State of Decay is an open sandbox world that develops in real-time, dynamically generating content based on your actions, the choices you make, and the ever-increasing zombie threat. Decide where you’d like to set up a fortified safe haven for you and other survivors you’ve rescued, then form raiding parties to gather resources and create supply chains. Use the materials you’ve gathered to develop your community as you see fit, but be careful — resources will deplete as you pillage areas, and zombies are attracted to noise and activity. Take up the offensive by assaulting hordes before they reach your settlement, or focus on improving your defenses against the massed zombie attacks. Every choice and every action matter in this fully simulated, evolving world.

What if society came screeching to a halt? What if all our rules and laws no longer mattered? State of Decay brings these questions to life in a very real way. It’s not just about combat; it’s about doing what you must do to stay alive. Food, water, shelter, and ammo — you’ll need them all. Taking you beyond the initial panic, and beyond the first weeks of the crisis, State of Decay is the embodiment of the “What if?” zombie apocalypse scenario.

Undead Labs has revealed some details about the upcoming Lifeline expansion for State of Decay:

One major goal of our DLC is to explore new perspectives — 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 is what led us to create State of Decay: Lifeline — an expansion that explores the military side of the zombie apocalypse.

In zombie fiction, the military is often the go-to badguy. They’re the hammer to which every problem is a nail, blindly mowing everything down to serve some unknown goal.

But this view is fairly one-sided and naïve. On the State of Decay team, we have a different perspective (some of us firsthand) — the military is made up of many good men and women who stand on the line that divides safety and civilization from chaos and war.

Few people have a greater opportunity to make life-altering choices than soldiers. They’ve played that role as side characters in the original State of Decay...but now we are adding a new story, in which you take on that responsibility yourself.

You control Greyhound One — a small surviving unit that has been sent to the fallen city of Danforth to rescue scientists whose research is critical to fighting the outbreak.

This is at the height of the initial crisis. You still have a chain of command and access to off-map support, but the voices over the radio are making it clear that things are rapidly breaking down.

So what you end up with is the inverse of the usual progression. Instead of starting with nothing, and slowly building yourself up into a post-apocalyptic powerhouse, you start the game as a well-equipped, well-supported military unit, and then must learn to improvise as one resource after another is depleted…and isn’t coming back.

One of your first imperatives is to secure the Landing Zone where you can receive supply drops and extract civilians. This location becomes your base, which you must defend at all costs against the zombie horde.

Since this is a military story, we have the perfect opportunity to expand on the concept of defending that base. The people you are here to rescue are extremely important — and extremely tasty. If you let zombies overrun your gates, these helpless civilians will be among the first to feed the horde. Lose too many, and your mission is over.

You have minefields and defenses to build and upgrade. Off-map artillery to call in. Well-trained soldiers who will guard weak points and respond to zombie threats. A stock of military-grade weaponry to use from several commanding positions. But in the end, when the zeds get into the heart of your base, it’s down to fighting tooth versus blade.