State of Decay 2 vs The Survivalists
State of Decay 2
State of Decay 2 is the highly-anticipated and long-awaited sequel to one of the top zombie-survival action-shooters out there, State of Decay. Unlike the original game, this installment has a bit more community management in it rather than simply trying to survive as a lone wolf. Each survivor has their own set of traits, skills, and attitudes that you'll need to keep balanced so that your community will thrive rather than succumb to in-fighting and general discontent.In this game, you can assign tasks to each survivor, upgrade your base, help the community solve its issues (through completing personal quests, heeding advice, or resolving disputes), and of course, recruit more survivors to join your band. State of Decay 2 will also feature a co-op mode - It's about time! - where you can try to survive with up to 3 of your friends. Not to mention, like its predecessor, the game is set in a massive open world that you're free to explore.
State of Decay 2 is definitely among the few biggest games that fans of zombie-survival games but I'm sad to say that although the game does improve on the original, the improvements are just too little and too insignificant. The game is still as shallow as before and the game gets boring and stale pretty quickly (just a couple of hours in). The game might still be worth buying on a steep discount.
The Survivalists
The Survivalists is a survival-themed adventure game focusing on exploring a vast archipelago filled with hidden secrets and treasures as well as mysterious temples and dangerous terrains. The goal here is not only to make a life for yourself by recruiting and training the local monkeys to help with your many mundane chores, but to find a way to crack the mystery shrouding the archipelago and possibly find a way to finally escape!The Survivalists has a sandbox-style, survival-themed gameplay, which means that you’re expected to gather plenty of resources from the environment, use them to build a base of operations… or even multiple outposts and bases… and make sure you’ve got plenty of protection ready for when the local hostile tribesmen attack you, which they do from time to time.
The map here is simply amazing and if you just love exploring, you’ll find the island-hopping experience here pretty satisfying… that is once you’ve got your raft built. Of course, being set in the tropics, there isn’t a whole lot of different biomes to discover, though there are volcanic and swampy areas that are more dangerous than the normal terrain. Even the sea contains dangers and you’ll do well to avoid the ravenous sharks that are looking for an easy meal.
The best and most interesting part about The Survivalists that really help it stands out from all the other generic sandbox survival games is the fact that you can “recruit” monkeys on the island to help you with any mundane tasks. This encompasses all tasks that can be easily replicated by the monkeys. After all, monkey see, monkey do!
That being said, training your monkeys is, unfortunately, also the most frustrating part of the game. Unlike games with macros, you can’t really save the tasks you’ve taught your monkey as general macros that you can then use whenever you need the same tasks done sometime in the future. Instead, every time you need your monkeys to do something, you’ll have to teach it all over again… which frankly speaking is very annoying.
All in all, The Survivalists is as addictively fun as it looks. Being a survival-themed sandbox adventure, there is plenty of stuff you can craft, items to gather, loyal monkeys to train, and bases to set up as you slowly and steadily explore every inch of the massive archipelago. However, the game isn’t without its flaws and I personally think that the game could have made the monkey-training part a bit more convenient and less annoying for the player.