Choose Your Own Apocalypse Update
The Choose Your Own Apocalypse Update is a free upgrade for all State of Decay 2 players, including those with access via Xbox Game Pass and owners of the Standard and Ultimate editions.
The update includes two additional difficulty options — Dread Zones and Nightmare Zones.
- Dread Zones are designed to offer exciting new challenges to experienced State of Decay 2 players.
- Nightmare Zones are grueling endurance tests for truly hardcore players.
You can bring an existing community to one of these zones via the new Difficulty Screen (to the right of the Base Screen), or start a brand-new community within one.
Beware! Permadeath is still a thing, and these new zones are much more unforgiving than Standard Zones.
Dread Zones
Here are the additional challenges you will face when you play within a Dread Zone. (Bold items were specifically requested by the community.)
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Legacy Boons
- A Legacy Boon must be earned in either a Dread Zone or a Nightmare Zone before you can use it in a Dread Zone.
- A Legacy Boon that has only been earned in a Standard Zone will be disabled upon entering a Dread Zone.
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Communities
- Morale is lower by default (though you can earn some new temporary Morale bonuses).
- Threat level is elevated, making sieges at your base more frequent and more dangerous.
- Some facilities cost more to build and to use.
- Some radio commands cost more influence, and many have longer cooldowns between uses.
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Zombies
- Zombies and freaks are more numerous.
- Hordes are larger and more frequent, and some of them wear armor.
- Zombie attacks do more damage and cause more injuries.
- Zombies are no longer visible on the mini-map unless your active character has the Scouting skill.
- Zombies can hear your gunshots from farther away.
- Zombies will spend longer chasing a noise before losing interest.
- Zombies no longer have their attention drawn to noisemakers if they have already spotted a human.
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Blood Plague
- Blood Plague is more infectious and kills you faster.
- Plague hearts are harder to kill and drop more rewards.
- Plague hordes are much larger and plague juggernauts are on the loose.
- The fumes from damaged plague hearts cause blood plague.
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Hostile Humans
- Hostile NPCs are more alert and aggressive.
- Hostile NPCs do more damage with their attacks.
- Hostile NPCs can survive a headshot or two before dying.
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Scavenging
- There are fewer resources and items to be found in the world.
- Some of the sites in each map have been completely looted before you even get there.
- There are fewer vehicles on the map, and the vehicles you do find are more likely to be damaged or low on fuel.
- Collisions and zombie attacks do more damage to vehicles.
Nightmare Zones
Nightmare Zones have all the same challenges as Dread Zones, plus:
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Legacy Boons
- A Legacy Boon must be earned in a Nightmare Zone before you can use it in a Nightmare Zone.
- A Legacy Boon that has only been earned in a Standard Zone or a Dread Zone will be disabled upon entering a Nightmare Zone.
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Communities
- Community members consume more food daily.
- Standing and experience gains are reduced.
- Facilities cost much more to build and to use.
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Zombies
- Zombies are even more likely to inflict injuries.
- There are significantly more freaks and hordes in the world.
- Zombies have an extremely long memory for where noises came from.
- Zombies that can't reach you draw more zombies to investigate.
- Screamers draw more zombies when they scream.
- Bloaters, screamers, and ferals can travel in packs.
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Blood Plague
- Blood plague is even more virulent.
- Plague hearts are more abundant.
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Hostile Humans
- Hostile NPCs do even more damage with their attacks.
- Hostile NPCs can take even more headshots before dying.
- Hostile NPCs have a chance to headshot the player, bringing them near death.
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Scavenging
- There are even fewer resources and items to be found out in the world.
- Many of the sites in each map have been completely looted before you can even get there.
- Vehicles are even rarer, and tend to show up broken-down and out of gas.
- Guns are more likely to break or jam.
Achievements
There are also 16 new Achievements to earn in Dread Zones and Nightmare Zones, collectively worth 275 Gamerscore.
