State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition (XBox Series S)

Recently I was searching for a base building game, ideally one that didn't have much of a plot. This came up in a search result, so I gave it a go.

Gameplay

The basic gameplay loop is to gather loot from abandoned houses, fighting  zombies along the way, and then dropping the supplies off at your home base. Layered on top of that basic loop are systems like character development (leveling, skill trees) and rudimentary base building (selecting about five different types of buildings to place in defined areas).

These systems are what really drove me to keep playing a couple of hours in. Tweaking different things and finding out how different systems interact with each other is pretty fun, and can reduce the tedium of doing supply runs.

As for the actual base building mechanics, as a stand-alone feature there isn't a lot of creativity that you as a player can express in this area. You select presets and options for objects like kitchens, armories, bunks... but overall the game gave me the feeling that there are only a limited number of these base building options that would ever work together. Once you find the right mix of beds/gardens/outposts in your base, there is little incentive to set up new buildings or tweak what already works.

Story

There's no story really. You complete the usual open world quests like go here and kill a guy, and about 12 hours later you'll complete the game. Not a negative really, if you keep this in mind going into the game.

Graphics

I played this on my new XBox Series S. The graphics for the game look pretty dated at times, and sometimes the FPS dropped below 60.

Definitely not a 'next-gen' type game.

Conclusion

Overall, I found the experience enjoyable enough. The grind of bringing supplies back and killing zombies was propped up with a few different systems that can at times interact in interesting ways. Base building has a part to play, but not as much as I hoped it would.

7/10

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