
User reviews: Mostly Positive (663 reviews)
Release Date: Dec 4, 2014


Buy Dead State

HOLIDAY SALE! Offer ends January 2


Recommended By Curators

"Survive a zombie outbreak in Texas while upgrading your base, keeping the people who depend on you well-fed, somewhat happy and preferably also alive."

Recent updates View all (25)

December 19

Dead State v. Changelog

Hi everyone,

We’ve released a small patch in response to your feedback on the boards; this patch addresses three of the most frequently reported concerns of players as well as provides some other miscellaneous updates as well.

Changelog (spoiler-free)
Further optimized real-time pathfinding in small areas and fixed issue with stairs.
Fixed a major faction event.
Fixed some scripting issues which made it difficult to recruit a specific ally.
Fixed allies still asking for upgrades once they've been built.
Adjusted the panic threshold for a specific ally.
Updated GUI to list AP required to open inventory in combat.
Updated an ally perk.
Updated names of some neutral characters for clarity.
Adjusted noise levels on dog bite attacks.
Updated character floats in certain faction interactions.

Happy holidays from everyone at DoubleBear :)

36 comments Read more

December 16

Dead State v. Changelog

Hi everyone,

Our apologies for the delay on this patch, and thanks for waiting. We ran into a couple unforeseen issues while packing and uploading the build today that needed to be resolved before anything could be released.

Added autosaving feature.
Added feature to upload your own image in character creation.
Adjusted duration of status effects and fixed status lock issue.
Provided additional info for melee weapons, ranged weapons, and armor on inventory screen.
Further improved build stability and resolved rare crash cases.
Fixed issue with landmines causing errors with saved games; however, we're sorry to say that older saves with this issue cannot be recovered.
Adjusted dialogues and dialogue triggers in multiple maps.
Polished some levels and building models.
Adjusted loot distribution and balance.
Clarified text on some perks and items.
Optimized pathfinding to interactable objects.
Updated blocking in some areas.
Addressed cases of shelter activity not correctly appearing in the field.
Set flare gun ammo cap to six shots as per original design.
Adjusted “Be It Ever So Humble” Achievement to account for the correct number of upgrades.
Adjusted Elaine’s perk to correctly affect her Melee skill instead of her Medical skill.
Balanced some weapon attacks and stats.
Balanced armor stats.
Expanded size of ‘gather party’ zones in multi-level areas.
Updated data system to properly access the last data item.
Updated job board to properly allow repair tasks in all cases, apply ally skill bonuses on tasks, and reveal car after repair.
Updated ally reactions to killing neutral characters.
Adjusted the rationing penalty on the DRS to only occur in cases of Shelter-wide rationing.
Adjusted noise dampening among floors in multi-floor buildings to improve combat.
Adjusted loot balance on City locations.
Updated combat AP costs so that switching from Inventory to Character screen is a free action.
Addressed cases of Lightning showing incorrect breed portrait.
Polished multiple GUI displays more multiple resolutions.

About Delays
We on the team understand how excited you are to get the new patches as soon as possible, and we do our absolute best to do it in the time we estimate. However, sometimes unexpected things happen and we have to release past our estimated time or day. We do our best to communicate delays either through announcements, responses on threads, or by asking our mods to help answer questions as they come in, and we work as quickly as we can to get the content to you.

We don't expect you to not feel annoyed when you're awaiting a delayed patch. However, it's against our community policy to attack or harass anyone as an expression of that annoyance, whether they're a dev, a mod, or another player. Name-calling, threatening, and hostility are all unwelcome in the Dead State community hub. Please keep these rules in mind when posting!

What's Next?
The next patch will be in mid to late January, and it will include a mix of content and fixes. We'll be taking a brief hiatus for the late December holidays in the meantime, although we'll be checking up on things often. We're excited about what's to come in the future, and we hope you are too :)

