State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition is great, but State of Decay 3 needs to be better

State Of Decay 2 Juggernaut Edition Stuff
State Of Decay 2 Juggernaut Edition Stuff (Image credit: Windows Central)

State of Decay 2 is a personal highlight of this generation, but it's by no means what I'd call a polished game. Two years after it launched in a pretty sorry state, it remains a very janky game, with strange engine anomalies, crazy physics bugs, and rather pedestrian animations and interactions.

State of Decay has something truly special about it, though. Combining a rich strategy simulation layer with open-world action is incredibly rare to see, and for me, incredibly compelling. No game on earth captures the essence of a Hollywood zombie apocalypse experience like State of Decay does for me, despite all of its problems.

This week, Undead Labs released State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition, bringing the game to Steam with cross-play for co-op, and adding a range of improvements. I've dived back in after a year or more away from the game to experience some of the less recent updates, such as bounties, but also the Juggernaut Edition itself, which brings heavy weapons, graphics tweaks, and a new open-world map to enjoy.

The way Undead Labs has doubled down on improving State of Decay 2 is exciting. As fun as the new features are in the game, I can't ignore how much it highlights the need for State of Decay 3 to push far further with its engine.

Living that Juggernaut life

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition doesn't revolutionize the game, but it does bring a new map in the form of Providence Ridge, a desolate logging town complete with a "Camp Winchester" vacation spot, which seems like a cheeky reference to Shawn of the Dead.

State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition also brings some new graphical improvements, although it's hard to really make out a difference. In fact, some of the gamma and HDR seems a bit odd to me, with aggressive bloom on the new map washing everything in a misty haze. Perhaps that was the intended effect, but it gives the map this sort of drab, overcast climate that is the kind of mood I expect to get while visiting my family in the north of England, rather than in a video game.

Regardless, the layout of the new map is fascinating, with steep hills, thick forests, and unique bases with new facilities that don't appear on other maps. For returning players, it adds a breath of fresh air to proceedings and adds to the body of content in what was already a pretty beefy package.

The best feature, though, for me, is probably the heavy weapons. While they take a pile of stamina to swing and need to be positioned carefully over other weapons, they can devastate multiple zombies at a time, sending them flying onto the floor. They feel great to use and have a wide variety of options for players to hunt down (and swing).

State Of Decay 2 Juggernaut Edition Stuff (Image credit: Windows Central)

State Of Decay 2 Juggernaut Edition Stuff (Image credit: Windows Central)

Source: Windows Central

Some of the other newer features that I haven't tried out previously include the cosmetic system, which gives you an extensive range of clothing to unlock as part of your scavenging, and the bounty system, which offers you unique rewards for completing specific tasks. Some of the reward packs are on a timed basis, too, with one set to be permanently replaced in April.

As fun as State of Decay 2 is, returning to it in 2020 just highlights how much of it still falls below the mark.

What State of Decay 3 needs to do better

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

State of Decay 2 is Undead Labs' first game on the Unreal Engine, and was built in partnership with Microsoft, rather than as part of Microsoft. The studio has also grown a fair bit since joining Xbox Game Studios, undoubtedly to beef up the possibilities for State of Decay 3.

State of Decay is a bit unique for how its roadmap of games was shared with its community long before State of Decay 1 launched, even. The goal has always been to create a connected, multiplayer zombie apocalypse survival simulator, and State of Decay 2 is a step forward towards that, adding co-op and expanded simulation features. With Microsoft's resources and funding, State of Decay 3 should be better than ever, but only if Undead Labs can iron out some of the game's long-term kinks.

The State of Decay subreddit is a passionate place of zombie-killing fans, but so often, the posts seem to be showcases of the game's annoying, and occasionally hilarious bugs. Sometimes cars can just vanish, or spin into the air and dart across the map. Even now, I get NPCs and zombies falling from the sky, a bug I wrote about back when I played the launch build two years ago. NPCs are wooden and act like idiots. In my most recent playthrough just now, I had an ally run straight up to an enemy and get instantly gibbed by a hostile shotgunner.

