State of Decay has surpassed half a million paid downloads making it the fastest selling original game ever on Xbox Live Arcade. This means it sold even faster than Minecraft (on the arcade). A lot of people still don't know what State of Decay is, the game is a mix between the open world zombie survival game DayZ, Dead Island, and GTA, with some RPG and even The Sims elements.
The gameplay is incredibly fun and the game includes a lot of unique and hardcore features such as permanent death, offline progression, having to manage many different survivors, having to explore and bring back supplies from dangerous zombie infested locations, and much more. It takes everything you love about zombie survival games and does it even better. Did I mention it's only $20 (1600 Microsoft Points)? The game is also coming to PC (Steam) in the future.
There are also vehicles you can drive (And run over zombies with), bases you can build and improve, rare items and weapons you can find, companions you can recruit, and a huge detailed open world to explore (where you can enter and search any building), State of Decay is the zombie survival game we have all been waiting for.
A note on the difficulty..it's not easy. If you're not careful, you will die in this game. Unlike many other games, it doesn't hold your hand, and if you get yourself in a bad situation, like getting lost somewhere with no ride, no meds, no hp, no stamina, and you attract some zombies, well then you're screwed. Game over. (An aspect I love in DayZ as well). All hope is not lost though as the sneaking in this game works well, and if you're in trouble, you can run away and hide in some bushes, and those dumb zombies will have a tough time finding you! Also you have multiple survivors, so if one dies, you can still continue the game on the other ones...so the perma death feature isn't as bad as you think. It still sucks losing your characters because skilling up in this game takes time, and losing an expert survivor is a huge blow to your entire group.
My favorite thing about this game is simply there is so much to do and so many different ways to do it. For example if you want to clear out a building, you have the choice of sneaking in quietly, going in guns blazing, distracting a huge zombie horde by driving your truck and honking the horn (like in the Walking Dead heh) and then getting out and slowly sneaking past the huge horde to get the items in the now empty building. There are many different dangerous situations you will find yourself in this game, and all are equally fun.
Another thing I forgot to mention is that the game world in State of Decay keeps running even when the game is off, so it adds a whole new interesting mechanic because crazy things can happen while you're not playing the game. For example you could play for a few hours, go do something else for a while, come back, and people in the game could be dead, and your morale lowered, as well as other random events. It keeps things interesting!
The only problem is there is currently no multiplayer. There are leaderboards for how many zombies killed as well as other stats, which is a plus. Even though I hope the multiplayer is added, I have to admit I am having a lot of fun with this game regardless.
A few notes from the developers about this feat:
- Yes, you guys took us over the half million mark. Actually, that milestone is SO last Friday, Jeff says. Now we’re over the 550,000 mark. We still don’t know what to say besides thank you for your encouragement and support. We didn’t know what to expect, so your continuing enthusiasm is humbling.
- Yes, it’s your feedback that helps us to determine the priorities in the Title Updates, and #2 is in the early phase of certification.
- Yes, when we release on PC, it will be via Steam. Date still TBD.
- And yes, Jeff DID just drop the sandbox mode bomb. We’re working on a pure sandbox mode for State of Decay, in large part because you asked for it. Again, the date is TBD, but we wanted you all to know it was coming.
Sales numbers source
Our helpful State of Decay section
Posted by: George K