History VideoGame / StateOfDecay2

* BrokenBridge: The updated Trumball Valley map has these, making the town of Farfield and the camping area near Mount Tanner inaccessible. Lampshaded when one of the characters notes the Valley is smaller than she expected. They're repaired in the ''Homecoming'' DLC.

** Lily Ritter and Sasquatch are back, working for the Network and Red Talon respectively. The Network is itself what the Trumball Valley survivor's group eventually grew into. Lily's statement that the other original founders of The Network (Pastor Will, Marcus, Ed, Maya, Jacob, and Alan) "aren't all around anymore" [[BusCrash may imply that some or even all of the other Trumball Valley survivors died in between games]]. This is likely to avoid CuttingOffTheBranches given that AnyoneCanDie in the original game; also [[spoiler: Will and Alan]] were scripted to die no matter what.

* CuttingOffTheBranches: In the updated Trumball Valley map in ''Homecoming'', the mostly intact skyline of Danforth is visible from the valley exit. This seems to indicate the city wasn't nuked back in ''Lifeline'', which fits with Lily still being alive and Sasquatch having nothing to say about Greyhound One.

** An experimental silenced revolver is available as part of the "Trumball Valley Pack" from the Bounty Hunter quest giver. It holds 8 rounds of .22 ammo and like all revolvers has infinite durability; the only drawback is that the cylinder does not swing out (which is part of what allows it to be silenced) so you have to reload it one chamber at a time.

* AmbiguouslyEvil: Red Talon. Lieutenant Meredeth's broadcasts are uplifting, patriotic RousingSpeech, but their leader Teresa West also briefly discusses "getting rid of" "troublemakers" from survivor communities, and there are claims from other survivors that Red Talon is running forced labor camps, notably Camp Erie. Meredeth denies it, as does Sasquatch, but Sasquatch also notes [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial if they were, it would be necessary given the situation the country is in]]. Meanwhile, Sanchez on the Trumbull Valley map will be cagey about why he left Red Talon, and hints [[EveryoneHasStandards they were doing things he did not approve of]].

* WorldHalfFull: The world's continued taking hits since the first game. The U.S. government is gone, having straight up abandoned the survivors or succumbed to the hordes. The special zombies are more dangerous, working cars (a survival tool) are now something of a rarity, and the fuel to run them is now a resource when previously it was too plentiful to track. The blood plague's replacement of the black fever is a sidegrade: from a lurking killer that seldom strikes but can take your best, to a constant risk that can be treated reliably by communities that can afford it, and even comes with a handy timer to stop you from guessing when to shoot your comrade in the head in case he turns, ''but'' if you can't eat the cost you need to stick your neck out for the materials and risk [[ViciousCycle contracting the blood plague]].\\\
Yet you can now make a lasting difference: the campaign mode is about carving out a place to stay, whereas the best you could do in ''1'' was to keep running. Almost no humans now have the joke skills that represented not being specced for this life, and while [[InferredHolocaust that carries implications]], they're much better at staying on top of the outbreak. Increased trading, making base maintenance less demanding, and the fact that radio recon now spawns resources instead of locating them means humans are no longer stuck running on fumes of the old world, doomed to decline once the scavenging runs out (and takes some of the fun out of things). Best of all, the player's group is no longer alone: it hears from distant factions surviving and helping others to survive (though one's implied to run forced labor camps), and once it puts down roots it [[NewGamePlus helps establish more settlements]] in the form of bonuses such as always having electricity and running water. You're as likely as ever to be messily dismembered, but humanity's going to make it.

* TheVirus: The Blood Plague, carried by the plague zombies and presumably created by the plague hearts that infest the map. Getting hit or bit by a plague zombie causes a survivor's infection meter to increase and if it fills up completely they will be infected. After three real time hours, that survivor will then die and turn into a zombie. With samples gathered from dead zombies and hearts, the player can craft the cure. Or, as mentioned above, simply MercyKill the infected survivor.

