Like the living dead he depicts, State of Decay 2 seems immortal and is not ready to give up the ghost. The title ofUndead Labs celebrated its fifth anniversary last May, but today it is welcoming a new free update, which completely changes the way you play.
The major update Curveball indeed adds THE curveballswhich add challenges and modify the environmentas saying that State of Decay 2 a new lease of life is offered here, even for players who thought they knew it by heart. The developers explain all this:
Available after the fifth day in-game, curveballs can change the world around your colony in very interesting ways. Located in a new menu, curveballs will appear periodically, each with their own story, offering new objectives, new rewards, new enemy types and more. Curveballs can be positive (such as increasing loot) or negative (such as improving standard zombies in several ways); they can be timed or goal-based; they can affect enemies, your survivors or other NPCs. In fact, any element of the game that you have become accustomed to can, and often will, change.
“We basically wanted to respond to feedback that the game was getting repetitive pretty quickly,” Meg Chaney and Eric Anderson of Undead Labs told me, “so we wanted to introduce something that shook things up and made the game evolve over time. as players spend more time there. »
“For experienced players, the latter stages of State of Decay 2 can become a little predictable,” adds John Hollingworth of Wushu. “That’s why we’re introducing curveballs. This feature is designed to keep you on your toes by adding random events and world-changing modifiers to the game. It introduces new layers of challenges and unpredictable events to keep the wastelands dynamic, exciting and dangerous. These new scenarios allow you to develop unique stories around your survivors. So whether you’re a seasoned survivor or just starting out, every session and playthrough will be different from the last. »
To reinforce this unpredictable side, curveballs are quite random – while some are directly linked to the actions you perform in the game, many can appear completely unexpectedly – and you can even have several curveballs active at the same time. “We think it’s going to be a bit difficult for experienced players to navigate,” Chaney and Anderson said. “Some of these curveballs will only require minor adjustments or provide new opportunities, while others will be quite vicious and require major tactical adjustments. »
Of course, the most obvious change is how curveballs can affect your most common targets: zombies. “Zombies were the first and most obvious target for these changes,” says Hollingworth. “We wanted to build on the idea that there is an ebb and flow of mutations within the population due to events happening in the world, or the Plague trying to push back and fight off the enclaves . »
“Side effects of zombies can include fatal physiological changes or heightened senses. For example, zombie attacks are more powerful, sight, hearing and even smell are improved, making it possible to spot survivors out of sight. Zombies can explode with decomposed bile when killed or emit a foul odor that chokes and depletes the stamina of any nearby survivors. These are just a few examples of mutational changes that are difficult to implement. However, zombies can also have side effects that weaken them. They can become frail, slow down, and in turn be easier to decapitate and knock out by affecting their center of balance. »
To put things into perspective, all of this can happen for a single enemy type – with so many modifiers on the table, it’s clear that the nature of curveballs can be very different from game to game. Curveballs should not make you feel like you are playing a different game, just an altered game (you can even turn this feature off if you prefer to play the base game as it was). “We’ve touched on a lot of different systems, but only to an extent that complements the current gameplay,” says Hollingworth. “We wanted to make sure they fit into the narrative and could be justified as part of the simulation so as not to break the immersion. »
And the curveballs don’t stop with what’s coming to the game on September 18. “We also hope that players will have more control over this feature over time. Ultimately, it’s up to them to determine the impact they want to have on curveballs,” Chaney and Anderson explain.
This is just the beginning of Wushu’s work on State of Decay 2, and you can expect the game to receive more updates over time – but the team wants to spend some time after this great novelty to ensure that its players feel listened to, too: “We are going to devote a little more time to certain items on the players’ wish list and to responding to their current concerns,” explains Hollingworth on the near future. “Some of these may require a major overhaul of existing systems, but I think our main focus will be on improving what already exists and meeting the expectations of players. »
It’s rare to see such a big new idea added to a game after five years, and it looks like Undead Labs and Wushu have more projects coming: “SoD2 has an incredibly loyal player base and a phenomenal community,” says Chaney, “so our main goal is to continue providing them with meaningful content and gameplay updates! This game has been a real bomb for 5 years and we are going to continue to party…”
Rest assured, it’s not Undead Labs who develops the update Curveballthe latter is of course busy on State of Decay 3. No it’s Wushu Studioshelped by some members ofUndead Labswho is now in charge of additional content on this second part, and Curveball is obviously not the latest free update for State of Decay 2. You can find the game at €34.99 on Amazon in Ultimate Edition.
| Clint008 Editor – Tester |