A couple of them may be dubious distinctions triggered by character deaths.
General Updates
We've also continued to make improvements to the core game, based in large part on feedback from our community. The big ticket items include:
- A new interface for managing your legacy survivors. When you add new legacy characters to the pool, you get to decide who stays and who goes.
- A new menu that lets you choose your map when establishing a new community.
- A fix to plague hearts that makes them less vulnerable to explosions.
- A fix to the Stealth skill that keeps your character from creeping around by themself without your permission.
- A change that allows your inactive characters to heal when you are a client in multiplayer.
Check out the full detailed list below:
User Experience
- Community Request: We've added a new Character Manager that allows you to view and edit your collection of legacy survivors each time you complete a Legacy.
- Now your characters are not deleted behind the scenes when you complete a legacy and exceed the 50-character cap.
- Instead, each time you add new characters to the pool, you have a chance to manually select which to keep and which to dismiss.
- Community Request: You can now select which map you wish to play on when creating a new community, entering a new zone, or switching to a new map.
- Community Request: We fixed a player-reported bug that was causing elements of the Leader Selection interface to persist after the interface was closed.
- When you complete a Legacy, you are now returned to the Main Menu, rather than being prompted to immediately start a new game.
- When you are low on a particular resource, rucksacks containing that resource will pulse to draw attention to themselves.
- Notifications for positive events like influence rewards are now flashier and easier to notice.
Community Management
- Community Request: New Red Talon recruits can no longer receive the backup "Good Example" hero bonus, because it's kind of pathetic compared to the unique Red Talon ones.
- Community Request: Your follower is now treated as a high-priority character by the population-management system, and will no longer wink out of existence when you approach a base full of people.
- We improved the camera behavior when switching to a character within the base to prevent it from getting stuck in a broken state.
- Characters now leave stealth when being cured of blood plague, to avoid some rare disasters.
- Stacking experience penalties can no longer reduce a character's experience rate below 25%.
- The Infirmary now displays the correct rate of meds usage when treating Blood Plague.
Gameplay
- Community Request: Sneaking with the Stealth skill no longer causes involuntary movement.
- Community Request: We improved how our characters held some firearms, to make sure their hands lined up with the proper grips.
- Community Request: CLEO weapons now award the correct experience types for improving Fighting specializations (like Striking and Swordplay).
- Community Request: Your character now remembers the state of their flashlight as they get in and out of vehicles. So if you get in with your light on, you get out with your light on.
- You can now break open the rucksack on your back while searching a container.
Zombies
- Community Request: Ambient zombies now actively avoid entering the Safe Zones around player bases, enclave bases, outposts, and other secured sites.
- They will still chase you inside if you get their attention, but they won't just wander in for no reason.
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Plague hearts now drop more loot in addition to the usual plague samples. (Let's not think too hard about how these items got there.)
- The loot gets better in Dread Zones, and reaches its apex in Nightmare Zones.
- We fixed a rare case where you could hit a zombie with an unexploded grenade and knock all their limbs off.
- We fixed a bug that was making plague hearts too sensitive to explosions. You can now expect killing a plague heart in a Standard Zone to take approximately:
- 7 soda can bombs OR 4 pipe bombs OR 3 frag grenades OR 2 C4 charges
Radio Commands
- The item that triggers the Sniper Support radio command can now be used from within a vehicle.
- The Blood Plague Assistance supply drop now contains the intended two rucksacks, instead of only one.
- The Roadside Assistance supply drop can now contain multiple toolkits and gas cans, instead of only one of each.
Multiplayer
- Community Request: Inactive characters in a client's community now heal at the same rate as the host's inactive characters. This should help keep you going during long co-op games.
- Depending on the host's facilities, this healing can affect Health loss, trauma, and injuries.
- We reduced instances where a client driving a car could be tethered to the host, then arrive in the middle of an obstacle and immediately explode.