** And if you break open their food rucksacks, [[Foreshadowing the random luxury items you find alongside the snacks provides another hint that they're not on the up-and-up]].

** Ferals and Juggernauts are still dangerous, but Ferals no longer have an instant kill attack. Juggernauts however, can still instant kill you if your health is gone and they grab you.

* AnyoneCanDie: Similar to the first game, any of your characters can die and the game will just keep going. That is, unless you run out of survivors completely. Then it's game over. Even in the more plot-focused ''Heartland'' campaign, any of your survivors including your two starting characters can die at any time.

** Just like the last game, burst and automatic firing modes will just pointlessly waste your ammunition. Unless you are unloading on a plague heart or a Juggernaut, one bullet (of any kind) to the head kills anything else in the game, making even a short burst ridiculous overkill. On any difficulty higher than Standard, human enemies do resist headshots, so full auto weapons are somewhat useful against them, but you typically don't have to get into fights with them very often.

** Dodging behind a zombie, grabbing them, then insta-killing them. This is more fiddly than just straight up bashing them your main melee weapon, but doing the insta-kill doesn't wear down the durability of your close combat weapon, is a guaranteed kill, and gives a moment of invulnerability while still giving fighting experience.
** The Builder legacy bonus in NewGamePlus. The Sheriff and Warlord bonuses (periodic weapon and item drops) are nice, but always having power and water at your base can save you base and outpost slots.
** Close Combat is not terribly effective for crowd control, but when you max it, you can take down zombies quickly with a flurry of attacks -- and it you will ALWAYS have a working close combat weapon that never needs repairs.

** However, if you turn off the game and reload, all zombies surrounding your character will be gone -- but all quests will be reset as well. However, the level of Blood Plague the character(s) have remains, meaning if they were gang-tackled by plague zombies, they may turn anyway if they're not near a cure.

* TookALevelInBadass: The special zombies are significantly more dangerous this time around. The Feral is better at dodging and attacking, the Bloater is sneakier and its gas does more damage to both health and stamina, the Juggernaut is..well TheJuggernaut, and the Screamer is better at drawing in zombies.

** In ''Heartland'', all of the zombies are far more dangerous:

** Crossbows are very common drops with reusable, easily crafted ammunition. They're often completely silent which is something that .22LR weapons can't boast even with suppressors. That said, they're often limited to a single bolt capacity and long reload times in between shots so they're best used for non-aggressive situations or picking off special zombies from afar.

* CarFu: An effective way of dealing with zombies -- unless you're in Nightmare mode, as they will damage your car, and car repair is now difficult.

* HollywoodDarkness: Averted. Night in this game is just as dark as you'd expect in rural areas with no electrical lighting. One of the benefits of having electric power to your base is it will be lit up at night.

** Red Talon base equipment are the best bang-for-your buck upgrades available. The Red Talon watchtower has the most danger reduction of all watchtowers you can construct, the officer's quarters provides two beds, a latrine, and skill boosters, and the Red Talon workshop is equal to a level 3 workshop, but comes with its own power supply and provides +1 material per day. Best of all, they cost nothing to construct. The downside is they can only be acquired with prestige grinded in Daybreak, AND you have to have unlocked them by repeatedly doing ''well'' in it.

* RageQuit: Thanks to the RogueLike nature of the game that saves the game constantly, quitting the game before a member can die is a tactic.

* RedEyesTakeWarning: Plague zombies' eyes glow red. It's especially noticeable [[ByTheLightsOfTheirEyes at night]]. Just to mess with you, the area near Plague Hearts has glowing bits in the air to make some lights wander around that ''look'' like zombie eyes in the dark.

* AscendedExtra: Red Talon existed in ''Lifeline'' as a radio support option. By ''2'', they've become one of two surviving factions that have replaced the U.S. government in helping survivors. Red Talon Lieutenant Meredeth makes periodic radio broadcasts, encouraging survivors and providing advice. Hell, you were once able to recruit an entire community of them via a glitch which is now patched! However it is still possible to recruit a few through legitimate means.

