We’re making the world merry this holiday season with a new update designed to inspire staying cozy as you strive to survive! Take a peek below for all that’s in store!
Seasonal Special - Returning Holiday Sweaters & Hats!
If you haven’t already earned them, log in and play State of Decay 2 between November 29th and January 31st and you’ll unlock five holiday hats and five ugly sweaters in your closet. Check the list below for which new hats and sweaters you can look forward to rocking this year.
The Candy Stripe Pom-Pom & the Candy Cane Ugly Sweater
The Decay Pom-Pom & the Decay the Halls Ugly Sweater
The Nightmare Pom-Pom & the Holiday Nightmare Ugly Sweater
The Snowflake Pom-Pom & the Blue Snowflake Ugly Sweater
The Light Pom-Pom & the Reindeer Lights Ugly Sweater
Limited Edition - New Outfit Variants!
We also added a few more outfit variants! They’re the outfits and hats you know and love with a new texture twist. Check them out in your closet now!
Five new Winter Beanie variants (Cocoa, Evergreen, Fire, Ice, Snow)
Four new Boonie Hat variants (Bugout, Autumn, Urban, Woodland)
A new Kraken Hoodie variant (White)
A new Shark Hoodie variant (Great White)
Frosty Bounties In Stock!
Starting December 1st, the Stay Frosty pack slides back into the bounty broker’s selection while the Critical Response takes its leave until next year. Be sure to complete your Trifecta Pack bounties before they leave the bounty broker’s store in the new year!
Update 31: Dress to Kill
A Fearsome Return
It’s the time of year when our minds turn to spooky stories and ghoulish delights. And there’s no better way to celebrate than with an array of frightful outfits for your survivors!
As our special treat for you, we’ve brought back the Swine & Bovine Apron and Mask as well as our Halloween themed Scarecrow, Jack-O'-Lantern, and Hockey Masks for a limited time. Every player who logs into the game between October 17th and November 7th will have these outfit items added to their closet, absolutely free!
But of course, that’s not all we have this month. Gather close and listen to what’s at the door...
New Outfits for You and Me…
Deck your survivors in some new outfit variants to add some flair as you trick or treat looking for valuable resources in the apocalypse! Some variants will be given to you upon logging in and some will require a bit of looting to earn…
Gifted Outfit Variants…
Wheellock Tires Mechanic Coveralls: Sometimes it’s just the brakes.
Worked Leather Welding Helmet: Not all mechanics can be cannibals, right?
Air Snow White Aviator Helmet: A stark reminder of clipped clouds.
Spiroil Trucker Hat: Drain your oil, not your wallet!
Greygreen Boonie Hat: Keeps you cool when the world is not.
Outfit Variants placed into loot…
Little Piggy Towing Mechanic Coveralls: Its cuteness made it a popular merch beyond the valley.
Bleeding Heart Aviator Helmet: Spring blossoms that disappear by midsummer.
Pink Kraken Hoodie: A popular addition to any good aquarium.
Trumbull County Dress Blue Campaign Hat: Reserved for special occasions and formal events.
Quick Fix
Of course you can’t go trick or treating without a bag to collect all your goodies in! Backpacks and rucksacks should no longer float separated from your characters' body!
As seasons change, so do Bounties
As the Fearsome Footage Pack returns, we say goodbye to the World War II Pack. And remember: this month is your last chance to grab the weapons and outfits from the Open Range Pack before it leaves circulation.
Age of Empires Hoodie Returns
Login and play SoD2 between October 17th and November 7th to unlock the Age of Empires themed hoodie. This custom hoodie returns to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Age of Empires!
We’re Here for You
Thanks for being here and for playing State of Decay 2. We appreciate your support and your feedback. Find out about more Halloween activities on our blog: http://stateofdecay.com/update-31-dress-to-kill
If you haven’t already discovered our “Wish List” where you can post ideas for game improvements or new features, please visit support.stateofdecay.com and share your suggestions. Many of your ideas have already made it into the game, and more are in the pipeline.
The same URL leads you to full patch notes and our FAQ, so it’s a great site to bookmark!
Update 30: Forever Communities
The Forever Communities update is here!
We’ve added the ability to continue playing with a community after completing a Legacy.
Characters in your Legacy Pool can now be recruited to active communities via the radio menu.
You now have the option to move directly into the home site of your choice when changing maps.
The supply locker now supports sorting by type, value, name, and allows you to salvage almost everything.
With these new features come new save slots, we now support five save slots!
… and that’s just the headliners. Keep reading to learn more about Update 30.
Forever Communities
When completing a Legacy you now have the option to continue playing with the same community!
You can either disband your community, or continue playing after completing a Legacy.
Before continuing on with your community, you can choose to send individual characters to the Legacy Pool. Those survivors will remain in the pool and will not be included in your continued community.
And yes, you keep your supply locker contents when continuing a community!
Legacy Recruitment
Your Legacy Pool is now more accessible than ever!
Legacy recruitment is here! We’ve added the ability to recruit survivors from your Legacy Pool into current communities. Check your radio menu!
Survivors can now be sent to the Legacy Pool at any time. Mark them from the Community Screen, then talk to the marked survivor to send them on their way. Survivors sent to the Legacy Pool take their current inventory with them.
