State of Decay: YOSE

Good game. Showing it's age though. SOD2 is better in almost every way except for story and characters.

It’s far from perfect and plagued by technical issues that hold it back.

The graphics, even in this "upgraded" version, feel dated and underwhelming. Textures are muddy, character models are stiff, and the world lacks the polish expected in a re-release. The combat, while functional, is clunky and repetitive, with melee attacks feeling weightless and gunplay lacking precision.

Worst of all, the game is still buggy. Verdict: 2/10, go straight to State of Decay 2 if you want to play the series.

Despite my low playtime on Steam, I have over 100 hours playing on console and this game and Bad Company 2 Vietnam are the sole reasons that got me through a tough time in my life in and out of hospital.

It was such a fresh take on a zombie game back when it realased on Xbox Arcade and it was by chance that I found it just scrolling through looking for games. It was so addicting and immersive, building up your base and scavenging and saying to my friend in party chat “One more search of a building then I’m off to bed” and 4 hours later at 5am Id still be scavenging. Was it a little janky? Of course it was, it was like £8 full price but what it offered help me get past that.

Here on Steam, it is not optimized at alllllll. I get stutters and frame drops, shadows glitching out, glitching animations and running around seems to feel weird, the AI is very glitchy and it just doesn’t feel like the same kind of game with these problems. I’m gonna recommend this as it’s such a good game if you can get it to work and in my opinion better than the sequel as I wasn’t too happy about the direction they were taking, focusing more on the blood plague than actual survival and living off the land so to speak. Basically what would happen in Walking Dead at the very beginning. As I said though if you do go ahead and purchase this, be warned it might not be to your liking with the performance.

Game still holds up. I bought it new on console back in ye olden days. Updated graphics are nice. Be cool if they updated again when/if they drop SoD3

Unique blend of 3rd person shooter and base build/survival. Good storyline, and it is a different experience on replays bc you can use different people. Probably the first game I played with an openly LGBTQ+ person so that's cool. For those concerned there is no sexual stuff in this game just blood and gore.

Dislikes would be building limitations. It's part of the tactics I know but i want to save everyone and rebuild the city or set up a legit second base :D

I had plenty of fun with this title.

The idea of this game is interesting: a post-apocalyptic zombie survial game. But the implementation went very wrong because of a whole series of bad development choices. They tried too much to create the feeling of a hard survival sandbox game, with all the consequences that go with it.
While playing this game a thought was popping in my mind very frequently: "was the developer's wish to create the most frustrating title on earth?". Because that was the feeling while playing this.