** Just like the last game, burst and automatic firing modes will just pointlessly waste your ammunition. Unless you are unloading on a plague heart or a Juggernaut, one bullet (of any kind) to the head kills anything else in the game, making even a short burst ridiculous overkill. On any difficulty higher than Normal, human enemies do resist headshots, so full auto weapons are somewhat useful against them, but they're usually very rare.

** .50BMG weapons are among the most powerful weapons in the game, but the ammo for them is very rare. They're pretty much overkill for anything that isn't a Juggernaut, or a last ditch weapon for a Plague Heart. They are very useful, however, when wielded by a Survivor not controlled by the player.

** Bloater Gas weapons do massive damage against humans, but have no effect against zombies. On regular difficulty, they're pretty pointless since fights against hostile humans are quite rare and easily resolved with headshots. However, on HarderThanHard difficulty, headshots don't instantly kill enemy humans, making Bloater Gas weaponry somewhat more useful as enemy humans can actually take quite a lot of damage and can recover if they're not executed quickly when knocked down.

** Firecrackers are cheap to make, a mere 10 parts for three (or more with special base bonuses), but they will save an overmatched player thanks to the AttentionDeficitOohShiny zombies who will instantly run to where the firecrackers are. They are also extremely handy in clearing infestations, luring zombies out into the open for some CarFu or just plain gunfire -- and they won't be distracted by gunfire because they're not as loud as the firecrackers. There's a tiny chance they'll be set aflame, too. The only downside is they don't distract special zombies. Unfortunately, noisemakers become almost worthless in Nightmare mode, as even regular zombies will ignore them for the tasty snack that is you.

** An upgraded medical facility doesn't do anything particularly exciting, but it will automatically heal characters and remove Blood Plague progression. You can essentially ignore the whole Blood Plague element at that point.

** The stealth upgrade for the wits skill. All it does is make your actions, from searching and opening doors, quieter. On higher difficulties this is invaluable as sneaking is preferable, if not outright necessary, to fighting.
** The Gunslinger upgrade for the weapons skill, especially on higher levels. Being able to quickly headshot ferals, screamers and bloaters is invaluable, especially if playing with a gamepad.

* CannibalClan: Played straight. Later in the game you come across a group of people doing rather suspicious things and keep giving you “free food.” However once you learn about a survivor who tells you this news of survivors trying to kill and eat her, you tell her of “friends” nearby who can help but [[WhatTheHellHero you bring her back to said group’s base!]] They then betray you to try kill you for food. These are apparently the same group Twain mentions on the radio in one random instance.

** The Prepper's 10/22 rifle can be obtained via a random personal sidequest for one of your survivors, who wants to locate their prepper aunt. It has an astonishing 50-round drum magazine, an impressive semi-auto rate of fire, comes fitted with a homemade silencer and can be fitted with an advanced silencer to get rid of the weapon decay penalty, uses the incredibly cheap and easy to make .22 lr ammo, and can still kill anything in the game except Juggernauts and armored zombies with a single headshot. The sidequest to get the rifle can pop up as early as immediately after the end of the tutorial. It can also rarely be acquired from Network agents.

** Hostile humans are this. They're just as fast and capable of dodging as your survivors, but a single headshot will bring them down. That said, if you try to melee them you'll find they're able to take an astonishing number of crowbar hits to the face. They upgrade to LightningBruiser status on higher difficulties, especially Nightmare or Lethal, as they have massive health pools and can no longer be killed with one headshot -- and being in a vehicle just makes you an easier target. Thankfully, fighting them is very rare.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Outside of the tutorial missions, the game has no real overarching plot, focusing more on being an open-world sandbox experience with occasional random side-quests, with your only primary goals being destroying the 10 plague hearts and establishing your endgame leader legacy. What passes for a story in the game is told via periodic radio broadcasts from The Network and Red Talon detailing the state of the country and a growing conflict between the two groups.