A Refreshed Legacy Pool
We’ve redesigned the Legacy Pool menu to ease navigation and display more information about your survivors!
Mark your favorite survivors to find them more easily!
The Legacy Pool now includes filtering by name, leader type, community skills, Legacy count, and favorites.
Survivor inventories are now visible in the Legacy Pool. Select a survivor from the Legacy Pool to view their details. Now you can find where your favorite weapons are hiding!
Supply Locker Improvements
We know long-term communities can overflow with loot, so we took a swing at improving the supply locker!
The supply locker can now be filtered by name, category, value, and recently added.
Facility Mods, Ranged Weapon Mods, and Close Combat Weapons now stack to 99.
Salvage (almost) everything! Most items can now be broken down into parts. Go ahead and clean house!
Moving Maps and Starting New Communities
We’ve added quality of life improvements to map moving and starting new communities!
Accidentally skip the perfect survivor when making a new community? Not anymore. We now remember the two previously rolled characters in the character selection screen.
You now have the option to move directly into the base of your choice when moving an existing community to a new map, for a price.
We’ve added the ability to reset your map without changing your difficulty.
Quality of Life Improvements
We’ve also continued our quest to make State of Decay 2 more fun in all sorts of ways, with every single update. Check out the tweaks and improvements below.
Environment
We improved a number of interior lighting issues.
You can no longer walk through the shipping container by the Banana Yellow Fuel Tank. Believe it or not, we do respect the laws of physics in this game.
We fixed a variety of bugs that involved items floating in the air, when they should be firmly on the ground. Primarily trees and rocks.
Gameplay
Items dropped on vehicles no longer float in place when the vehicle drives away.
Zombies can now see through chain-link fences. Welp.
“Let Someone Take Over” option now appears in all Safehouse Outposts.
We removed an exploit that allowed sieges to be avoided via character switching at Outposts.
User Interface
We added proper Red Talon badging to all items unlocked by playing Daybreak.
The Backyard BBQ Pit in Trumbull Valley’s Farmland Compound no longer has a placeholder icon.
We removed some erroneous decimals from the Landmark Outpost strategy selection screen.
Bases and Facilities
Survivors are now capable of occupying the Scout Tower in the Prescott Fire Station.
Missions
During a Mysterious Broadcast mission, if you kill the ex-Red Talon soldier, we no longer hide the location of the hostile enclave that spawns.
Trumbull Valley specific mission arcs should no longer repeat for communities who have already played through them.
We added some safeguards to protect missions against the case where you find a mission critical item, and then lose it before knowing its significance. This issue is most frequently encountered in the Wilkerson missions in Trumbull Valley.
We made it harder to accidentally cancel the final Legacy Mission by adding a hold to confirm option.
Miscellaneous
We fixed a bounty description for the Police Sniper Rifle, the text now accurately states that you must kill zombies silently while crouched.
We took some feedback from RvidD and improved one of our loading screen hints about plague hearts.
Geoffrey decided to add a new trait “Wrote a Viral Tweet”. He has requested forgiveness for his presumptuousness, we’ll think about it.
The game should no longer crash when using character recovered from our previous Legacy Arc crash. Due to the nature of this issue, we had to clear the inventory from these characters. Please reach out to support.stateofdecay.com with any concerns.
Free to Play Weekend!
It's our first ever Free to Play weekend, bringing you the time-limited opportunity to play State of Decay 2 from your Wishlist, completely free!
Starting Thursday May 19th at 10am and continuing until Monday the 23rd at 10am PT, you have plenty of time to explore base-building mechanics and flex your combat skills against the zeds. (Don’t worry if that sounds intimidating, there’s a difficulty level that’s right for everyone!) This weekend only, permanently add State of Decay 2 to your library for 66% off, our deepest discount yet. This is the absolute best time to try the game and forge your own destiny in the post-apocalyptic landscape.
Mark your calendars and join us for our developer livestream Friday, May 20th, from 3-4pm PT RIGHT HERE on Steam, as well as on Twitch and YouTube to celebrate our anniversary and for your chance to win exclusive swag!
If you're trying out the game for the first time, here's what you can expect: you'll play through a tutorial set at an imperiled military camp and then escape in the nick of time to set up your own base on Providence Ridge. From there, you can move your community to any of our five open world maps. f you played the first State of Decay, you will enjoy revisiting Trumbull Valley and seeing how time has changed the landscape -- and the people.
Also available during the Free to Play weekend are two standalone modes: State of Decay 2’s story mode, Heartland that has advanced forms of blood plague (blood plague walls and the endgame Gauntlet), and the siege mode Daybreak, that pits a hold-out team of operatives against waves of timed zombie attacks. Not sure where to start? Pay a visit to Cash Beaumont, who will greet you with seasonal, rotating bounties to complete in exchange for hard to find weapons and loot. We also recommend our series of YouTube tutorials.
We've been updating State of Decay 2 the last several years with over thirty free updates including new maps, modes, and deep systemic changes (based largely in part by player feedback from the Public Test Realm, our open beta on Steam. Find out how to participate here!) With more updates on their way this Summer, there's more now than ever to explore and enjoy.
We are excited for you to get the hands-on time with the game you deserve, and hope you discover that you need State of Decay 2 spicing up your life. We don't know when we'll offer a discount this deep again so don't miss out. Have fun and remember, no one survives alone!