Missions
- Community Request: We fixed a player-reported bug where a sniper rifle in one of the Eagle Eye missions was arriving with way more rounds in it than its magazine could hold.
- We fixed a bug that was causing bloater deaths not to be counted properly for some mission objectives.
Other Stuff
- Community Request: We fixed terrain and geometry in various places (including some called out by players) to prevent folks from unexpectedly crashing vehicles or getting stuck.
- We fixed a number of instances where characters could fall through the world.
- We made some improvements to hostile human AI, particularly around their base.
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We made further improvements to multiplayer stability.
Comments
39 comments
When does it update
How do you trigger the update in Microsoft Store?
WHEN WILL THIS COME OUT FOR PC USERS?
So I updated the new patch on my new PC and I transferred one of my gameplays to the new nightmare mode and when it loaded as soon as I left my base and ran into a freak pack my game closed on its own and continues to do that every time I try to play it
So is it basically better to almost fully complete the game in standard and then switch to nightmare mode in order to earn the nightmare Boon? Will the boon still be earned?
Después de esta actualización, el juego cierra segundos después de la apertura. De hecho, es bastante molesto esperar tanto tiempo para una actualización y que esta actualización viene rompiendo el juego entero. Voy a ver si desinstalar e instalar de nuevo se soluciona, si no, estoy arriba atornillada : /
Edit: After installing again, the problem has been fixed
Experiencing major lag on co-op that was not there yesterday. I can connect to m friend for maybe 2-3 minutes, and it disconnects me.
Can you please look into the bug where you randomly can't fight or climb until you attempt a grapple. Always seems to happen during a plague hart mission and gets my survivor infected.
Things I would love to see to play State of Decay 2 24/7.
Open Server: Have the ability to have a PvP setting where multiple players can take up their own home bases. They can either team up or just stay hostile towards each other.
Multiple Bases / Manned Outposts: Having multiple "home" bases or Manned Outposts will give us more incentive to focus our attention on areas that need help. Lets say an outpost / base is under attack from raiders or zombies. We would have to go there and defend or salvage what's left of it. Then imagine having 2 bases under attack, we'd have to choose which one to deal with.
Roaming Survivors / Raiders: Its pretty lame having NPC just be in houses. Have them drive cars and chase you and attack you on the road everywhere. Its so lame that you just encounter them in houses all the time. Imagine seeing a survivor getting chased by raiders, and you can intervene or just let it happen to stay safe.
Base building: I like defending my base. The more the zombies attack the more fun I have. But I want to be able to control the situation a little bit. Allow us to put up walls or fences in specific areas to block them or funnel them however we please. I'm tired of using vehicles to block holes in the defenses. Give us walls, sandbags, barbed wire and let them all be destructible so we have to manage our base more.
City Biome: Give us a city to play with. Give us verticality so we can really appreciate the graphics and landscape. The city would be fun because it can be so congested and much more difficult navigating the streets as zombies are closer in proximity.
Motorcycles: Driving around is fun. But more fun with a motorcycle with or without a sidecar for a passenger or supplies.
Please please please consider any of these. The game would be more engaging and addictive if we had more freedom and options like this. So far the latest choose your apocalypse update got bland really fast. It just became tougher in the same confines we were given at the start.
A feature I would love to see is "Sandbox Mode"
Make us able to select this mode upon entering the game;
We select a starting map and then we can tweak various things in the world.
For example, drop rates of certain items, amount of zombies, amount of survivors, day night cycle, xp rate, difficulty, amount of gas used ect.
Make us able to create our own world and play as we like.
I would also love a city map with big buildings, I Am Legend style. This would compliment the engine so much.
Cheers & keep up the good work!
After this update my State of decay 2 crash after lunch......
Hi UL! Great update, but it seems that now any characterss with the stealth skill will not move quicker while sneaking. Also, after evicting a character, if that character gets attacked and knocked down by zombies, my game crashes. (The crashing occurred before the update)
Hello, Sorry this post is going to be a bit long so please bear with me, i hope you'll be able to understand...
