Is State of Decay the Zombie game we’ve been looking for? Find out in our review below!

State of Decay is a zombie stealth, action-adventure game developed by Undead Labs and published by Microsoft Studios; it is available on Xbox 360 via XBLA and will be coming soon to PC.  A sandbox mode is coming soon as well.

THE GOOD: State of Decay is a survival horror game that gets the survivor thing right. You have to search for supplies such as food, meds, and weapons, while also storing them into home bases you come across during story progression. You fight your way through hordes of zombies in order to save yourself and other survivors.

State of Decay’s inventory box.

There’s finishing moves you can perform with or without a melee weapon. For an Arcade game, the world provided by Undead Labs is huge. There’s also a large array of characters you come across as you progress in the story. Stealth elements of the game actually work, and you can either surprise a zombie with a finisher or sneak right past it.

Growin’ some crops eh? Kewl.

THE BAD: Despite the good in the game, State of Decay doesn’t shy away from some bad as well.  There’s a few clipping issues, but considering this is an arcade title I’m not sure if this even matters. Sometimes zombie hordes would get ridiculously overwhelming, in fact I encountered one within my second hour or so of gameplay at my home base that seemed endless. Even smaller groups could destroy you if you weren’t careful.

Ugh hordes, amirite? No? Oh ok then.

In other areas it would get too easy to complete a task. I recall completing multiple missions within the span of minutes from each other with little to no difficulty. A visible health bar for your melee weapons would have also been nice. They seemed to break incredibly fast, and I had no idea (if any) how to fix/repair them.

Die zombie die!

 Survivors would also need saving too frequently which made story progression a pain. Speaking of which, I had a tough time finding the right linear story in order to beat the game. Most of the time I just followed what mission was said on the radio, but was seemingly getting nowhere in actual progression.

The horrors of night time!

THE UGLY: Driving was atrocious, I recall avoiding a car about 50% of the time if I could.

Oh the driving, the horrible driving!

OVERVALL THOUGHTS: State of Decay is an excellent zombie survivor horror game, but it definitely has flaws. Clipping issues are there, but become a mood point, driving however was noticeably bad. Zombie hordes got a bit ridiculous at times, and survivors were in a fix too often. Stealth was excellent as were the finishing moves you could perform.  The open-world was huge and fun to follow, but linear story lines were a pain, you could get lost in a barrage of side quests.