Toward Brighter Days

Welcome to the latest update for State of Decay 2!

Winter isn’t done with us yet, but we can take heart from the ever-lengthening daylight that foretells the coming rebirth of spring.

We’re still hard at work improving the game in ways big and small. This update expands your options for recruiting new community members, adds mouse-and-keyboard support for Xbox players, brings back the Trumbull Valley Pack, and standardizes a monthly rhythm for returning content packs.

Celebrating Black History Month

Before we dive into more details on the improvements to the game, we want to point out a special outfit item appearing this month. This unique t-shirt is inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and the NAACP’s “We Are Done Dying” campaign. The image is designed by artist Ty Ferrell and portrays a figure kneeling in peaceful protest, with images of raised fists arranged behind him in a manner reminiscent of State of Decay’s familiar logo.

You can find the new Basic Tee (Done Dying) outfit in your Closet starting on February 8.

A physical version of this T-shirt is also available for purchase between February 8 and March 1 by visiting StateOfDecay.com/naacp. Sales of this shirt will benefit the NAACP.

The physical shirt will be available for purchase ONLY during this time-frame. No reprints are planned.

Recruiting from Neutral and Friendly Enclaves

New recruits are the lifeblood of any community, but they can sometimes be hard to find. At least until today!

Starting now, every non-hostile ambient enclave offers you the option to recruit. This means as long as they’re not shooting at you, and they’re not busy with their own problems (embroiled in an ongoing mission arc), you can recruit from among their ranks.

  • Allied enclaves still allow you to recruit for free, as they always have.
  • Friendly enclaves now allow you to recruit for 750 Influence.
  • Neutral enclaves now allow you to recruit for 1500 Influence.

So now if you need recruits, the simplest way to get them is to use the radio to contact a new Enclave, meet up with them, and then spend the influence to recruit from them that very minute.

The Trumbull Valley Pack Returns

This content pack celebrates the sleepy little valley where it all started. It features six weapons that first appeared in the Heartland expansion, plus four outfits worn by iconic survivors from that storyline! It also includes the Improvised Weapon Station, a fan-favorite facility mod that lets you craft an array of useful weapons from spare bits and pieces lying around your base. Visit the Bounty Broker to find out how to earn these items!

(We had previously indicated that the Critical Response Pack would be cycling back this month, but Trumbull Valley was a better fit for the schedule. A revised and improved Critical Response Pack will return later this year.)

Bounty Broker News

Over the past year-plus, we’ve been adding new content packs to the game via the Bounty Broker. We now have 11 distinct collections of weapons, outfits, and other useful gear, each with its own theme, from pirates and soldiers to cowboys and movie monsters.

And now we’ve also implemented a new schedule for this library of content packs to automatically cycle in and out of the game. The first day of each month now includes an update of the Bounty Broker’s inventory, with one pack returning to circulation while another leaves. This provides you with a regular and predictable schedule to know when packs are coming and going, and does not require you to download an update to the game.

For example:

  • On the first day of March, the Pawn Shop Pack will return, replacing the Fearsome Footage Pack.
  • On the first day of April, the Plunder Pack will return, replacing the Stay Frosty Pack.

… and so on. We’ll keep you apprised of upcoming packs (especially any with new or updated content) as we go!

Mouse and Keyboard Support on the Xbox

After this update, the game no longer assumes that console players are restricted to using a controller. Now if you hook up a mouse and keyboard to your Xbox, or connect to the game via Remote Play on a PC, you can control it using the same customizable mouse and keyboard controls that have always been available when playing the game directly on a PC.

Thank you for all the Wishlist requests! (There were so very many of them!)

More Fixes and Improvements

  • Zombies (especially Bloaters) are no longer allowed to spawn right on top of you when you are traveling at speed. They were abusing their spawning privileges, and have been punished.
  • Non-hostile enclaves will now unlock all the doors when they move into a new site, so you won’t have to bash down their door when they invite you inside. This one came from the Wishlist!
  • The CLEO Accelerator and CLEO Tumbler have been upgraded to take their rightful place among all the other recently-upgraded muzzle attachments.
    • The updated CLEO Accelerator has increased impact, knockback, and range, at the cost of greater recoil. It makes a weapon more effective against big targets, and at longer distances, but you have to aim and fire more carefully.
    • The updated CLEO Tumbler splits projectiles in half, increasing spread and greatly increasing the chance of dismemberment, at a cost to range and accuracy. It’s a great way to take apart a crowd, but not great for sniping.
  • Active sieges now automatically pin themselves to your HUD when you return home and trigger the countdown to the assault, making it easier to notice the siege before you’re wading in Juggernauts.
  • We fixed a problem that was causing Juggernauts to evaporate while attempting to chase a human into a building.
  • Survivors with the Sexting skill are no longer weirding people out, and are instead using their wit and charm for the good of the community, earning a minor income of +5 Influence per day.
  • Pressing the Map button a second time before the map has fully appeared will no longer close the map as soon as it arrives. This should make it easier for players using Remote Play to avoid accidentally re-closing the map when experiencing input delay.
  • The Forge facility has been re-tuned so that even at higher difficulty levels, with all their added Materials costs, it is still a more profitable way to turn Materials into Parts than just converting them in Storage.
    • This actually came out in Update 23. We just forgot to mention it.