State of Decay: Breakdown DLC Review

State of Decay by Undead Labs for the Xbox 360 is one of my favorite downloadable games on the console right next to Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Trenched (or whatever it’s called now. Iron Brigade, I think?). In a world where games featuring zombies or a zombie apocalypse are dime a dozen, State of Decay offered gamers a much different experience with the genre. While most games with the undead focus on action or ending the affliction, State of Decay tasked you with surviving an undead uprising by organizing a group of survivors, scavenging for supplies and carefully managing your inventory.

Last Friday, a DLC pack called Breakdown was released for State of Decay, as was Title Update 4. Breakdown is a new mode for the title that introduces arcade elements to the open world zombie sandbox of the Trumbull Valley. Breakdown removes the story elements of the original mode and adds new elements like Heroes, challenges and difficulty levels. The price for this new DLC is right too, at just $7.

When you start Breakdown for the first time, you’ll choose a difficulty level and select a random hero. There is a large list of heroes to choose from, but you’ll need to unlock them as you play. Heroes come with increased stats as well as more desirable traits, like leadership or counseling as opposed to skills in sexting or beer pong. At the outset of your first playthrough, you’re plopped onto a random spot on the map and tasked with finding a group to join. Once you’re joined up, you can begin scavenging and taking on side missions.

Though Breakdown is designed as an open-ended sandbox mode, there is an end-game. Eventually, you and your group will have picked the Trumbull Valley dry and you’ll need to escape to the next valley. During the course of your game, you’ll get a mission to check out a broken down RV which can be repaired with resources and used to leave the valley, effectively ending that playthrough and beginning the next difficulty level. Only six characters, plus Lily, can be taken aboard the RV to the next valley so you’ll need to manage your inventory and group carefully before moving to the next level.

On top of Breakdown offering fans of the game a reason to return to the Valley, this DLC also includes a long list of challenges that rewards you with points for completing actions like killing a certain number of unique zombies or kills with specific weapons. The points are a sort of grade for your playthrough, giving you incentive to try and earn more on the next difficulty level. Some challenges can only be completed on higher levels, giving tenacious players something to strive for.

My own experience with Breakdown has been generally positive so far. I’ve wanted to replay State of Decay but didn’t want to just start a brand new story so Breakdown is actually perfect for me – I can kill zombies and scavenge til my heart’s content without being bugged by Lily to start some long-winded story mission. Oh sure, Lily still bugs you, but the missions now are mostly to help other survivors with unique zombies or lend a hand to nearby enclaves of survivors. I’ve only advanced once so far but I’ve already noticed several differences between the levels. On level two, there have been fewer cars, containers generally offer less loot and zombies tend to congregate in larger groups no matter where you are.

The same problems that plagued State of Decay’s original mode are still present in Breakdown, though. There are still plenty of graphical hiccups and glitches inherent in the game so if those little problems were sticking in your craw, Breakdown will be a let down. Overall, though, the flow of Breakdown feels smoother and less disjointed than the story mode. You get to focus on your group more, since building up your supplies and characters is your main goal. Something I have noticed, which is strange, is that in Breakdown, new survivors are constantly blowing up my radio to join my group, whereas in the story mode, I was sometimes struggling to find enough people to move into certain home sites. I’d imagine the frequency of new survivors decreases as you move up in levels, or at least I hope it would.

State of Decay: Breakdown doesn’t change up the formula too much from the story mode but is just different enough to offer fans a reason to return to the Valley. However, if you grew tired of State of Decay’s gameplay or just burnt yourself out on scavenging and surviving, Breakdown will offer little incentive to revisit the Trumbull Valley. But if you’ve been considering a return to State of Decay but don’t want the hassle of story missions, Breakdown is definitely worth your time and money.

(Image from incgamers.com)