Welcome to the Public Test Realm
Do you dream of influencing your favorite zombie survival game? Do you love getting your hands on new features before anyone else and making them better? Do you secretly wish you could be a QA tester? Join the Public Test Realm, the open beta for State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition, open now!
The Life And Times of Playtesting
We are continuing active development on the game, from mechanics to features. As developers, we always want player feedback as we make changes. There’s no better way to do that than by hearing from you before those changes even ship.
Once you’re in the open beta, you’ll be shown a QR code that links to a survey. The QR code and the button to take the survey are available at all times from the pause screen. You will use that to give us your honest feedback. Be sure to join the developers and your fellow testers in our official Discord (join the Public Test Realm channel!)
Our primary goal is to make sure we’re creating changes you enjoy, that enhance your gameplay experience. The added bonus is that we get to be more transparent with you about what we’re making and why. Win-win!
Introducing Plague Territories, Landmark Outposts, and Upgradeable Outposts
We’ve added three new features to enhance the strategic challenge of the game. All three affect the map in ways that won’t show up for existing communities, so you must change maps (or map difficulty) to try them out. All new communities will have these features enabled by default.
Plague Territories are infected regions controlled by plague hearts. You cannot claim a home site or an outpost within plague territory until you have defeated the nearby plague heart that controls that location. Note that some locations may be “claimed” by multiple plague hearts with overlapping territories!
Landmark Outposts are unique sites that offer three different benefit strategies to choose from when you claim them as an outpost. Each map features one such outpost for you to try.
Resource Outposts (the ones that offer Food, Ammo, etc) now allow you to upgrade them to enhance their benefits.
When you’ve tried the new features, please follow the link to fill out the survey. We’re running this beta specifically to hear your thoughts!
Getting Started
Tl;dr? We got you. Here are the quick links.
- All the FAQ about the Public Test Realm
- A visual guide to opting in
- Reminder: You can access the survey by opening the QR code anytime while your beta game is paused. We recommend a couple hours of experimentation with the new features first!
About the Public Test Realm
On your first launch of the Test Realm build, your communities from the Retail version will be transferred over, if you had any. Note: from this point forward, your save is forked. Any progress or changes you make in the Test Realm will not copy back to the Retail version, and vice versa. You can freely return to playing in the Retail version of State of Decay 2 at any time. Your communities will be exactly as you left them.
Multiplayer will work in the Public Test Realm, but only with other Test Realm players. When we are not actively testing features in the Test Realm, we will push the Retail version of the game to this environment. See our FAQ for more answers to questions like these.
Because this is a long-term open beta, you will be the first to playtest all ongoing improvements to State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition. The content and focus of the beta will change as we develop these new features and mechanics.
You can learn about the most recent beta content in future Steam updates and on our newsletter specific to beta test subscribers, so be sure to sign up to be notified.
Thanks for Your Help!
The Public Test Realm is open and available now. We appreciate the time and feedback you’re providing — and so will the many players whose experiences are improved because of your efforts.
–State of Decay 2 Development Team
