"To find interesting people in the world of State of Decay whose lives we haven’t experienced yet, and see what it’s like to face the crisis from where they stand."
This was Undead Labs opening sentence in their most recent blog entry, detailing the concept of what territory they plan their new expansion, Lifeline, to touch on. As a zombie gaming enthusiast i often scratch my head as to where the whole Zombie Apocalypse gaming thing can go, what hasn't been experienced and where players haven't been, excuse the cross reference, left for dead?
They have decided that military grunts in zombie pop culture don't get a fair crack of the character whip in movies and general zombie fiction and quite rightly i agree. Surely there has to be one group of military personell, armed to the teeth that don't go by the stigma of Muslces Are Required Intelligence Not Essential (MARINE)? Private Sheppard of Half-Life Opposing Force seemed, i guess an ok chap...although his orders were to kill Gordon Freem but that's besides the point.
It seems from the blog post that they're putting the survivor (you) in to a more strategic position, laying you command to a surviving platoon named Greyhound One that has been sent to the fallen city of Danforth to rescue a crowd of scientists who's research could prove critical to finally putting to rest the outbreak.
Unlike building from the ground you will start armed to the teeth, minefileds and defences to build and upgrade, artillery support at the click of a button, soldiers who will guard areas at your disposal and a stock of military grade weaponary to use from several commanding positions...but here's the catch. you WILL run out resources.
Much like Outbreak, supplies will run low and the only option is bugging out in the RV to the next valley. Lifeline on the other hand you will end up fighting blade to tooth in the struggle of rescuing as many scientists as you can.
The fact they have chosen a more strategic approach is fantastic and breaks up the franchise brilliantly in my opinion. Zombie survival games, the more succesful ones, seem to always head down the FPS route and it's a breath of fresh air to see a zombie game being created with a...command and conquer feel to it, maybe?
We'll find out more soon enough but until then feel free to read their blog post HERE.
@DeanoSalter
dean@scified.co
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