** Red Talon base equipment are the best bang-for-your buck upgrades available. The Red Talon watchtower has the most danger reduction of all watchtowers you can construct, the officer's quarters provides two beds, a latrine, and skill boosters, and the Red Talon workshop is equal to a level 3 workshop, but comes with its own power supply and provides +1 material per day. Best of all, they cost nothing to construct. The downside is they can only be acquired with presige grinded in Daybreak.
** A combination of skills can give a Survivor the ability to run indefinitely without ever getting tired unless carrying a rucksack or heavy equipment -- and infinite Sneaking, too.

* MasterOfAll: Red Talon operatives have special unique specializations that give them the best benefits of ALL FOUR specialization choices. I.E., their fighting specialization, Heroism, gives them the best elements of the Close Combat, Swordplay, Striking, and Endurance specializations. This makes Red Talon operatives ''by far'' the best survivors you can recruit into your community. However, doing so requires a lot of grinding in the ''Daybreak'' DLC to earn enough Red Talon currency to afford them. To keep them from being too overpowered, all Red Talon operatives also have a "Red Talon" trait that makes them increase in Standing more slowly so they can't jump straight to Hero or Leadership status.

* NewGamePlus: Once you've completed a legacy story, the game starts over while allowing you to bring three leveled-up survivors from a previous game and two legacy bonuses.
** Note that, unlike Breakdown, you do NOT keep your supply locker items when you start a new game. You only bring over the items carried by the three survivors.

* OurZombiesAreDifferent: This zombie apocalypse is of the "hell is full" type where everyone revives as a zombie regardless of how they died, barring a headshot. The "blood plague" is just another disease ''on top'' of the zombies everyone has to deal with; normal zombie bites are not infectious and do not hurt you more than a regular human biting you (which can take out a chunk of flesh, but still).

* CannibalClan: Played straight. Later in the game you come across a group of people doing rather suspicious things and keep giving you “free food.” However once you learn about a survivor who tells you this news of survivors trying to kill and eat her, you tell her of “friends” nearby who can help but [[WhatTheHellHero you bring her back to said group’s base!]] They then betray you to try kill you for food. These are apparently the same group Twain mentions on the radio in one random instance. Damn.
** Doubles as Fridge Horror as once you accept a food rucksack from them, if you break it open you get "odd" meat snacks... and [[OhCrap random personal jewelry, like a WEDDING RING!]]

* NotTheIntendedUse: You can honk your car horn [[JokeItem to attract more zombies to you.]] This can serve in two unintended ways, the first being a a makeshift radar, because alerted zombies appear on your minimap, while unalerted ones do not. The other is [[CarFu horde smashing]], be it in wandering packs or infestations, although this may turn your car into TheAllegedCar afterwards.
** According to WordOfGod, this ''is'' the intended use, because another use is to draw zombies away from other survivors in co-op -- or attract them to hostile humans. In fact, the cars have different levels of horns. The ambulance, for one, can attract zombies from longer away.

* ObviousBeta:
** The game was released with a prolific amount of bugs, from characters getting stuck in walls to touching a Juggernaut causing the HUD to disappear. What's very telling is that there's a radio command that exists to help the player get unstuck which maddeningly doesn't exist in co-op. Get stuck in co-op? Better quit and restart, losing your progress towards rewards.
** A 20GB patch was released in June 2018. Opinions vary on whether this was 20GB worth of bug fixes, or a bug-fixed version of the whole game.
** Microsoft has [[https://www.windowscentral.com/state-of-decay-3 admitted]] that ''2'' is one, and that they purchased Undead Labs specifically to make ''3'' which they say will be the full-featured version.
** While most of the more glaring bugs have been fixed by the Juggernaut Edition in the main game, the ''Heartland'' campaign is still a buggy mess; issues include spawning in the middle of a zombie horde instead of safely back at base when continuing the game, vehicles parked in your parking spaces being teleported to random points on the map, vehicles ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHj1O4dXRc0 exploding and flying off into space with all your valuable loot inside]]'' when you try to repair them, and random crashes in the middle of major missions which completely resets the mission back from the beginning without refunding all the ammo you spend doing the mission.