Update 29: Fields of View
We’ve given our three original maps a graphical overhaul! Drucker County, Meagher Valley, and Cascade Hills all look better than ever.
… and that’s just the headliners. Keep reading to learn more about Update 29.
Graphical Overhaul
The original three State of Decay 2 maps have all leveled up. Not to be outdone by the newcomers, Drucker County, Cascade Hills and Meagher Valley have received a graphical overhaul.
Heavy Weapons Destroy Fences
Heavy weapons can now smash fences. Why wouldn’t they? Swing a heavy weapon near a fence to start the fun.
Field of View
Implemented by popular demand! You can now set the field of view in the settings menu.
Quality of Life Improvements
We’ve also continued our quest to make State of Decay 2 more fun in all sorts of ways, with every single update. Check out the tweaks and improvements below.
Environment
Gameplay
User Interface
Bases and Facilities
Missions
Miscellaneous
Update 27: Mask Up!
Our latest quality-of-life update includes a variety of gameplay and user-experience improvements, as well as our traditional dollop of Halloween-themed items and outfits!
You can read through the full patch notes for all the details, but here are a few of the standouts:
We added three new Halloween masks, and brought back old favorites from previous years.
We made a major improvement to the catapulting-vehicle problem.
Dead Plague Hearts now show up on the map and report their contents.
You can now fit twice as much stuff into the trunk slots of your vehicles.
Zombies now do a better job of spawning indoors before you arrive, and can no longer see through dynamic obstacles.
Mask Up for Halloween!
To celebrate the zombies' favorite holiday, we’re adding three new Halloween masks to everyone’s closet! All you need to do is load up your community between October 25th and November 1st, and you’ll automatically receive:
Scarecrow Mask — You’ll scare off more than crows with this terrifying mask, designed by the Grim Stitch Factory! Enter to win the real life maskat our contest, here.
Jack-O-Lantern Mask — Light up the night with this frightful mask!
Hockey Mask — Perfect for scaring horny teenagers at a slumber party!
And of course, you can also grab the Halloween costumes from previous years:
The Swine and Bovine mask and outfit are unlocked if you play before November 1st.
The Cannibal Mechanic mask and outfit and the Skeleton Hoodie outfit are still a part of the Fearsome Footage bounty pack, which returned on October 1st.
The Footage Got Nine Percent More Fearsome
Speaking of the Fearsome Footage pack, we’ve managed to sneak just one more movie-inspired weapon into the collection.
The Choppah — “This razor-sharp machete is surprisingly easy to use, making it the right weapon when there's something out there waiting for you.” — Cash Beaumont
Lost Weapons Revealed
In our previous update, we slipped several new weapons into the general loot tables without any fanfare. For players who are interested, here is the list of weapons that went in last month:
M590 Sea and Sky Shotgun — “This naval 590A1 sports anti-corrosion treatments and some nice ergonomic add-ons. Back on the island, I knew a guy who carried one of these. Swore it never let him down.” — Sgt. Kilohana Young
Classic SKS Rifle — “It's not the prettiest weapon you'll find, but thanks to its durability and the millions churned out over the past half-century-plus, odds are you'll find one sooner or later.” — Cpl. Maya Torres
PPQ M2 — “A modern polymer design with great ergonomics and a finely tuned trigger pull. I carried one of these back when I was in Special Forces, but that's all I'm allowed to say about those days.” — Lt. Nigel Meredeth USC Carbine — “The badass civilian sibling of the UMP, this rifle hits harder and louder and probably has a couple tattoos to boot. Even if you don't kill your target on the first shot, you'll likely knock it down or at least rip its arm off.” — Kelly Eldridge, Esq.
Blackhawk .45 Revolver — “A beautiful modern replica of a classic cowboy-style revolver. Not for everyone, but if you're looking to make a statement it's nice to have this hard-hitting iron on your hip.” — Helena Cruz
Gladius — “Dude, this sword is legendary. It's just like the one that guy used in that movie. Y'know, where he played the gladiator? What was that movie called again? Damn, that was good shit.” — Brock
Kanabo — “This iron-studded war club may not look as deadly as a katana, but the samurai who used to carry these back in the day would beg to differ.” — Gurubani Kaur
Red Talon Experiment
In response to player requests that Red Talon hero bonuses be more predictable, we have experimentally cut the following hero bonuses from future Red Talon recruits:
Reconnaissance (granted by the Dead Zone Runner)
Owed Favors (granted by the Consul Officer trait)
Utility Vests (granted by the Diehard Veteran trait)
Sleeping in Shifts (granted by the Vigil Guard trait)
This means that without these four hero bonuses competing for space on the character sheet, your Red Talon recruits will consistently have hero bonuses associated with the traits that determine their fifth skills.
We’re hoping this will improve the experience of strategizing around these recruits and their capabilities. NOTE: A previous version of these patch notes incorrectly stated that the traits had been cut. That is not the case. The traits (Dead Zone Runner, Consul Officer, Diehard Veteran, and Vigil Guard) are still available, as always. They just aren’t linked to those hero bonuses anymore.
Quality of Life Improvements
We’ve also continued our quest to make State of Decay 2 more fun, in all sorts of ways, with every single update. Check out the tweaks and improvements below.
