State of Decay 2

See it through to its conclusion, and you can bring a trio of survivors along to build an all-new community, with unlockable end-game perks that let you save precious time in subsequent attempts. After seeing my first group’s story to the end, I wanted to see what came next for my survivors, who worked to bring peace and cooperation to the land. But I’m not going to, or at least not any time soon. It’s not worth the aggravation in its current state.

It tantalises with the thought of raggedy everyday heroes pooling their myriad talents to survive, only to quantify and busywork all that out of existence. Its resource and scavenging elements are as suffocating as its social elements are underplayed. It's saying quite a lot that the bugs, in the end, are the things I remember most strongly about it - accidental windows upon an experience that is less sluggish and dreary and, well, less of a zombie.

State of Decay 2 is an improvement over its predecessor, but it’s still held back by a number of technical shortcomings. It feels sluggish, some of the systems don’t always work properly, the AI can be downright horrendous and there’s a good deal of bugs. Despite being a bit of a mess, I continue to find myself entranced by it and continuously coming back for more. It’s a surprisingly deep and rich survival RPG that you’ll be hard pressed to find another like it, especially at the lowered price point.

State of Decay 2’s zombie-infested maps are good places to scavenge, fight, and survive in. Combat is satisfyingly brutal and the special zombies inspire some real fear of permanent death, even though the Blood Plague turns out to be more of a sniffle. But the bugs are just as persistent as the zombies, and after a dozen or so hours the repetition of both eventually take their toll, making the appeal of replaying feel more limited than I’d expected for a sandbox RPG.