* UngratefulBastard: Late into the game, an enclave threatens you for supplies because you’re “hogging” them. Even if you’re generous, they still continue to threaten you. Which leads to the final offer, the leader asks you to [[LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt GIVE UP YOUR HOME BASE!]] Talk about being a major douche. You can either [[WhatAnIdiot A, give up your base and move]] or [[CommonKnowledge B,kill those ungrateful bastards.]] [[RhetoricalQuestionBlunder What do you think you’d choose?]] If you've supplied your group well, it becomes a case of MuggingTheMonster, as it turns into a CurbStompBattle.

* WorldHalfFull: The world's continued taking hits since the first game. The U.S. government is gone, having straight up abandoned the survivors or itself succumbed to the hordes. The special zombies are more dangerous, working cars (a survival tool) are now something of a rarity, and the fuel to run them is now a resource when previously it was too plentiful to track. The blood plague's upstaged the black fever, which is something of a mixed bag: blood plague's a constant risk whereas the fever was a lurking killer, but blood plague can be treated reliably by communities that can afford it, and even comes with a handy timer to stop you from guessing when to shoot your comrade in the head, ''but'' if you can't eat the cost you need to stick your neck out for the materials and risk [[ViciousCycle contracting the blood plague]].\\\
Yet lasting positive change is possible for the first time: the campaign mode is about carving out a place to stay, whereas the best you could do in ''1'''s equivalent Breakdown mode was to keep running. Humans have almost completely lost the joke skills that represented being specced for a normal life instead of [[ActionSurvivor facing death daily]], and while [[InferredHolocaust that carries implications]], are much better at staying on top of things. Increased trading, making base maintenance less demanding, and the fact that radio recon now ''spawns'' resources instead of locating them take some of the fun out of things, but also mean humans are no longer stuck running on fumes of the old world, doomed to decline once the scavenging runs out. Best of all, the player's group is no longer cut off from the world: there are factions on the airwaves from beyond the few square miles of the map, surviving and helping others to survive although one's implied to run forced labor camps. [[NewGamePlus Legacy bonuses]] come in the form of new settlements helping to establish more. The player's likely as ever to be messily dismembered, but it now seems like a given that humanity'll survive.

* CuttingOffTheBranches: In the updated Trumball Valley map in ''Homecoming'', the mostly intact skyline of Danforth is visible from the valley exit. This seems to indicate the city wasn't nuked back in ''Lifeline''.

''State of Decay 2'' is a WideOpenSandbox ZombieApocalypse survival simulator and the sequel to the original ''VideoGame/StateOfDecay''. Published by Microsoft, it was released on May 22nd, 2018 for Xbox One and Windows 10 (only on Windows 10 store and supports XBOX Play Anywhere which means that the same account logged in can be used to play the game on XBOX One, because of being a Microsoft first-party game).

** In a NewGamePlus, if a character who did their Aunt's .22 Prepper mission still has the .22 Prepper, they will instead practice shooting 25 zombies with it and commenting how awesome the gun their Aunt left them is.

--->'''Twain:''' Zombies don't care about your improve skills.

* BlandNameProduct: The board games in the lounge when install include ''[[TabletopGame/CardsAgainstHumanity Humans Are Terrible]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/OregonTrail West To Oregon]]''.

* BlandNameProduct: The board games in the lounge when install include ''[[TabletopGames/CardsAgainstHumanity Humans Are Terrible]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/OregonTrail West To Oregon]]''.

** .50BMG weapons are among the most powerful weapons in the game, but the ammo for them is very rare. They're pretty much overkill for anything that isn't a Juggernaut, or a last ditch weapon for a Plague Heart.

** Using the radio command to "Locate Resources" actually ''generates'' the resource if it's no longer available naturally; normally, it'll just point the player to the appropriate storefront. In the previous game, it would only locate a remaining rucksack in an unlooted location -- once they were all gone, they were gone forever. But for 35 influence the game will stick a fresh rucksack in one of the indicated locations. Thus, resources will never run out.