Vehicles
We identified and fixed a major cause of the problem where repairing a vehicle would cause it to float around the world or fly into the air. Definitely keep an eye out for this one, because we would love to confirm whether it is really and truly gone, or if we have more potential causes to track down.
You can now cram twice as many of a given item into each slot of a vehicle’s inventory. That means two toolkits, six fuel bombs, eighty bullets, etc. Weapons and rucksacks don’t stack.
The Screamer no longer breaks phantom versions of your car windows again and again, across multiple screams. The first time those windows break, they now stay broken.
A missing passenger door will no longer cause an AI passenger to slither continuously back and forth between the front and rear seats, as fun as that was to watch.
Entering the right-rear seat of a vehicle now results in your character slithering all the way up into the driver’s seat., instead of stopping short at the passenger seat.
User Interface
Defeated Plague Heart husks now appear on the Map screen until they are fully looted. Hovering on the icon will give you an accounting of what remains to be scavenged.
Freaks that are integrated into hordes now show up separately on the mini-map alongside the horde icon, so you can clock incoming bloaters and ferals.
Community save slots now display the name of the map where the community currently lives.
We fixed a bug that was causing facility actions to report durations that were one minute higher than their actual durations.
The Gas Station Jackets now have accurate color swatches to help you identify them at a glance in the Closet.
Retailer-specific radio commands that summon exclusive supply drops and vehicles now do a much better job of characterizing what is about to be delivered.
The greedy Daybreak technician is no longer hoarding multiple in-world icons to appear above their head. One is enough.
Controls
The Repair action at the Supply Locker is now consistent for weapons in your inventory and weapons in the locker. By default, this is Hold A on controller, and Hold C with a keyboard.
Characters can no longer leap from ladders, as we found that this was primarily done by accident, and from very high places.
Players using the old-school combined Dodge/Stealth combo button can now interrupt their aim by dodging again, just like they used to.
The Sprint action no longer interrupts aiming unless you have the Toggle Aim option switched on.
If you have rebound your Throw (while Grappling) action to the same button as your Aim action, you will no longer release a grappled zombie and aim your gun at it when you meant to throw it. This will probably only help one specific player. You’re welcome, Matt.
Zombies
Zombies can no longer see through wooden fences, cars, or doors. This should make stealth a lot more intuitive, especially in denser environments. (Thanks to GoudaBuddha for noticing this!)
Zombies will now spawn in buildings before you enter the building. This means that you can predict what you'll encounter before entering buildings, and you shouldn't get ambushed by sudden spawns nearly as frequently while inside. Also, sheds are no longer guaranteed to be safe. Enter at your own risk!
Outposts
Skill training actions at upgraded outposts can now be performed either at the base or in person at the outpost.
The Overpriced Hot Dog Stand and the Freaky Garage in Trumbull Valley no longer claim to be outpostable when they are not.
The Army Medical Tent near Jurassic Junction can now be claimed as an outpost.
We closed an exploit that allowed players to use the Wind Farm’s labor-intensive strategy without sufficient labor.
Bases and Facilities
We reworked the Sturdy Bunkhouses at the Farmland Compound to fix an annoying issue with passive activation pop-ups happening too frequently. Now you have full control over whether you want to use it as a 6-bed facility, or as an 8-bed facility with -5 to morale.
Crafting actions at the Biochem Station now correctly award the skill experience that they say they do.
Base defenders can now successfully climb up into a Sniper Tower built at Camp Kelenqua.
We fixed an issue that was causing community members to walk in circles at the Farmland Compound.
We improved the way that base facility icons are displayed, especially at unusual aspect ratios.
Parking slots now have visible icons, even when you are outside the base.
Missions
We loosened up the spawning requirements for Trade Depot traders, so hopefully, you should find the radio commands to summon them much more reliable than they were before.
Plague Zombies now reliably appear in the initial Medical Emergency mission when you are searching the nearby ruin for plague samples to manufacture your first cure — even if you’ve already scouted the place.
You can now threaten the enclave from Warlord: Weapons for All, even after the mission is over, if you’re tired of their overpriced garbage.
Alexis Carter now leaves when you ask her to, whenever she ventures out of Trumbull Valley to trade on the other maps.
Early Builder, Sheriff, and Warlord missions no longer automatically pin themselves over your other ongoing missions.
Other Stuff
Stacks of items are now re-merged in your inventory when you select a skill specialization that increases their limits.
We’ve killed all remaining uses of the “slow” animation for picking items up off the ground. No more running into one particular item that seems much harder to pick up than the others.
The benefits to ammo stacks from having the Assault skill are now being correctly applied to multiplayer clients.
We removed the Red Talon weapons and the Timberwolf from the Rare Weapon Container loot table, as those weapons were available from other sources, and thus more disappointing to roll at random.
We increased the cooldown on the dialogue line that explains that you cannot claim a site within plague territory. We suspect that everyone gets it now, and it was getting repetitive.
We also fixed numerous minor issues with environment art, collision, navigation, and character outfits.
Update 26: Homecoming
Welcome Home to Trumbull Valley
The Homecoming Update brings the story of State of Decay back to where it all began: the idyllic community of Trumbull Valley. This map has appeared twice before in the game’s history, but never before has it been this gorgeous, this detailed, and this full of places to search and loot to find.
