State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition Review

Developer, Undead Labs, released State of Decay 2 back in 2018 and while it provided some much-needed improvements over its predecessor, the game felt stale and unfinished at the time. Fortunately, Undead Labs is not a company to leave a job unfinished and re-released the game in 2020 — replacing the original version and giving access to all DLC. The new and improved State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition provided an overhaul for many of the complaints raised against State of Decay 2 when it was first released. For the sake of this review, we will discuss the many changes that have occurred since the initial release of the game. For comparison, our site's original review of the 2018 version can be found here.

First, let's briefly cover the basics of the gameplay for those unfamiliar with the franchise. The premise of the game is that of a zombie survival simulator. You take control of some predetermined characters when you start the game and you can recruit more survivors as time progresses. In the beginning, you’re given the choice of picking one of five medium-size open worlds to survive in. Once you are in your chosen sandbox you need to establish a base, the home that you choose can be modified to fit your needs by building such things as an infirmary, workshop or even a latrine. However, building facilities takes materials, and maintaining them will also deplete your resources. It's an endless cycle of upkeep in a very dangerous world; a world where perma-death keeps the overly reckless from surviving too long. 

When it was first released, one of the primary complaints levied against State of Decay 2 was the game's graphical fidelity. There was a hazy look to everything and the textures looked rather muddy — despite being made with Unreal Engine 4. The team at Undead Labs has been able to improve various aspects in this category that they had to sacrifice for the launch of the original game. This includes improvements to screen space ambient occlusion, LOD’s, the addition of volumetric fog, optimised trees and foliage textures as well as an FX overhaul to explosions and fire. The difference this makes to the look of the game is actually quite striking. 

Media Credit: hYPERS

The audio of State of Decay 2 was already fantastic, this is something the team nailed during their previous entry with the original State of Decay. The tense music that starts up during an encounter; not knowing if you can make it all the way back home, or if perma-death is coming for your favourite character. It's one of the best parts of the game. Some nice changes were made for Juggernaut Edition. Including expanding the composition list, and adding several new effect sounds for things such as breakable objects and vehicle repair. Improvements were made to existing audio effects too, such as zombie attacks and radio conversations. 

The user interface has also received several tweaks. State of Decay 2’s UI is not the best as far as being intuitive, but there are certainly worse examples out there. With the Juggernaut Edition, efforts have been made to make information more readable, and a new category called “Story Goals” has been added to distinguish high-priority objectives on the map. 

Speaking of the map, originally the game came with three maps to choose from. Players would select one and that would be their sandbox in which to survive the zombie hordes. Juggernaut Edition added a new map called Providence Ridge. During the development of Providence Ridge, the developers at Undead Labs were able to use new techniques in order to create the environment in a far more natural manner. On the 22nd Feb 2022 the original three maps Cascade Hills, Drucker County, and Meagher Valley all received the same graphical overhaul to bring them in line with Providence Ridge and Trumbull Valley (made available in the Homecoming update, 1st September 2021). 

Undead Labs has been dishing out numerous free updates to the game since Juggernaut Edition launched. These updates have gone far beyond simple bug fixes, but rather have included game-changing aspects too, such as the ability to switch to a secondary firearm, customise the FOV (field of view), change your survivor's clothing, and trade with NPC survivors you bring with you on missions. A complete overhaul of the game's difficulty system was included in updates 18, 21 and 23. This brought the introduction of five levels of difficulty for you to choose from as well as the means to customise various aspects of the difficulties to your liking. Even before Juggernaut Edition launched Undead Labs was adding new things, a gameplay feature called the “Bounty Broker” was added in update 10 back in 2019. This NPC provides you with challenges that unlock a rotating supply of items, weapons and even clothing (added later), that change every month. 

Player Clothing Closet

On the whole, Undead Labs should be commended for sticking with its game and providing its community with so many free updates and enhancements over the years, especially when no microtransactions are involved. Today State of Decay 2 is so much improved from the original version that we think it deserves a completely new rating. 

State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition is available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S as well as on Steam, Epic and the Microsoft Store.