How the game works is that you start out with a given protagonist, but can switch to control of other characters once you’ve become close enough buddies with them. There are named characters in State of Decay: Lifeline, but as with the base game, the differences between them are so minimal that they might as well all be named drone. Additionally, you get to play as the military, and your unit is charged with finding survivors and evacuating them the hell away from hell. Lifeline swaps out the rural setting of State of Decay in favor of an urban environment: the city of Danforth. A zombie virus has broken out and turned its victims into shambling monsters, leaving groups of survivors to hide from and fight the waves of dead. Lifeline is presumed to take place during the events of the main game. I gave it an outstanding recommendation for having pulled these elements off so well, even without a true story, so let’s see if State of Decay: Lifeline, a DLC, follows suit.

Another exception to the rule is State of Decay, an open-world zombie survival game that forsook narrative in favor of an addicting mix of survival and scavenging. When it’s handled in the context of mindless action, it can become mired in repetitiveness (although Left 4 Dead is a fun exception to that rule). It makes for great drama: what lengths will a person go to to stay alive in the face of hungry corpses? When this question is handled in the context of a narrative, as with The Walking Dead media, it can result in some powerful stories. Zombie survival has become the biggest cliche in gaming. Save as many people as you can from a city overrun by zombies.

Savage gaming state of survival