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Here’s a quick overview of what you’ll discover in the Homecoming Update. Read on for more details!
We hope you enjoy the new content and improvements in this update. As always, thanks for playing State of Decay 2!
— the Undead Labs development team
Trumbull Valley, Like Never Before
A smaller version of the Trumbull Valley map previously appeared in State of Decay 2: Heartland. The Homecoming Update delivers a full-size version of Trumbull Valley for the core game, reintegrating the Mount Tanner and Fairfield regions to the map. Long-time players can now explore every bit of the area they remember from the first game (and that they’ve been asking for on the wishlist).
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As part of transforming Trumbull Valley into a core map, we also tweaked the landscape and visuals in many places. This allowed us to add plenty of new sites to scavenge, along with new sights to behold.
The Trumbull Saga Continues Here
The stories in Homecoming take place after State of Decay 2: Heartland and form part 3 of the Trumbull Saga, a story that began all the way back in the original State of Decay.
By exploring the new Trumbull Valley, you can see how this region has evolved since the original game. The landscape shows the impact of key characters, factions, and events of the past two years of the apocalypse. Many familiar faces from prior chapters of this saga return in Homecoming, resulting in the revival of old rivalries … and the birth of new alliances.
If you haven’t yet played through the stories of State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition or State of Decay 2: Heartland now’s a great opportunity to brush up on the history of Trumbull Valley … but don’t worry, you’ll be able to keep up even if these stories aren’t fresh in your memory.
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Unique Discoverable Content
Trumbull Valley is the first map to offer a wide variety of items that you can’t find on any other map. To discover these weapons and outfits, you’ll have to search the map, complete missions, and talk to local survivors.
We’ve also populated the map with dozens of discoverable experiences that you can stumble across, from breathtaking vistas and viewpoints, to quirky or even disturbing scenes left by former denizens of the valley. Some of these discoveries unlock commentary from your survivors, while others conceal useful gear. If you’re the type of player who loves exploring every nook and cranny of a map, Trumbull Valley has plenty of surprises for you to find!
Six New Bases
Trumbull Valley wouldn’t be a core map without a plethora of new bases for your communities to try out.
Visit Trumbull Valley Today!
You can explore Trumbull Valley and its secrets by starting a new community and choosing Trumbull Valley from the list of maps. Or you can travel to one of the in-game map exits and relocate your existing community to Trumbull Valley. Either way, you’ll get to see everything that Trumbull has to offer!
Trifecta Pack
The Homecoming Update also includes the game’s twelfth bounty pack, which features a dozen new items you can earn from the Bounty Broker.
The Trifecta Pack is a little different from previous packs, in that it includes three mini-themes of matching items. Each mini-theme includes a melee weapon, a primary firearm, a sidearm, and an ultra-lightweight backpack that are beautifully color-coordinated, allowing your survivors to deck themselves out in glorious style.
Each of these 12 new items can be earned by completing the appropriate bounty from the Bounty Broker. Collect a coordinated set for each survivor or mix and match to your heart’s content!
New Achievements
We’ve added two new achievements to the game to reward you for exploring the Homecoming Update:
This brings the total Gamerscore available in State of Decay 2 up to 2400! You can also earn Microsoft Rewards for these achievements. Activate your punchcard today on your console.
Other Fixes and Improvements
We’ve also implemented a wide range of targeted improvements and bug fixes to various parts of the game.
Enhanced Ammo Stacks
We’ve rebalanced the stack sizes for all ammunition in the game, raising most of them by 25-100%. The new stack sizes are:
The Assault skill (and the Warfighting skill) now offer a +25% bonus to ammunition stack sizes as soon as you specialize. The bonus increases to +50% at seven stars.
So an Assault specialist (or a Red Talon Warfighter) can now carry 90 rounds of .22 caliber for their Fake-A 47 in a single stack, saving two inventory slots! Thanks for putting this on the wishlist!
(Note that this skill benefit does not apply during Daybreak — though the baseline stack sizes do.)
Combat
Enemies
Vehicles
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Missions
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User Experience
Community Management
Exploits
Miscellaneous
Update 25: Plague Territory
Blood Plague has Taken Over
The landscape of State of Decay 2 has changed. The next map you move to will be peppered with new and improved outposts, but to claim them, you must first defeat the plague hearts whose influence now spreads across the map.
Many of you have already spent some time in this new world by participating in our Public Test Realm on Steam, and it was your feedback that helped shape the final version of these features that we’re releasing today. Thank you!
Plague hearts now possess the territory around them, requiring you to defeat the heart before claiming nearby bases and outposts.
Resource outposts can now be upgraded by spending influence. This increases their benefits and unlocks skill training options.
Each map has a new landmark outpost, which allows you to choose one of three powerful options to benefit your community.
Survivors can now carry both a primary weapon and a sidearm, opening up new tactical loadout choices.
Community skills now share many of their advanced benefits with the entire community of survivors.
NOTE: You must move to a new map, change your map difficulty, or start a new community to see the plague territory and outpost upgrade features.
Read further for all the details on these features, plus a whole lot more.
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Plague Territory
Plague hearts now project plague territory around them, filling the area with a nasty red mist and making it unfit for human habitation.
Plague territory is marked by a deep red splotch on the map. Any site within plague territory has a red icon, indicating that you cannot secure or claim it.
