GOTM: April ‘22
Truth be told, the only game I spent a lot of time with for the first few weeks of April was No Man’s Sky. I flirted with the recent Outlaws update and got myself one of the new solar ships, but mainly I was building new bases and revisiting old ones to improve them using new tricks that I’ve learned. I jumped back into Minecraft briefly as well, but the moment I finished building myself a half-decent house, I wasn’t excited to do much else. So, on a whim, I decided to revisit another favorite game which, courtesy of new features and improvements that have been implemented since I last played, is in better shape than ever: State of Decay 2.
I’ve been a fan of Undead Labs’ State of Decay games since the original was released as an Xbox Live Arcade game in 2013. I completed that game at least twice in the weeks after its release, and didn’t put it down to play something else until I had unlocked all of its Achievements. The last one I needed, if I recall correctly, required one of my survivors to pull the pin on a grenade while overwhelmed by zombies. An explosive and satisfying way to bring my time with the game to a close.
Fast-forward to 2018 and I couldn’t have been more excited to get my hands on State of Decay 2. I already finished campaigns at multiple difficulty levels on all three of the maps that State of Decay 2 launched with back in 2018, so for my first zombie-killing campaign of 2022 I opted for the Trumbull Valley map from the first game that was remastered and added last year. I also ramped up the difficulty and, in what would ultimately prove a costly mistake, opted to start with a team composed entirely of my favorite survivors from previous campaigns. Survivors who, at the mercy of my rusty skills, weren’t around to celebrate when Trumbull Valley was declared a zombie-free zone.
I’m now several hours into my second 2022 campaign, in which I’ve yet to lose anyone. As with every campaign before it, this one has been filled with great stories that kick off courtesy of events set in motion by Undead Labs, but which play out according to the choices (and mistakes) that I make. Undead Labs didn’t force me to attempt a late night Plague Heart clearance on the other side of the map with less than half a tank of gas to get there and back, nor did they incentivize my leaving a lone trader with whom I had just done business to deal with a Juggernaut zombie solo while I unashamedly drove off into the sunset.
Like so many of the games that I keep returning to for years after their initial release, State of Decay 2 is a sandbox of sorts that–thanks to the efforts of its developers–is aging like a fine wine. I have no idea what else Undead Labs might have planned for State of Decay 2 given that work is well underway on its sequel, but whatever their next release ends up being, I’m here for it.