I think introducing the game to a chain saw or a ripping type weapon would be awesome.
There are two bugs I've noticed since 7.0 patch. They are directly linked together.
Sometimes you'll get gliched and fall through the map. Its tethering the player before the 400m or so is met. There's also no warning of being tethered. Outta no where you just fall through the map. When the game loads you back in your tethered into the car the other person is driving. Not a big deal buuuuuut the second part of this issue is that you're invisible in the vehicle. The other person your playing with can see you. However you can't... That being said it wouldnt allow me to get out of said vehicle until you got back to base. I also had to push Y alot to basically glitch back inTo the game.
I've encounted this error twice with two different players I've played with online. Just thought I'd mention this to help you guys out. Keep fuckin' rockin' this shit🤘🤘🤘
New weapons will be really cool.
So i've only been playing the new update for less than an hour, on Xbox. Only one issue so far, but it's kind of a major one... my stealth characters no longer move quickly when crouched. The text that states that ability isn't even there anymore on the character screen. But pre-update, on their skills in the character menu, that was one of the abilities.
I have 2 characters with this skill, or I did. They're the only 2 I actively use and that's specifically because of the fast sneaking. It's a must for me. Sure, I can still 'sprint while sneaking', but c'mon guys. Please put this back in.
Personally, I don't mind if you have to have the characters slightly creep forward on their own again, if it means having quicker sneaking again, without sprinting.
How long is the Day/Night cycle in real time after this update?
This update is amazing. Nightmare mode is really scary and intense. I moved a builder legacy group to Whitney field on nightmare. The car explosion glitch triggered under these circumstances but it seems to be less wonky than before. Thanks for all the hard work! This is becoming my favorite game ever.
After switching back to nightmare mode i switched back to normal mode and i lost my legacy boons despite already unlocking them in normal mode and nightmare mode, is there any fix
I just want new content/new map not this. I don't understand why majority think this game is too easy. Games are suppose to be easy when you have max your stats,ultimate weapon, best of everything not harder. Wait a week or 2 and there will be people complaining about Nightmare still too easy. Guys, when you beat the game, move on, go play another games, if you keep playing you gonna get better and better and of coz it will be easy for you.
Anyway,
I like some of QOL improvement, now I have some peace on my safezone.
Love the update but now my follower will sometimes disappear or get stuck and then come falling out of the sky next to me when I leave. It's like they got abducted by aliens and then returned.
Yes, this update caused my follower to sink through the ground and come crashing down out of the sky, causing injuries.
Hey so this bug where zombies spawn right out of thin air while im searching a building forcing me to have to use my melee still hasnt been fixed. When playing nightmare mode the smallest noise can be detrimental to attracting even more zombies getting me killed.
Playing on Xbox One. Coming back after a long while.
I've seen documentation on the first bug I'm having, but they are from some time ago, and all answers keep pointing to Elite controller settings, which I dont have. I haven't changed any difficulty settings for CYOA, but they are there, indicating the recent update. However, all of my vehicles are now slow as dirt. I can literally sprint faster than most of them on foot. They move at normal speed in reverse, but granny gear in normal direction. Also, not very much, but *slightly* faster off road than on. This is not limited to one save: all of my communities suffer from this.
Also encountered a mission (twice) that kept perpetually spawning screamers until the person I was tasked to protect died. I don't mean more walked towards the area. I mean they kept appearing in the same room of this house the stranger was in, and said survivor kept meleeing the hordes pouring in the one window instead of retreating. I shoot the screamer (complete with +10 influence confirmation) , and another one appears in its place. I've learned to live with zeds teleporting in from nowhere, but *that* is a bit much. Hopefully that is a dynamic mission error specifically from protecting and only applies to screamers. Undying ferals would be enough to rage delete.