To free a site, you must destroy any plague heart that includes that site within its territory. In densely-clustered maps, that could mean destroying multiple hearts.
Plague hearts tend to congregate where humans do, so expect valuable bases and outposts, as well as denser neighborhoods, to be covered by plague territory.
This change means that defeating plague hearts is no longer just a checklist item you complete before starting your legacy. It’s a day-to-day concern as you plan your community’s expansion.
Upgraded Outposts
Resource outposts — those that grant an income of food, fuel, or another resource — can now be upgraded to unlock increased benefits and skill training options for your community.
Each resource outpost offers a progression of two upgrades, with escalating costs and requirements.
The second-tier upgrade doubles the resource income and offers a skill-training action that grants you ready access to strategic skills like Medicine, Mechanics, and Computers.
A fully-upgraded resource outpost now offers three units of that resource each day (or more, in the case of Food outposts at higher difficulty levels).
Each map now also features a single landmark outpost — a unique claimable site that offers three distinct strategies, each providing a powerful benefit to your community.
Some landmark outposts offer a choice of three distinct benefits, while others offer a single benefit, but allow you to choose which cost to pay.
You select your initial strategy when you claim the outpost, but you can change it later from the base screen.
Particularly valuable outposts (landmark outposts, upgradeable resource outposts, and utility outposts) are now marked with distinctive backgrounds on the map screen, allowing you to identify them more easily. So get out there and explore your options!
Thanks to everyone who suggested outpostupgrades on the wishlist! Also to everyone who called out prominent sites that became landmark outposts!
New Achievements
Another benefit of the upgraded outposts is the fact that they can unlock three new achievements, for a total of 50 gamerscore!
Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota (10) — Claim a landmark outpost.
A Three Hour Tour (20) — Claim 3 landmark outposts.
But It Can Be Better (20) — Fully upgrade a resource outpost.
For a limited time, earn Microsoft Rewards when you complete any one of these achievements! Read here for details.
Streamlined Map Exits
Since you need to change maps to engage with plague territory and the new outposts, we’ve made switching maps much easier! Here is the new process:
At the start of a new community, you can already see the exits marked with icons on the map screen. At first, they are locked.
Hovering your cursor over an exit icon tells you exactly what you need to do to unlock it.
What you need to do is simple — upgrade your Command Center.
That’s it! Once you have an upgraded Command Center (which follows you from base to base), your community has access to all map exits, without needing to perform any additional actions.
Sidearm Switching
You now have two ranged weapon slots in your inventory — one for a primary weapon and one for a sidearm. Each ranged weapon in the game fits exclusively into one of those two slots.
Primary weapons include rifles, assault rifles, most shotguns, crossbows, and special weapons like grenade launchers.
Sidearms include pistols, assault pistols, revolvers, and short-barreled shotguns.
While aiming one ranged weapon, you can quickly swap to the other by tapping Y (on controller) or 2 (on keyboard).
This has shifted the fire mode input to D-pad Down and 3, respectively, as highlighted on the aiming HUD.
You can remap any of these inputs on the Settings menu.
ALSO! Weapon mods can now be applied to any weapon in your inventory (if they are compatible), including unequipped weapons in your backpack.
Community Skills now apply many of their advanced benefits to the entire community, not just to the individual with the skill.
Nutrition now offers +10 Health and Stamina to the entire community.
Metalwork now offers +15% melee weapon durability to the entire community.
Automechanics now offers +25% fuel efficiency and +50% vehicle stealth to the entire community.
Pathology now offers +50 infection resistance to the entire community (instead of +100 to the individual).
Surgery now offers +20 Health to the entire community.
Plumbing now offers +20 Stamina to the entire community.
This change led us to make additional balance tweaks to some skills that already offered community-wide benefits.
Cuisine now offers +15% Influence gains and +6 Morale to the community (over the previous +10% Influence and no Morale).
Electrical now offers +25 parts per day (over the previous +20 parts per day).
Munitions and Pharmacology now offer +10 to Ammo and Meds Storage (respectively) because the +3 they used to offer was garbage.
We also made changes to some of the Red Talon fifth skills, though not all of them affect the entire community.
Combat Medicine and Demolitions now offer +2 stack size to the individual (over the previous +1 stack size).
Firearm Maintenance now offers -25% gun durability loss to the entire community.
Logistics now offers +1 stack size to the entire community (instead of +2 to the individual) and retains its +25 parts per day.
Mobile Operations now offers +25% fuel efficiency to the entire community (instead of +50% to the individual) and retains its +1 fuel per day.
Other Fixes and Improvements
As always, we’ve continued to make smaller-scale improvements to the game alongside the headliner features above.
Gameplay
We fixed a bug that could cause an exploding bloater to affect a vehicle that was well outside the range of its gas cloud.
Rapidly damaging a plague heart will no longer cause its second gas explosion to fire improperly and ineffectively.
Survivors no longer take infection damage from feral attacks that they successfully dodged.
Followers now use grenade launchers more effectively against hostile humans.
Followers no longer fix broken firearms for free.
Enclaves
When you search for a new enclave via the radio, we now try to spawn the incoming enclave close to your current position, rather than close to your base, giving you more control over where they are likely to arrive.
