


Fail to pay proper attention to most pressing needs of the survivors, and bad things start to happen. The more missions the player completes, the better their ragtag community will be able to deal with the hordes assaulting the gates of their home. There are abandoned houses and buildings to clear of zombies, survivors to recruit, and supplies like fuel, medicine, building materials, and ammunition to collect. After picking one of many unlockable survivors, the player can zoom around a map displaying a large number of objectives that must be completed in order to maintain - and, at the best of times, thrive - in a world gone to ruin. State of Decay plays like a potent distillation of the kind of compulsive side questing featured in Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry series.

Fortunately, its impressively broad, open-world approach to the fall of civilization earns the game a level of distinction, setting it apart from its peers. Yet this is exactly what Undead Labs has set out to do with its post-apocalyptic survival simulator, State of Decay. After multiple entries to series like Resident Evil, Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead, and The Walking Dead, any developer attempting to impress players with another zombie-centric videogame has their work cut out for them.