Speaking of undying, I still get the occasional decapped zombie (sound and gibs) still getting up attacking me until I re-explode their missing head (sound again, but obviously no gibs). Frequent enough to mention.
Also, not so much a bug as a major annoyance:
that "more accurate hostile survior" thing seems a bit skewed even on standard difficulty. I'm being spotted and downed by people well outside the draw distance and killed in two shots. On standard. Had more survivors die post update than my entire run this far in normal gameplay. I go back to get my revenge and dropped gear with another survivor expecting to steal whatever sniper rifle they are obviously armed with, and the hostile has... an unsighted crossbow? Broken handgun? So, I can barely shoot them at 30ft with a scoped rifle unlessI vaguely shoot under the red diamond and hope they're taking damage, but some random too far to show up even in broad daylight can pick me off with two well placed bolts or bullets at night, through a horde I'm trying to use as cover (and conveniently not going after said hostile with loud, unsupressed handgun fire)? That's some fancy shooting. Or another phrase that escapes me at the moment... what is it... bull... something... Point on that one is "challenging" isn't the same as "cheap". The only one remotely fair was a TC merc "took over my group" mission that had them armed with a z grenade launcher that is more prevalent now than handgun ammo, and the group pinned me down while the merc snuck behind me and gassed me to death. Tactical. Unexpected. But fair. Getting shot at three backyards away from an unseen location, while sneaking, from someone not even close enough to banter is not.
Wenn ich spiele und einen Zombie angreife sagt sich der Charakter in den unmöglichsten Situationen nein danke . Der Angriff funktioniert dann nicht oder er versucht auch wenn man direkt davor steht ihn zu packen. Und im Großen Wachturm ( Scharfschützen Turm gehen die Charaktere nur noch bis zu ersten hälfte nicht mehr bis ganz hoch ). Auf dauer ist das extrem nervig . Sind mir mit dem Phänomen schon mehrere Charaktere gestorben so macht das echt keinen Spaß mehr.
It was said 7.0 wouldn't affect Daybreak but you no longer see boaters, ferals, and juggernauts on the mini map. That's only supposed to be in the main game on dead and nightmare. Also today I seen a feral climb up on top of a container. Never seen that. Would love to when these changes are made so we know before it kills us. Also I like to add the multiplayer glitching and lag. Alot friends stop playing because that, some wont go to nightmare to play together because it. Friends lost characters on standard when it first came out do to this issue. It's still a major problem. Happy the multiplayer reward system was fixed though.
I can confirm that Juggernauts, Bloaters, and Ferals are not appearing on the mini map in Daybreak. Also my following survivors keep falling from the sky when getting out of a car.
Anyone else get hit with the invincible hostile npc bug yet? It's rage inducing on nightmare mode. I'm still so angry over what just happened lol.
Meine NPc´s fallen über jede erdenkliche Stufe und Brechen sich dabei auch noch was. auf dauer ist das echt nicht mehr lustig und macht somit auch keinen Spaß mehr.// Werde warten bis evtl ein Hotfix oder ähnliches kommt damit man wieder normal spielen kann.
Is Trader call ins broken in Nightmare mode? I haven't been able to call in a single Trader. 7 days in so far. What is the point of being a Trader in Nightmare mode if you can't call in Traders?
(Xbox One) Me and my friends can’t join anyone’s game sessions it just keeps coming up with Error Code 3 This means that your connection to the host was lost. This can happen if the host disconnects or ends the multiplayer session. It can also happen if your internet connection went down or flickered. Sometimes that will result in a disconnection (Error Code 3) which doesn’t make sense because it’s been happening to a lot of people I have come across on daybreak plus me and my friends internet connection are the same as they have always been. Could it be something to do with the increase of players since the Nightmare and Dread Update. Hope you guys fix this soon I’ve been wanting to run through the legacies on Nightmare with my friend but haven’t been able to join each other’s games since 2 days after the Nightmare and Dread Update.
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