The enclave you meet during your arrival on the map with a new community (after skipping the tutorial) can now be recruited immediately after their mission.
We removed all remaining instances that we could find of an enclave with the deprecated, meaningless “Cold” relationship status.
UX
The host can now see the tether bubble on the map, helping them to avoid accidentally teleporting their multiplayer guests.
We added an option to toggle in and out of aim mode, rather than having to hold the aim button down. You can find it on the Settings menu, under Accessibility.
Hovering your cursor over a plague heart on the map now reveals what type of rucksack you will earn if you destroy that heart.
The aiming HUD now displays icons for the Aim Snap and Assault Kick, reminding you when you have access to these special abilities.
Enclave icons now appear when you survey enclave-occupied sites from a survey point.
Surveying a site by aiming at it from a survey point is now much quicker.
Base Management
Survivors are no longer unhappy when their base is missing certain common facilities (Workshop, Infirmary, Garden, or Watchtower), giving you more freedom in your base-building strategy.
Traits that cause survivors to argue more often now very specifically tell you how to avoid the arguments while retaining the survivor.
We’ve reduced the number of notifications that pile up immediately upon loading your community.
You can now withdraw rucksacks from the Storage facility while it is mid-upgrade.
The parking slots in front of Camp Kelenqua are no longer swapped on the Base Screen.
Tutorials
The stealth tutorial now reiterates the stealth input multiple times to make players more likely to understand the process.
The blood plague cure tutorial now actually consumes the dose of cure you use on your dying friend, instead of leaving it in your inventory.
Things We Fixed Earlier But Forgot to Patch Note
The Professional Deejay trait assigned by a travel conversation no longer applies the Music skill. This should be the final case of a travel conversation potentially filling that last skill slot. You need fear them no more.
When deleting a community from a save slot, we now name the community in the confirmation dialogue, to help reassure you that you are deleting the one you intended.
The Community Difficulty slider is now the one that applies modifiers to the Threat level at your base, not the Action Difficulty slider, bringing the mechanics in line with their description.
Miscellaneous
We closed an exploit that allowed players to (laboriously) duplicate ammo via the vehicle inventory.
The RTX Cyclone now counts as a shotgun for the purpose of completing bounties.
We’ve also made a raft of minor improvements to art, audio, UI, and localization.
Join our OPEN BETA!
Welcome to the Public Test Realm
Do you dream of influencing your favorite zombie survival game? Do you love getting your hands on new features before anyone else and making them better? Do you secretly wish you could be a QA tester? Join the Public Test Realm, the open beta for State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition, open now!
The Life And Times of Playtesting
We are continuing active development on the game, from mechanics to features. As developers, we always want player feedback as we make changes. There’s no better way to do that than by hearing from you before those changes even ship.
Once you’re in the open beta, you’ll be shown a QR code that links to a survey. The QR code and the button to take the survey are available at all times from the pause screen. You will use that to give us your honest feedback. Be sure to join the developers and your fellow testers in our official Discord.
Our primary goal is to make sure we’re creating changes you enjoy, that enhance your gameplay experience. The added bonus is that we get to be more transparent with you about what we’re making and why. Win-win!
Introducing Plague Territories, Landmark Outposts, and Upgradeable Outposts
We’ve added three new features to enhance the strategic challenge of the game. All three affect the map in ways that won't show up for existing communities, so you must change maps (or map difficulty) to try them out. All new communities will have these features enabled by default.
Plague Territories are infected regions controlled by plague hearts. You cannot claim a home site or an outpost within plague territory until you have defeated the nearby plague heart that controls that location. Note that some locations may be “claimed” by multiple plague hearts with overlapping territories!
Landmark Outposts are unique sites that offer three different benefit strategies to choose from when you claim them as an outpost. Each map features one such outpost for you to try.
Resource Outposts (the ones that offer Food, Ammo, etc) now allow you to upgrade them to enhance their benefits.
When you've tried the new features, please follow the link to fill out the survey. We’re running this beta specifically to hear your thoughts!
About the Public Test Realm
On your first launch of the Test Realm build, your communities from the Retail version will be transferred over, if you had any. Note: from this point forward, your save is forked. Any progress or changes you make in the Test Realm will not copy back to the Retail version, and vice versa. You can freely return to playing in the Retail version of State of Decay 2 at any time. Your communities will be exactly as you left them.
Multiplayer will work in the Public Test Realm, but only with other Test Realm players. When we are not actively testing features in the Test Realm, we will push the Retail version of the game to this environment. The FAQ has more answers to questions like these.
Because this is a long-term open beta, you will be the first to playtest all ongoing improvements to State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition. The content and focus of the beta will change as we develop these new features and mechanics.
You can learn about the most recent beta content in future Steam updates and on our newsletter specific to beta test subscribers, so be sure to sign up to be notified.
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Getting Started
Now that you're excited to get your hands on these features and give us your feedback, here's what you need to know:
1. Our FAQ about the Public Test Realm 2. A visual guide to opting in 3. Give us your thoughts in the survey by opening the QR code while your beta game is paused. We recommend a couple hours of experimentation with the new features first! ːsteamthumbsupː
Thanks for Your Help!
The Public Test Realm is open and available now. We appreciate the time and feedback you’re providing -- and so will the many players whose experiences are improved because of your efforts.