I will list here some of the examples why I found the mechanics of this game so frustrating:
- the zombies respawn! what? how on earth is that realistic. in my first playthrough I was naively trying to "thin the herd" by killing hundreds of zombies all around the map, then I realized they respawn and you can't win the game by attricion. there is no end to them
- there is a limited amount of weapons, cars and tools. and they decay and break down. with each precious car you can squash only a limited amount of zombies before the car gets destroyed, so you have to be careful with weapons and cars because like I said, zombies respawn.
- the thing that most I didn't like is that you are bombarded with a large number of main quests and secondary quests at the same time, and they are all time limited. you literally don't know what to do first, and they keep adding more and more. those secondary quests are mostly some crisis that pop up all around like "infection detected in a building", "group of survivors under attack", "dangerous high level zombie detected" etc.......
Those are random events that raise the threat/danger level of the map, so you have to solve them as quickly as possible to lower the danger level to your base.
In my first playthrough I thought it's better to do this secondary quests first, but I was wrong. Those are just random "daily quests" that pop up all the time, you can't resolve them because they will pop up again in another part of the map. In the meantime the timer of the main quests would run out so all the quest line would be messed up. Then I realized that the only way to solve the game is to push through the main quest line, and do just as many "daily quests" as is needed to keep the threat level under control.
- you have to search for all kinds of tools, weapons and resources in the hundreds of buildings of the map, but you actually have very limited time, because as I said you are covered with timed missions to do, so you never have the peace to go from house to house to clear them of resources. in my first playthrough I wanted to be methodical and slowly go from house to house, but this game isn't about that, it isn't about being rational and methodical, it's just frantic time management with the little time you have.
- in a real world scenario a group of survivors would pick a good place for a base, and it would stay there for as long as they can, they would fortify themselves there, develop the base and clear all the buildings nearby and conquer as much space. but in this game you get to stay in a base only for a short time before the story forces you to move somewhere else (to another base), so you can never fortify yourself and slowly develop the surroundings. so all those common sense strategy elements are completely absent.
- there are so many limitations in combat and doing anything: you can run only a small amount before the stamina bar gets to 0 and then the stamina bar gets smaller and smaller so you ultimately can't do anything anymore. so the main character has to rest to restore the stamina bar. also you have to get medical treatment for the infection eveytime your character gets a bite from zombies. all those things need time. and when your main character rests or gets medical treatment you have to play with another character. but you can only chose another character from those people who have "friends status", but they could be currently absent (they could be somewhere scavenging - you can't control other survivors they do what they want, often behaving irrationally, they do dangerous stuff and die and get infected easily), and also they have a much smaller skill set then your main character so it's harder to do anything with them.
- combat is not done well. there are hordes of zombies spawning all the time so I quickly understood that the only effective way is to put them down with cars, while the melee weapons and firearms are ineffective against unending hordes of zombies.
- there is permadeath. in my first playthrough the main character died and the rest of the group didn't have the adequate skills to continue.
It's very hard to describe the feeling while playing this game, but in essence it often was like this: " I can't solve problem A before I solve problem B, but I can't do that because currently I have problems C,D and E....".
In my second playthrough I realized the only way to finish this frustrating game is to rush through the main quests, and so I did. But when you do that you realize that this game is actually quite short when you focus on progressing the story. All the rest is just sand box content: "random daily quests", scavenging etc....
There are dozens of mods online made by the fan base that correct all the frustrating elements of this game. That fact alone tells you how badly the developers screwed up many parameters, making this game a horrible mess.

i bought after playing state of decay 2 and i loved state of decay 2 but didnt like this

I would like the game as a classic zombie game these day, but it gives me eye strain and makes me nauseous.

The camera is really bad. It zooms in and out too easy, and is too tight to the mouse. If there were a mod/patch to make the camera and controls like State of Decay 2, it'd be much better game as it'd actually be pla able for more than 30 minutes at a time.

For someone who has 914 hours in State of Decay 2 on the Windows PC Store since September of 2022, I must say I really enjoy the franchise. So this was on sale on here, and I had never played the this one before. So the base game is harder than standard zone of State of Decay 2, this one has no difficulty settings, but regular settings between both games, this one is harder. The mission structures with only being able to do one at a time is different, but understandable because this is the first game.

This game runs on Crytek Engine, with the second one being in Unreal Engine. Can't drive through fences in this one, trying to kill a Juggernaught with a vehicle will burst the tires, and will destroy vehicle if done from the front, but can still be done even with the car running on the rims. So try to use the back of the vehicle to get most zombies, if a vehicle flips over and you can't flip it back with another vehicle, it will explode later, so keep that in mind for anyone new coming in to play.

I'm playing Breakdown currently after beating the base game, and then beating Lifeline, I have not gotten everyone away safely in LIfeline, but it's fun to keep on trying again until you get everyone. I like Lifeline better than Daybreak in State of Decay 2 due to more people on your side, and you can drive around the city and do missions, so that is different. If does have a time crunch element to it with the sieges coming to attack the base.

This game still holds up well now in 2025, just good fun that you can play over and over. So if you wanted to get into the State of Decay Franchise this is a good place to start. It will be challenging, but it's nothing you can't handle, keep on and have fun doing so!

I played it after state of decay 2 and of course the sequel is much better. Still, i like that there is a story here and that you care a little bit about the characters.

I have a lot more hours on this game on my Xbox from over the years. It's a very fun game where I spend a lot of time just playing and trying to survive. I typically just come back every so often to play Breakdown, which is the only reason why I play this game still compared to State of Decay 2. The feeling of going as high as you can while things get increasingly difficult is what I enjoy and wish they had a mode with for State of Decay 2.

Yes, there is some bugs as a lot of people complain about and it can make things frustrating, but I still enjoy the premise you are given. The AI aren't the brightest but it is funny to watch them try and sometimes act like a fool. Overall, I'd say if you wanna try out Breakdown, you definitely should. In terms of the story though, just skip it. It's not interesting or fun because the difficulty is set to easy the entire time.

