Happy Anniversary State of Decay 2!

Celebrate With Us!

This month, State of Decay 2 turns two years old! To mark the occasion, we’ve created a content pack full of items that celebrate the history of the State of Decay franchise. Some are specifically drawn from our past, while others are brand new to the game.

We thank all our players, from those of you who’ve been with us from the first days of our apocalypse to the folks just joining us with the recent release of Juggernaut Edition. We hope this content pack brings back some treasured memories while also creating fun new ones!

In addition to the new Anniversary content pack, we’ve made a bunch of bug fixes and gameplay improvements, including:

Increased speeds for reloading firearms and refueling and repairing vehicles.

More improvements to combat with juggernauts, this time focused on melee weapons.

Improvements to follower AI in combat.

New beneficial community events driven by survivors with good morale.

Adjustments to mission pacing to reduce stress and randomization.

Read below for all the details!

New Weapons for Your Survivors

The Anniversary Pack adds 8 new weapons to the game, including two heavy weapons you can find by scavenging.

• Safari Razorback .44: The sidearm to grab when your elephant gun runs dry. Includes a muzzle brake and a military-grade scope. Unlock this beastly revolver by completing a task from the Bounty Broker.
• F45 Tactical: A heavy, durable combat pistol with an optic, large mag, and fast-firing trigger. Claim this very special pistol by completing a task from the Bounty Broker.
• AKS-74U Valentine:  Hard-hitting and fast-firing, this high-capacity submachine gun includes a sight and is chambered for rifle rounds. Add this gorgeous assault weapon to your arsenal by completing a task from the Bounty Broker.
• Ancestral Talwar:  One of two unique blades wielded by the heroic Gurubani Kaur, who first appeared in the updated Breakdown mode in State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition. Unsheathe this lethal weapon by completing a task from the Bounty Broker.
• Heirloom Khanda: The second of Gurubani Kaur’s iconic swords. To wield this hard-hitting blade, complete a task from the Bounty Broker.
• Industrial Wrench: The One and Only. Made in the USA by the Big Ass Wrench Company, and guaranteed to last as long as you do. Make it yours by completing a task from the Bounty Broker.
• Beetle Mallet: One swing is all you should need to knock down that horde... which is good, because you'll be exhausted after two. This heavy weapon can be found by scavenging in the game.
• Brick Hammer: Surprisingly lightweight and easy to swing for its size and knockdown.  For now, this heavy weapon is found exclusively in the remains of destroyed plague hearts.

New Outfits and More

This content update also includes four new outfits, a new hat, a new vehicle, and a new facility mod that’s perfect for celebrations!

•  Logo Ninja Hoodie: There’s just one way to make the ninja hoodie more awesome: by adding the logo of your favorite zombie survival game! You can unlock this outfit in your Closet by logging into the game between May 19, 2020 and June 28, 2020.
•  Undead Green Cattleman Hat: Now this is a hat that shows your true commitment to celebrating. Just like the Logo Ninja Hoodie, everyone who logs into the game between May 19, 2020 and June 28, 2020 receives this hat as a free gift!
• Sand Shark Hoodie: Last seen on a unique survivor in the Breakdown DLC for the original State of Decay, this iconic outfit is now available for any of your community members to wear, because it’s already waiting in your Closet!
• Brown Logo Combat Tee: Not everybody can pull off the t-shirt with combat pants look, but you’re special. Good news: this outfit is free to all players, so go check your Closet now!
• Red Talon Bomber Jacket: This sharp-looking jacket will make you the envy of all. You just have to complete a bounty for the Bounty Broker!
• Trumbull 4x4: This midsize pickup is designed for off-roading, with increased ground clearance and more suspension travel. In order to take it for a spin, you’ll need to complete a bounty for the Bounty Broker!
• Anniversary Cake Oven: Last but certainly not least is a very special facility mod that lets you craft fiery, zombie-killing “anniversary cakes.” Because a party’s not a party until you’ve invited a bunch of zombies over and set them on fire. Talk to the Bounty Broker to learn how you can score this unique facility mod!

Remember that all hats and outfits you’ve unlocked are shared across all communities on your account.

A Note on Retired Content Packs

As you’ve likely noticed, we’ve started retiring older content packs to make room for the new content. Already this year we’ve retired the World War 2 Pack, the Fearsome Footage Pack, and the Go Bag Pack.

This month the Critical Response Pack is joining the list of retired content, and in June we’ll retire the Trumbull Valley Pack to make room for another exciting set of new items.

When a content pack is retired, you keep anything you already own. However, you can’t acquire more items from retired packs, nor can you continue making progress on bounties from those packs.

If you don’t manage to complete all the bounties from a pack before it’s retired, don’t fret! In a world where corpses walk, nothing stays dead for long ...

Gameplay

The basic Shooting skill now awards improvements to Reload Speed.

