Bits N Pieces
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State of Decay was one of the Xbox 360's biggest pleasant surprises (it later got an Xbox One release as well). Thus, the announcement of a sequel at E3 2016 was hardly a surprise, but it was most welcome. Developer Undead Labs has stayed radio silent about the open-world survival RPG ever since (well, mostly). Until now.
Undead Labs CEO Jeff Strain (with an assist from design director Richard Foge) was kind enough to share a few new pieces of concept art and answer some of our questions about the sequel, which will support four-player co-op.
First, Strain confirmed our assumption that State of Decay 2 would be in a new, bigger town than the first game, adding, "I know SoD fans are hungry for details on number and size of maps, regions, kilometers of playable area, etc, but were not quite ready for that. For now, suffice it to say that the playable area is substantially larger than State of Decay."
"The millions of State of Decay players have been clear about what they want in State of Decay 2: A bigger, better State of Decay they can play with their friends," he said. "We intend to deliver on all of those."
Speaking of friends, we asked Foge if your friends could suddenly decide to be un-friendly, considering the fact that State of Decay is all about managing your relationships with your fellow survivors.
The primary goal for multiplayer is that other players bring an interesting new dynamic to the simulation," Foge said. "The heart of State of Decay is consequences, and we need to make sure that other players are more than just an awesome addition to moment-to-moment gameplay; they need to become a part of the story based on the agency they have in your world.
Your guests cannot just say screw it, I'm taking this to PvP-town! and directly attack you or any of your community members, because State of Decay 2 isn't a PvP game. They can't go into your base and tear down all of your facilities. But there are plenty of ways that they can be a hostile force in your world because they can directly affect the simulation in meaningful ways.
Concept art
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2016/12/...stantially-larger-than-first-game-a-ign-first
There's a few more images at the link above where they also talk about moving to Unreal 4, I suppose the 'rules of the world' and how you interact in it with friends and NPC's.
I really enjoyed the first game (bought it on XB1 never played it on 360) and although it had its issues I think the core gameplay and how you progressed through the game was pretty brilliant. Really hoping we don't need to wait until E3 to see or read more.