How you show damage differs dramatically, it turns out, if you’re displaying it on the galvanized steel of a giant battle mech or a starship instead of the fragile flesh of the human body. To get a closer look at how developers use models as UI we reached out to three studios working on very different games, with very different protagonists, and very different needs in terms of communicating information to the player in a way that feels unobtrusive and intuitive.
It also unlocks a special boon that benefits your later communities, giving them a leg up on survival and letting you try new strategies! Want to know more about systems in State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition? Give yourself an edge and check out our Survival Guide series on YouTube.These days, character models serve as a kind of sophisticated UI of their own, and conveying complicated systems like stamina or damaged systems to players without the use of big garish red bars or dry percentages is an art unto itself. Completing this legacy “wins the game” by cementing your community’s lasting contribution to the world. Only by destroying every last plague heart in the area can you unlock the endgame legacy story that matches your leader selection. At the same time, you’re tasked with clearing out the most dangerous zombies (those infected with deadly blood plague) from your town. Over the next several hours of play, you’ll face the ongoing challenge of keeping your community healthy, safe, and well-fed.
This is an important decision that unlocks certain benefits for your community, such as unique facilities you can build at your base, as well as a specific endgame legacy story (described later). You’ll also get the option to promote one of your survivors into a leadership role, such as Sheriff or Trader. This represents your transition from early game into the mid-game experience, which is less directed and more open-world. The next couple of hours ease you into the realities of post-apocalyptic survival through a series of missions that introduce the most common challenges your community will face, from gathering supplies to clearing out zombie infestations.īy the end of this mission sequence, you’ll have the opportunity to claim a larger, more elaborate base for your community. It’s not much more than four walls and some cots, but that’s enough to call it home.
Your community can grow larger as you recruit additional survivors, or smaller if something goes wrong and you lose a teammate to the ravenous zombie hordes!Īfter a brief tutorial that teaches the basics of the game (movement, combat, scavenging for loot, interacting with other characters), your community takes possession of a temporary base of operations. Instead of playing a single character, you cycle through each of the unique personalities in your community, changing characters to meet the specific challenges you face. State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition puts you in charge of a community of survivors in the wake of the zombie apocalypse.