E3 2016: State of Decay 2 Is 4-Player Co-op, Isn't an MMO

By Ryan McCaffrey Microsoft and Undead Labs' just-announced zombie-survival sequel State of Decay 2 isn't a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, according to Undead Labs founder Jeff Strain. But it used to be.

In an interview with IGN, Strain said that State of Decay 2 aims to give fans "exactly what they want," which is a new zombie apocalypse survival RPG with drop-in/drop-out cooperative play for up to four players. It does not require any online connection.

"The #1 request our fans had from State of Decay was, 'Give me co-op multiplayer,'" Strain said. "[So we said,] 'Let's give our fans exactly what they want.' So we took a couple of steps back and changed direction and that's what State of Decay 2 is."

When development first began on the sequel, however, the game apparently did resemble its "Class4"-codename roots; Undead Labs did start down the MMO road. "It was a server-hosted, online world," Strain said, "with the business models that go along with that: subscriptions [or] free-to-play."

He elaborated on the nature of the co-op play: "This is not a session-based experience. It's drop-in/drop-out. They key thing that I want everybody to know is, it doesn't require you to be online. We've designed it very much with the intention of it being the easiest, most convenient type of multiplayer you can imagine."

The sequel also scraps the original game's CryEngine-based technology for an Unreal Engine 4-powered backbone.

The first State of Decay has sold over five million copies, according to Strain.

Hear the full interview with Strain on next week's episode of Podcast Unlocked, airing on Wednesday, June 22.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/06/14/e3-2016-state-of-decay-2-is-4-player-co-op-isnt-an-mmo

Great game and deserves the sales.

Deserved sales, I'm one of those 5 millions

I liked and hated this game equally. It has something special and it can be pretty addictive but at the same time it can be really mediocre in many aspects. Not a bad game at all though, maybe the 2nd will be everything this wasn't.

Was it not part of a humble bundle?

How did you miss it? Get a cheap copy of SOD on X1, its an RPG with community and inventory management aspects, resource scavenging and production, third person action elements and a good apocaliptic and post-apocaliptic story and setting. The music is the best ever on any zombie survival game.

I'm one of those!.

I liked the game for what it was despite it being a bit on the low res/buggy side, I liked how it worked, though I won't be playing the second game with it being tied to Win 10.

The article has been updated:

The older version did indeed say sold:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160614050931/http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/06/14/e3-2016-state-of-decay-2-is-4-player-co-op-isnt-an-mmo

So the game did not sell five million copies.

What's a little shocking to me is that the story was corrected but the article contains no mention of this. Beyond terrible reporting on Ryan McCaffrey's end, you really should mention that because else misinformation keeps spreading...