--State of Decay 2 Development Team
Update 24: Recruits & Bounty Cycling
Toward Brighter Days
Welcome to the latest update for State of Decay 2!
Winter isn’t done with us yet, but we can take heart from the ever-lengthening daylight that foretells the coming rebirth of spring.
We’re still hard at work improving the game in ways big and small. This update expands your options for recruiting new community members, adds mouse-and-keyboard support for Xbox players, brings back the Trumbull Valley Pack, and standardizes a monthly rhythm for returning content packs.
Celebrating Black History Month
Before we dive into more details on the improvements to the game, we want to point out a special outfit item appearing this month. This unique t-shirt is inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and the NAACP’s “We Are Done Dying” campaign. The image is designed by artist Ty Ferrell and portrays a figure kneeling in peaceful protest, with images of raised fists arranged behind him in a manner reminiscent of State of Decay’s familiar logo.
You can find the new Basic Tee (Done Dying) outfit in your Closet starting on February 8.
A physical version of this T-shirt is also available for purchase between February 8 and March 1 by visiting StateOfDecay.com/naacp. Sales of this shirt will benefit the NAACP.
The physical shirt will be available for purchase ONLY during this time-frame. No reprints are planned.
Recruiting from Neutral and Friendly Enclaves
New recruits are the lifeblood of any community, but they can sometimes be hard to find. At least until today!
Starting now, every non-hostile ambient enclave offers you the option to recruit. This means as long as they’re not shooting at you, and they’re not busy with their own problems (embroiled in an ongoing mission arc), you can recruit from among their ranks.
Allied enclaves still allow you to recruit for free, as they always have.
Friendly enclaves now allow you to recruit for 750 Influence.
Neutral enclaves now allow you to recruit for 1500 Influence.
So now if you need recruits, the simplest way to get them is to use the radio to contact a new Enclave, meet up with them, and then spend the influence to recruit from them that very minute.
The Trumbull Valley Pack Returns
This content pack celebrates the sleepy little valley where it all started. It features six weapons that first appeared in the Heartland expansion, plus four outfits worn by iconic survivors from that storyline! It also includes the Improvised Weapon Station, a fan-favorite facility mod that lets you craft an array of useful weapons from spare bits and pieces lying around your base. Visit the Bounty Broker to find out how to earn these items!
(We had previously indicated that the Critical Response Pack would be cycling back this month, but Trumbull Valley was a better fit for the schedule. A revised and improved Critical Response Pack will return later this year.)
Bounty Broker News
Over the past year-plus, we’ve been adding new content packs to the game via the Bounty Broker. We now have 11 distinct collections of weapons, outfits, and other useful gear, each with its own theme, from pirates and soldiers to cowboys and movie monsters.
And now we’ve also implemented a new schedule for this library of content packs to automatically cycle in and out of the game. The first day of each month now includes an update of the Bounty Broker’s inventory, with one pack returning to circulation while another leaves. This provides you with a regular and predictable schedule to know when packs are coming and going, and does not require you to download an update to the game.
For example:
On the first day of March, the Pawn Shop Pack will return, replacing the Fearsome Footage Pack.
On the first day of April, the Plunder Pack will return, replacing the Stay Frosty Pack.
… and so on. We’ll keep you apprised of upcoming packs (especially any with new or updated content) as we go!
Mouse and Keyboard Support on the Xbox
After this update, the game no longer assumes that console players are restricted to using a controller. Now if you hook up a mouse and keyboard to your Xbox, or connect to the game via Remote Play on a PC, you can control it using the same customizable mouse and keyboard controls that have always been available when playing the game directly on a PC.
Thank you for all the Wishlist requests! (There were so very many of them!)
More Fixes and Improvements
Zombies (especially Bloaters) are no longer allowed to spawn right on top of you when you are traveling at speed. They were abusing their spawning privileges, and have been punished.
Non-hostile enclaves will now unlock all the doors when they move into a new site, so you won’t have to bash down their door when they invite you inside. This one came from the Wishlist!
The CLEO Accelerator and CLEO Tumbler have been upgraded to take their rightful place among all the other recently-upgraded muzzle attachments.
The updated CLEO Accelerator has increased impact, knockback, and range, at the cost of greater recoil. It makes a weapon more effective against big targets, and at longer distances, but you have to aim and fire more carefully.
The updated CLEO Tumbler splits projectiles in half, increasing spread and greatly increasing the chance of dismemberment, at a cost to range and accuracy. It’s a great way to take apart a crowd, but not great for sniping.
Active sieges now automatically pin themselves to your HUD when you return home and trigger the countdown to the assault, making it easier to notice the siege before you’re wading in Juggernauts.
We fixed a problem that was causing Juggernauts to evaporate while attempting to chase a human into a building.
Survivors with the Sexting skill are no longer weirding people out, and are instead using their wit and charm for the good of the community, earning a minor income of +5 Influence per day.
Pressing the Map button a second time before the map has fully appeared will no longer close the map as soon as it arrives. This should make it easier for players using Remote Play to avoid accidentally re-closing the map when experiencing input delay.
The Forge facility has been re-tuned so that even at higher difficulty levels, with all their added Materials costs, it is still a more profitable way to turn Materials into Parts than just converting them in Storage.
This actually came out in Update 23. We just forgot to mention it.