Overall I'd rate State of Decay: YOSE a 7/10.

brilliant

Not for me.

It was a really fun game it wasn't extremely hard or hardcore survival but very arcady and enjoyable. Had a blast playing through the game. It did had some jank and some bugs but other than that it was a fun experience.

I just feel like no progress keep doing missions but don't see an end or story or anything guy has a lot of bugs just feels a go here do this do that simulator

Complete clumsy garbage game. All you know about FPS is wrong. consistently ineffective weapons and far to many zombies will consistently keep you frustrated. They appear from nowhere walk through doors and will consistently over power you. They will never stop spawning even when you have spent all your materials time and cars to clear them. Dumbest game ever will not give your fingers a break for a second outside a safe zone.

A must play game

Great Game.. :)

Sometimes I boot up this game instead of the sequel don't tell undead labs it's our secret. what's in that watch tower?

I giggled and wiggled my feet every time I played this, 10/10

feels pretty old novadays, but still good

terrible

Liked: Different zombies that you will fight.
Liked: Able to gather resources from places of interest.
Liked: Different choices & challenges that seem to come.

Disliked: This game is not co-op.
Disliked: challenges/quests seem to be hard to do when trying to scavage.

Perfect zombie survival game if the plan involves duct tape, terrible driving and accidentally recruiting a guy named Dale who immediately gets eaten on a farm countryside and you have to put him down saying "I'm sorry, brother". Love watching the communities fall apart.

Seems cool, but in the first 15 minutes of playing I had three completely different bugs that either had me stuck in aiming a gun and zoomed in unable to do anything.

That's also not accounting for the fact that mouse and keyboard had irremovable mouse acceleration so it's essentially unplayable without a keyboard.

I like the game. I hope my hundred plus hours speaks to how much I liked it. The only thing is, the game is super buggy and can be frustrating. There are times that while on missions, despite there being multiple people with you, somehow no one helps you while you're being attacked? The are also times when you go inside a room and whoever you are with follows you, but they just stand near the door making your character unable to leave and you're just running around the room hoping they would move. It's frustrating because you just wanna play the game and half the time you are just running around trying to find a work around to these awful design to the game. Considering that this game is about 10 years old, these things should have been fixed already but I guess the devs don't want to do that. So maybe just check out the 2nd game. Or better yet, play something else from different devs who cares about their players.

Best zombie game what i have played so far.

Fun Classic Game.

i wish i could play sod2 but my laptop cant run it, sod1 is good enough for my ocd

The game is ok at first, but towards the end it's stuffy.

It's not clear where to get tasks, they just don't appear.

6 out of 10 game points

As the top comment has said, the controls and lack of optimization for pc play makes this game a rough experience for those that like to play as pc. If this game was better optimized for a pc I would've recommended it because the gameplay is fun and i still want to play it.

I would describe this as a somehow very addictive chore simulator. I wish the story would feature a little bit more prominently through cutscenes, dedicated characters that don't die, etc. but the game doesn't suffer too much for it.

One of the best formatted survival games out. goes from relaxing to utterly terrifying in seconds and requires strategy and ambition to survive.

Best zombie theme game I've played so far!

lilly would get dry humped

It's a great game with great story and gameplay but it is buggy especially with quests like if something happens where I'm receiving the beginning dialogue of a quest but then something happens like if i return to my base or get a notification from another app the dialogue will cut off and i won't get the quest, also sometimes NPCs offering sidequests will simply refuse to spawn even though you can hear them and see them on the map

Great game!