• This means that Gunslinging specialists are no longer the only ones who can manage to reload an AK-47 without fumbling the magazine.
• Survivors with Gunslinging can still get far quicker at reloading than everyone else (and their maximum is still the same). The baseline is just higher for all experienced shooters.
  • You still want Gunslinging if you’re packing the Eternal Guard’s Infinite Rage — not that you ever really need to reload that one.

Last month, we fixed some problems that cropped up when fighting juggernauts with guns. This month, we’re extending that fix to melee weapons.

• Hitting a juggernaut in the back now does more damage than hitting it in the front.
• Hitting a juggernaut while staggered now damages it properly.
• Weapon impact now makes a major difference. Heavy weapons are over three times as useful against juggernauts as close combat weapons!
  • Don’t try stabbing a juggernaut to death with a screwdriver unless you’re looking for a bad time.

• Some weapon balance was done to help clarify the differences here. Specifically, heavy weapons (especially heavy blunt weapons) are now far and away the hardest hitters.
  • The Bell Club, Persian Meel, CLEO Mace, CLEO Hammer, and CLEO Greathammer have had their impact reduced to ensure that heavy weapons can fulfill their role as the heaviest of weapons.
  • The CLEO Greathammer had it’s swing cost reduced to compensate, since it’s primary strength is impact. It’s still top of the charts for blunt weapons.

Gas cans and toolkits now work 50% faster than before. You still don’t want to use them in the middle of a fight, but you also won’t want to claw your eyes out by the time they’re done.

• Advanced toolkits are unchanged. Because standard toolkits got faster, the advanced toolkits are now only about five times as quick, instead of the usual eight.

Rapidly opening and closing the Supply Locker no longer locks your character in a search animation.

Using the Interact button to finish a zombie now takes priority over a whole host of other interactions, not just container searches. This means you’re less likely to enter a vehicle or start a conversation when you’d rather be busy snuffing zeds.

It is now much easier to find those last few outfits and hats you’re looking for, as the random selection process is no longer making invisible fruitless attempts to offer you outfits you’ve already unlocked.

AI

• AI-controlled humans now engage more thoughtfully in combat, making better decisions about weapon use, staying focused when surrounded by zombies, and responding appropriately to freaks.
• AI-controlled followers will now prioritize getting into the car when you’re trying to beat a hasty retreat from combat, instead of going for just one … more … kill.
• Zombies near a player’s base will no longer be inexplicably drawn inside to cause unnecessary fights.
  • Zombies, especially hordes and freaks, now also do a better job at avoiding safe zones of all types.

• Knocking the helmet off an armored zombie no longer attracts attention from other zombies.

• Twice a day, characters with morale of Stable or higher now have a chance of finding extra resources each day, finding useful items, or finding weapons.
• Twice a day, characters with morale of Cheerful or higher may provide a variety of bonuses to the community, including morale boosts to all members of the community, resources, items, etc.

Missions

• Mission pacing has been re-tuned to reduce pressure, limiting the number of similar missions that can exist at once, and reducing the overall size of the typical mission list.
• The mission system also now pays more attention to context, with examples like:
  • Offering ambient missions when you’re away from base, and personal missions when you’re at home.
  • Making sure you have a resource available before asking you to donate a rucksack of it.

• The Bounty Broker’s introductory mission now generally appears when you enter his area of the map, rather than immediately after the starter missions are complete.
• Enclaves will now generally accept rucksacks of “Mystery Meat” to satisfy their requests for food. The game still won’t recognize that this makes you a terrible person.
• The starting mission when skipping the tutorial in the Dread Zone now correctly causes all plague hearts to appear on your map.
• Warlord: To Stop a Thief now avoids getting hung up if a character is accidentally killed by a zombie.
• Warlord: Might Makes Right now avoids getting hung up on the objective to upgrade your Fighting Gym to level 2.
• Builder: Useful Utilities now recognizes the power and water provided by the Prescott Fire Station, and no longer asks you to double up on them.

Watch on YouTube

User Interface

• We fixed a problem that occasionally removed an incorrect plague heart from the map UI, causing it to seem that you had destroyed all the plague hearts on the map when you hadn't.
• We revised a couple of common icons in the UI to make them easier to understand.
  • The icon identifying the Consumables tab on the Supply Locker now more accurately represents the items you are likely to find inside.
  • The map icon for “move to this location” mission objectives is now more recognizable as an arrow when zoomed all the way out.
  • Vehicles delivered by a radio command now have a different icon than supply drops summoned by a radio command, to help distinguish between them.

• Vehicles delivered by a radio commands are now always visible on the map until you first get into them (no matter how zoomed out your map is), just like supply drops summoned by radio commands.
• We fixed a bug that could cause players returning from multiplayer to lose access to their Difficulty menus.
• We fixed a bug that, under rare circumstances, was causing the Map and Difficulty selection interfaces to persist on-screen after they were supposed to go away.

Environments

• We continued to make minor improvements to the maps to remove trouble spots where players could navigate to weird locations and get stuck. We also stapled down a few floaty props.