Friendly enclaves gather and block doorways, standing around like deers caught in zombie bloodstained headlights. The fact the game doesn't have dedicated servers is criminal, considering Microsoft funded the game, as it places dumb restrictions on the way co-op works. Even Minecraft has State of Decay 2 beaten in this aspect, with State's infamous "tether" stopping you from roaming too far away from the game's host.

State of Decay 2's animations are also painfully rough by contemporary AAA standards. Combinations of actions, such as reloading while crouched, look painful and unnatural, while weapon swings look cartoony, rather than immersive. These are just a few examples of the litany of small issues that coalesce to stunt State of Decay 2's overall quality.

There's a lot to love about State of Decay 2, and some of its rough edges amount more to charm than annoyance, but the simulation is so glorious and immersive, I just wish the engine and presentation were built to match it.

With Microsoft, all things are now possible

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

With Undead Labs now part of Microsoft, with full access to Redmond's resources, you'd have to hope that State of Decay 3 will push the franchise to new heights. The ability to hire more developers, access to Unreal Engine experts, and hopefully, Azure dedicated servers, should see State of Decay 3 achieve more of what Undead Labs has a lot of passion for — building the ultimate zombie apocalypse simulator.

It may be a fair while before we see anything official materialize. Still, with a new engine, more resources, and a bigger budget, I can see State of Decay ascending from its cult status and becoming one of Microsoft's pillar Xbox franchises in the future. Here's hoping.

Jez Corden
Co-Managing Editor

Jez Corden a Managing Editor at Windows Central, focusing primarily on all things Xbox and gaming. Jez is known for breaking exclusive news and analysis as relates to the Microsoft ecosystem while being powered by caffeine. Follow on Twitter @JezCorden and listen to his Xbox Two podcast, all about, you guessed it, Xbox!

7 Comments
  • If you play with someone else you don't earn achievements. I will never understand why games that have MP do that. All that does is discourage people from playing together.
  • I guess it's complicated mechanically. It depends on the game. If a multiplayer game is designed as a parallell linear experience where all players get through the same game milestones together, that's easy, everyone would get them.
    But there's different ways to do multiplayer. Some are just drop in, drop out. Others depend on using your own character from the SP game. SoD2 is more restrictive even. It's just having a guest character invited into your SP game map. But that guest character can come from their own SP map/game. They could be misaligned with your character/map progress. Happened a lot to me, my MP pal had perks from finishing their campaign. Basically it makes sense then that each player gains achievements only in SP. What they could do is create a different, not overlapping, set of MP-only achievements. Like "did this thing with other player". Personally I don't think achievements are that important anyway. They can be used as little personal goals as a player. And definitely are used by developers to track game variables, advancement, difficulty, etc. But by no means are a goal in themselves. Just a very tiny metagame layer on top of playing an actual game.
  • The load times are insane now. It takes 3-5 minutes just to log into a community.
  • All these improvements would take a large increase in the team size which I don't know if they would do. MS doesn't want every one of their studios to be a 200+ size AAA team.
  • And I think it's okay. Not every game needs to be frickin' Red Dead 2. Everything else is smart design and intelligent use of resources, which are always limited.
  • I don't really care about polish and photo realistic animations. Red Dead 2 has that but under it all is just a quest shooter with bells and whistles. To make SoD3 the same or similar type of presentation to those AAA once every 5 years productions while retaining or even improving the multiple simulation systems inside it would take a team of at least 300 or 400 people, last time I checked they were at 75 so you are talking about increasing the team size by 500%.
    Sure get rid of obvious bugs, improve multiplayer and put more depth into the systems but unless MS wants to go all in and fund this game to Last of Us or RDR 2 levels which would be great, just make the game systems more in depth and slightly improve the look and I'm good to go. I'm just not sure that the people who love love the adult story driven AAA game would ever be interested in this type of heavy simulation game no matter how pretty it looked.
  • State of decay 2 is fine. But I believe Microsoft should transform it to an exclusive ''Resident Evil'' game. More story, more dialogue cutscenes etc. More specifically I believe they should release state of decay 3, and one more game with the story mode and in higher standards than just surviving