in a re-release. The combat, while functional, is clunky and repetitive, with melee attacks feeling weightless and gunplay lacking precision. Worst of all, the game is still buggy. Verdict: 2/10, go straight to State of Decay 2 if you want to play the series.

It's still a good game, but if you're coming from State of Decay 2 then it's going to be a little rough. If you've been playing the sequel recently, I recommend staying off it for a couple of weeks before you begin this one so that your muscle memory doesn't misguide you when playing the original. These two games may be very similar but they're still different in ways that may not seem obvious at first. Story Mode is still pretty good, though it's something you'll probably do once and that's it unless you lose any of Marcus, Ed or Maya, then you might be compelled to start over again. Breakdown is still the definitive State of Decay experience and is where the game really shines, and for me it's still as addicting as it was when I first played it about 10 years ago. Lifeline on the other hand is rather stressful and at times, very tedious, and if you don't know for sure what you're doing, the game WILL punish you and the experience will become even more agonizing. Overall the first State of Decay is nevertheless a fun game and a great time, and I write that as someone who's been playing it from the moment it was available on the Xbox Live Arcade up until now when I re-bought the game for PC. That being said I will admit that its been bested by the sequel in many ways, but not completely, no chance. This game does many things better than the second, and Breakdown in my opinion is the very best part of the series; I think if you love State of Decay 2 then it's worth trying out just Breakdown alone if you aren't interested in the full game. (DO NOTE: one last thing. In Story Mode, you'll eventually receive a mission from Lily asking you to go up back to Mt. Tanner to collect her father's stupid watch; DO THAT MISSION IMMEDIATELY. Otherwise, the infestation at the Ranger Station will begin spreading to the nearby cabins and camp sites even though you won't be able to see this, and then your survivors will start to run away and go missing which can be a huge pain in the ass since there's a good chance they'll die if you don't receive the mission to save them.)

Good game. Showing it's age though. SOD2 is better in almost every way except for story and characters.

I have a lot more hours on this game on my Xbox from over the years. It's a very fun game where I spend a lot of time just playing and trying to survive. I typically just come back every so often to play Breakdown, which is the only reason why I play this game still compared to State of Decay 2. The feeling of going as high as you can while things get increasingly difficult is what I enjoy and wish they had a mode with for State of Decay 2. Yes, there is some bugs as a lot of people complain about and it can make things frustrating, but I still enjoy the premise you are given. The AI aren't the brightest but it is funny to watch them try and sometimes act like a fool. Overall, I'd say if you wanna try out Breakdown, you definitely should. In terms of the story though, just skip it. It's not interesting or fun because the difficulty is set to easy the entire time. Overall I'd rate State of Decay: YOSE a 7/10.

I played it after state of decay 2 and of course the sequel is much better. Still, i like that there is a story here and that you care a little bit about the characters.