Get ready Survivors because we’ve got a LOT to talk about!

We just announced not one, not two, but THREE major updates to State of Decay 2. First, we’ve got a new difficulty setting coming in 2019. This will bring you a more challenging player experience, and allow you to struggle through increased difficulty in new or existing communities. Keep an eye out on our social channels for more info on that in the coming months! Next, players will revisit Trumbull Valley sometime in 2019, bringing the setting for State of Decay 1 into the second game. Last but certainly not least we’re talking about Zedhunter, a huge content update coming in less than a week, on Nov. 16th! Read on below for all the details!

Zedhunter is the first free content update for State of Decay 2.

It unveils an iconic weapon that every bad-ass zombie slayer wants in their arsenal: the crossbow! Zedhunter also adds new melee and close-combat weapons to help you fight your enemies, a new option to reset a survivor’s core skill specializations, new quirk skills for your survivors, and potent new consumables that grant your survivors special abilities, such as night vision! (Also: new achievements!) To discover this new content, simply explore the world as normal. New missions also help you acquire some of the choice items!

 

So, let’s walk through what’s what in the new update (and yes it is FREE). There is a ton of stuff including:

  • Eight new crossbows
  • Three new melee weapons (aka SWORDS!) – the Wraith, Mamba, and Masterwork Bokken (which is a blunt training sword)
  • Three new close combat weapons (aka knives)
  • Five brand new blood plague consumables. Three of them harness blood plague: Zedeye (allows you to see in the dark outside), Zedrenaline (gives a temporary boost to health and stamina), and Scentblock (makes you invisible to zeds). Additional consumables are Zedbait (attracts zombies), and bloater gas grenades + launcher (can throw them manually or use the launcher – they won’t work against zombies but they are effective against hostile enclaves!)
  • A facility mod to craft additional blood plague consumables
  • The ability to craft crossbows + bolts in your home base
  • A new re-spec option (to reset a survivors core skill specializations)

 

So exciting, right?!? Now let’s talk about why you might want to outfit your entire team with our favorite of the new toys: the crossbow!

  • Stealthy: The crossbow is a perfectly silent weapon that lets you score head-shots without drawing unwanted attention. Some crossbows are even fitted with scopes that let you deliver the kill from a comfortable distance!
  • Efficient: Crossbow bolts can often be recovered after use, which lets you stretch your ammunition budget much further than you would with a firearm. What’s more, you can use even a baseline Workshop to craft crossbow bolts from materials and parts. Higher-end Workshops also let you build your own crossbows!
  • Durable: Crossbows never jam or break. You’ll never be stuck in the wilderness with a crossbow that won’t fire.
  • Surgical: Crossbows aren’t as clumsy or random as a shotgun or a rifle. This translates to a significantly higher chance of finding a plague sample when you kill a plague zombie

 

Moving onto some of the other new amazingness:

Re-specs – 

Selecting a skill specialization is a difficult choice, and it’s easy to look back on your decisions and wish you’d made them differently. With the new training manuals we’ve added to the game, your survivors will have exactly that option for any specialization choices made for the four core skills (Cardio, Wits, Fighting, and Shooting).

Any survivor who has reached 7 stars in one of the core skills can use one of these training manuals to remove a specialization from that core skill and gain the option to select any standard specialization of that skill. The books even unlock specializations that weren’t previously available to that survivor!

There is one small trade off that’s worth noting. Your newly retrained survivor will gain experience for the newly selected skill much more slowly than normal. We think you’ll agree that’s a small price to pay for this increased flexibility!

For a chance to trade for one of these rare books, track down the next Mysterious Wandering Trader you see on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

 

Plague Consumables –

Zedhunter features three potent plague consumables that can drastically enhance your survivor’s abilities. We should mention that they’re basically poison to humans, sickening their user with a touch of plague infection when consumed… but isn’t a little infection worth it for the ability to see in the dark, or sneak past zombies without drawing their attention?

This update also includes a few other new consumables that offer your survivor some new strategies. For instance, who hasn’t wanted to bottle up toxic bloater clouds, creating poisonous gas grenades that you can throw (or launch) at human enemies? (Don’t tell us we’re the only ones who’ve thought of that.) Have fun!

 

New Quirk Skills –

We’ve added five new quirk skills to the game, each of which offers a new buff to the survivor (or to their community). You’ll find these skills on newly encountered survivors in the world, so be sure to use that “Inspect Character” option when interacting with NPCs to determine who has something new to add to your community.

  • Hygiene increases the amount of plague infection needed to push this survivor into full-blown blood plague.
  • Recycling gives your community a regular income of parts and materials.
  • Shopping accelerates this survivor’s search speed, letting them find useful items more quickly while scavenging.
  • Sleep Psychology effectively increases the number of beds available to your community.
  • Soundproofing reduces the noise-driven threat of zombie attack on your base.

We’ve also added skill books for each of these new quirk skills (as well as the already-existing Sewing skill). You can find these skill books by tracking down the Skills Trader when that character visits your town.

 

Up Close and Personal

Zedhunter improves your arsenal of hand-held killing power with three new melee weapons. These weapons are designed to reward the stealthy player by being exceptionally silent in combat. We’ve also added three stylish new close-combat weapons that you can use when your primary weapon inevitably lets you down.

 

New Missions
To help introduce this new content, we’ve added several missions to the game (and updated others). If you want to experience these new missions, keep an eye out for anything labeled Mysterious!

Whew! That was a lot! Check out the trailer below, and make sure you keep an eye on our social channels for more updates leading up to the Zedhunter release.



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