The Choose Your Own Apocalypse Update is a free upgrade launching March 26 at 10am PDT for all State of Decay 2 players, including those with access via Xbox Game Pass and owners of the Standard and Ultimate editions.

The update includes two additional difficulty options — Dread Zones and Nightmare Zones.

  • Dread Zones are designed to offer exciting new challenges to experienced State of Decay 2 players.
  • Nightmare Zones are grueling endurance tests for truly hardcore players.

You can bring an existing community to one of these zones via the new Difficulty Screen (to the right of the Base Screen), or start a brand-new community within one.

Beware! Permadeath is still a thing, and these new zones are much more unforgiving than Standard Zones.

Dread Zones

Here are the additional challenges you will face when you play within a Dread Zone. (Bold items were specifically requested by the community.)

  • Legacy Boons

    • A Legacy Boon must be earned in either a Dread Zone or a Nightmare Zone before you can use it in a Dread Zone.
    • A Legacy Boon that has only been earned in a Standard Zone will be disabled upon entering a Dread Zone.

  • Communities

    • Morale is lower by default (though you can earn some new temporary Morale bonuses).
    • Threat level is elevated, making sieges at your base more frequent and more dangerous.
    • Some facilities cost more to build and to use.
    • Some radio commands cost more influence, and many have longer cooldowns between uses.

  • Zombies

    • Zombies and freaks are more numerous.
    • Hordes are larger and more frequent, and some of them wear armor.
    • Zombie attacks do more damage and cause more injuries.
    • Zombies are no longer visible on the mini-map unless your active character has the Scouting skill.
    • Zombies can hear your gunshots from farther away.
    • Zombies will spend longer chasing a noise before losing interest.
    • Zombies no longer have their attention drawn to noisemakers if they have already spotted a human.

  • Blood Plague

    • Blood Plague is more infectious and kills you faster.
    • Plague hearts are harder to kill and drop more rewards.
    • Plague hordes are much larger and plague juggernauts are on the loose.
    • The fumes from damaged plague hearts cause blood plague.

  • Hostile Humans

    • Hostile NPCs are more alert and aggressive.
    • Hostile NPCs do more damage with their attacks.
    • Hostile NPCs can survive a headshot or two before dying.

  • Scavenging

    • There are fewer resources and items to be found in the world.
    • Some of the sites in each map have been completely looted before you even get there.
    • There are fewer vehicles on the map, and the vehicles you do find are more likely to be damaged or low on fuel.
    • Collisions and zombie attacks do more damage to vehicles.

Nightmare Zones

Nightmare Zones have all the same challenges as Dread Zones, plus:

  • Legacy Boons

    • A Legacy Boon must be earned in a Nightmare Zone before you can use it in a Nightmare Zone.
    • A Legacy Boon that has only been earned in a Standard Zone or a Dread Zone will be disabled upon entering a Nightmare Zone.

  • Communities

    • Community members consume more food daily.
    • Standing and experience gains are reduced.
    • Facilities cost much more to build and to use.

  • Zombies

    • Zombies are even more likely to inflict injuries.
    • There are significantly more freaks and hordes in the world.
    • Zombies have an extremely long memory for where noises came from.
    • Zombies that can’t reach you draw more zombies to investigate.
    • Screamers draw more zombies when they scream.
    • Bloaters, screamers, and ferals can travel in packs.

  • Blood Plague

    • Blood plague is even more virulent.
    • Plague hearts are more abundant.

  • Hostile Humans

    • Hostile NPCs do even more damage with their attacks.
    • Hostile NPCs can take even more headshots before dying.
    • Hostile NPCs have a chance to headshot the player, bringing them near death.

  • Scavenging

    • There are even fewer resources and items to be found out in the world.
    • Many of the sites in each map have been completely looted before you can even get there.
    • Vehicles are even rarer, and tend to show up broken-down and out of gas.
    • Guns are more likely to break or jam.

Achievements

There are also 16 new Achievements to earn in Dread Zones and Nightmare Zones, collectively worth 275 Gamerscore.

A couple of them may be dubious distinctions triggered by character deaths.