Someone send this to the Developers of State of Decay wanted to get it since it came out but never got ca chance. I haven't played State of Decay 2 yet but I hope State of Decay 3 does take notes.

pros
-fantastic sand box: upu can almost loot any where.
-massive inventory: probably I've never seen a game with that much of inventory/kit
-decent story line: not complex writing or anything but the story pays tribute to the golden zombie media era very good
in other words its a better Walking Dead game than the actual walking dead games
-Music: great soundtrack
-Character building: nice and fair distributing of the NPCs skills
World building: unbelievably detailed (can't say the same for Life line DLC)
-Good Allies AI: rarely when i play a game the friendly AI are smart enough to escape when i escape from enemies, I like that they don't engage in combat unless i do they're very reliable

Cons
-Respawn of Zeds: I hate that every time you empty a neighbor Zeds comeback anyways even if you build traps for them, every house every inch of the map has at least a pair of Zeds like come on do they breed?!
-rouge companions: they just like to suddenly leave the house and go after a Zed or worse a feral one of wayyy worse a freakin Jogurnut only recently i noticed that i can tell them to not do that mission.
-Baby setting: I hate that almost once an hour if not more i have to train, or boost the moral of a survivor by going out and fighting Zeds especially in a house that full of like 6 of them. i sometimes take advantage of them wanting to fight zeds and go to a close area that needs to be sacavgned and then i scavenge while they're watching my back, why isn't that enough for their moral to be boosted. One time 3 of my survivors needed their moral to be boosted, I HATED IT. I had to go back and forth from the house to really dangerous areas. I wish when there's a moral issue with multiple people they don't just stand around like idots and i can take them all on a trip of baby setting maybe that will make it more fun.
-Autonomy in Choosing a home: I wish it was more easy to pick any house instead of already pre-coded homes. like the big Dinner/Restaurant in the middle of the town seems like a great spot for a fortress, especially if you make the entire area around it outposts. \ I understand the devs want to make it challenging to us when we choose a home but still like this is supposed to be an Immersive game not a scripted one.
-No sand box inside your home area: the game is extremely flexible but not inside the home. I'm fine with the radio area being pre-coded but why other things like bedrooms, workbench, Infirmary are pre-coded?! especially if the areas to build such facilities are limited anyways!
-Lack of neighbors: Kind of annoying that 90% of the people are already Zeds, There should balance especially early on in the series. Hopefully that balance will happen in SOD 3 assuming it might be the finally of the series
-Radio stations: Alas I hope unlike in this game there e will be a post apocalyptic radio stations similar to the fallout New Vegas one


7/10 - Recommended more fun than Dayzzzzzzzz 🥱😴

Meh! Very repetitive. Buggy missions. No way to lower the zombie spawn rate. I would clear out a building and then with no zombies on my radar, and then 20 would appear out of no where. The game play was fine, but I'd end up just running zombies over in a vehicle.

Fun

Great game. I'm a strategy games and turn-based loving person, but I'm enjoying this. The first story mode is more about tactics and stealth and quests, while Breakdown is a sandbox with a "choose your progress" approach. Lifeline is totally different, you just die.

besides it being a curse to my wifi to randomly disconect its still a good game

I remember this game being a lot harder as a kid lol

Still holds up fairly well, def has a different feel than the second one which is more arcadey

I absolutely adore this game. Its demo before I was able to buy the game had a huge part in my childhood. Thank you undead labs for making one of the funnest games ive ever played. I cannot wait for SoD 3! If youre thinking of buying it there is jank to the game but thats the part I love about it. I 100% recommend picking it up on sale if youre unsure and playing it. Its a really fun experience!

While I completed the main story and enjoyed it, I can't recommend the game due to the horrible optimisation and controls. The game is plagued with performance issues and the worst controller deadzone I've ever had to deal with. I pushed through because the game itself was fun but it's let down because of the issues.

If you're playing at any resolution higher than 1080p I recommend setting it to 1080p and using Lossless Scaling to scale to your target resolution otherwise you'll have broken and flickering shadows.

Even on the YOSE version, game feels half-finished at most. Had the potential to be a decent zombie survival game but bogged down and mired with so many bugs. Controls still feel incredibly clunky, and on top of all that the multiplayer mode which could have been a great addition is half-baked and doesn't save progress for joining players.

Got this game at an extremely steep discount and still then I would hesitate to recommend this game to other players. Overall, a pretty unsatisfactory gaming experience.

love this game !!! can play over and over again.

I thought I bought state of decay 2 but only to NOW realize, after 25 hours, I got the wrong one.

Game was still alright

Its a game i just always go back to.

Great older zombie game very playable even today. Very satisfying to beat the zombies to death with what ever weapon is currently on hand. Does not require the latest graphics card to play. I'm currently 17 hours into it and am still learning the finer points of zombie killing.