General Updates

We’ve also continued to make improvements to the core game, based in large part on feedback from our community. The big ticket items include:

  • A new interface for managing your legacy survivors. When you add new legacy characters to the pool, you get to decide who stays and who goes.
  • A new menu that lets you choose your map when establishing a new community.
  • A fix to plague hearts that makes them less vulnerable to explosions.
  • A fix to the Stealth skill that keeps your character from creeping around by themself without your permission.
  • A change that allows your inactive characters to heal when you are a client in multiplayer.

Check out the full detailed list below:

User Experience

  • Community Request: We’ve added a new Character Manager that allows you to view and edit your collection of legacy survivors each time you complete a Legacy.
    • Now your characters are not deleted behind the scenes when you complete a legacy and exceed the 50-character cap.
    • Instead, each time you add new characters to the pool, you have a chance to manually select which to keep and which to dismiss.
  • Community Request: You can now select which map you wish to play on when creating a new community, entering a new zone, or switching to a new map.
  • Community Request: We fixed a player-reported bug that was causing elements of the Leader Selection interface to persist after the interface was closed.
  • When you complete a Legacy, you are now returned to the Main Menu, rather than being prompted to immediately start a new game.
  • When you are low on a particular resource, rucksacks containing that resource will pulse to draw attention to themselves.
  • Notifications for positive events like influence rewards are now flashier and easier to notice.

Community Management

  • Community Request: New Red Talon recruits can no longer receive the backup “Good Example” hero bonus, because it’s kind of pathetic compared to the unique Red Talon ones.
  • Community Request: Your follower is now treated as a high-priority character by the population-management system, and will no longer wink out of existence when you approach a base full of people.
  • We improved the camera behavior when switching to a character within the base to prevent it from getting stuck in a broken state.
  • Characters now leave stealth when being cured of blood plague, to avoid some rare disasters.
  • Stacking experience penalties can no longer reduce a character’s experience rate below 25%.
  • The Infirmary now displays the correct rate of meds usage when treating Blood Plague.

Gameplay

  • Community Request: Sneaking with the Stealth skill no longer causes involuntary movement.
  • Community Request: We improved how our characters held some firearms, to make sure their hands lined up with the proper grips.
  • Community Request: CLEO weapons now award the correct experience types for improving Fighting specializations (like Striking and Swordplay).
  • Community Request: Your character now remembers the state of their flashlight as they get in and out of vehicles. So if you get in with your light on, you get out with your light on.
  • You can now break open the rucksack on your back while searching a container.

Zombies

  • Community Request: Ambient zombies now actively avoid entering the Safe Zones around player bases, enclave bases, outposts, and other secured sites.
    • They will still chase you inside if you get their attention, but they won’t just wander in for no reason.
  • Plague hearts now drop more loot in addition to the usual plague samples. (Let’s not think too hard about how these items got there.)
    • The loot gets better in Dread Zones, and reaches its apex in Nightmare Zones.
  • We fixed a rare case where you could hit a zombie with an unexploded grenade and knock all their limbs off.
  • We fixed a bug that was making plague hearts too sensitive to explosions. You can now expect killing a plague heart in a Standard Zone to take approximately:
    • 7 soda can bombs OR 4 pipe bombs OR 3 frag grenades OR 2 C4 charges

Radio Commands

  • The item that triggers the Sniper Support radio command can now be used from within a vehicle.
  • The Blood Plague Assistance supply drop now contains the intended two rucksacks, instead of only one.
  • The Roadside Assistance supply drop can now contain multiple toolkits and gas cans, instead of only one of each.

Multiplayer

  • Community Request: Inactive characters in a client’s community now heal at the same rate as the host’s inactive characters. This should help keep you going during long co-op games.
    • Depending on the host’s facilities, this healing can affect Health loss, trauma, and injuries.
  • We reduced instances where a client driving a car could be tethered to the host, then arrive in the middle of an obstacle and immediately explode.

Missions

  • Community Request: We fixed a player-reported bug where a sniper rifle in one of the Eagle Eye missions was arriving with way more rounds in it than its magazine could hold.
  • We fixed a bug that was causing bloater deaths not to be counted properly for some mission objectives.

Other Stuff

  • Community Request: We fixed terrain and geometry in various places (including some called out by players) to prevent folks from unexpectedly crashing vehicles or getting stuck.
  • We fixed a number of instances where characters could fall through the world.
  • We made some improvements to hostile human AI, particularly around their base.
  • We made further improvements to multiplayer stability.