32 comments Read more

About This Game

About the Game




System Requirements

    • Processor: 1.7 GHz Processor or better
    • Memory: 2 GB RAM
    • DirectX: Version 9.0c
    • Hard Drive: 1500 MB available space
Helpful customer reviews
2,780 of 3,031 people (92%) found this review helpful
84.8 hrs on record
Posted: December 20
I am edditing my review, I want to be heard and since my Fierhorn79 account is banned and my super old Fierhorn account was perm banned by steam at the request of Doublebear for ban evasion. *The Highlighted Review Below*
(Brian's DoubleBear statement)
My reply to Brian and Dead State Devs
I wanted to take a minute to both defend myself and address Brian and Annie Mitsoda's statements.
When I saw that Brian Mitsoda made a response it gave me hope that he and DoubleBear would address that main reason for my review not just the fact that the Review was wrongfully flagged by someone at Doublebear and then continue into a rant trying to discredit me. That main concern being the business decision to move a game from Early Access to full release during the Steam holiday season. The game on the release date had a long list of known bugs, several of them either game or story breaking. Yes there have been patches and some of the bugs have been fixed, but this does not cancel out they original concern. The choice that was made looks like Doublebear tried to trick gamers into buying a game thinking it was finished when in fact by DoubleBears own known issues list on the day of release it was not done. I and now I think others feel that a company should be held accountable for these type of actions.
I have never asked for an extreme punishment, all I expected was for Doublebear to say what was going on to cause them to do this and to issue an apology to their loyal fans. Is open communication too much to ask for from the people who funded your game. Instead of dealing with my concerns directly Developers and mods have tried to silence myself and others.
This game would not be a reality without people like me with our little 30 dollars. The attitude that I have seen from DoubleBear has come off at entitled and ungrateful for the opportunity that has been given to them.
Now onto less important stuff. My defense.
First of I want to say I was deeply offended by Annie Mitsoda's personal attacks on me on tumblr. Being called a @ickbag & #ucker was far less offensive than the way she disregards my 30 dollars. Just so you know that 30 bucks is three hours of my work day. I might be nothing to you but I put my hard earned money towards your dream.
Brain and friends at DoubleBear continue to claim I engaged in "abusive comments towards both the devs and mods" and this is why threads were locked and deleted. This is not the case , I as well never harassed anyone. They can't provide screen shot of where I did any of the things they claim because they did not happen. What screen shots of locked and deleted threads they do show are just snippets without showing what anyone else is say. I was never off topic ,never spammed, never directly attacked anyone. The claim that I harassed DoubleBear requesting a public apology be given to the community is just absurd. I was the only one on any of these forums to get banned when there were people making direct personal attacks on me that were defending the developers that were not even given a warning by the DoubleBear mods.
1)First thread was shut down for no good reason.
2)Second one I thought maybe they shut it down because the attacks on me. I knew I did not break the rules so I made another post pasting most of the OP and then adding another paragraph to make it new. This was right away shut down.
3)Third post was a little snarky post about how they shut down post that are on the top that are critical.
4)Fourth post was actually made by another person. This is the one I got banned in and I did nothing except ask Brian to say sorry. Never broke a forum rule once. No warning just a ban. Yes you will notice #114 &115 are back to back but that is only because the I did not copy the second part over from my wordpad. You will notice that there are several posts in between #115 and my next post. Too bad the devs only provide what I say in a attempt to manipulate the way this looks.
5)I by this point was not happy. I felt like an American being silenced and someone who my 30 bucks and support was being treated like trash. I contacted the mod(Caidoz) through a private ban email. Its funny how they just provide one snippet of the conversation and deleted the email from my account so I can't provide a picture. Yes I did say I can just create tons of alt account in this private chat. I wanted Caidoz to know his ability to silence had no power over me. I never once said I was going to abuse this and mass spam threads or upvote my own review. First of the time and money it would take to get 300 accounts is ridiculous.
I have had this alt account for 6+ years and I did not use it until now to defend myself after many attacks.
So with all the above being said I am a forgiving gamer. If DoubleBear publicly apologies for the early release and explains why they did it then I think everyone should forgive and get behind this company to help them finish what I think will be a great game when complete. On a personal note I think Brian and Annie Mitsoda's own me a private apology for the slander and attacks personally against me.
Wanted to start off by saying I was a huge supporter of this game pre Steam Early Access and during early access. I enjoyed beta testing the game for DoubleBear and helping them to use the EA process to better the game.
I think the game is a blast even in its frustrating buggy state.
Now onto the reason why I think people should not buy this game or support the company DoubleBear for any future games until the Give a public apology.
I don't know about all of you but I found Kickstarter and Steam Early Access to be a wonderful breath of fresh air. I was sick of big AAA and medium sized AA Developers and Publishers pushing out 3/4 made buggy games that after I paid full price for had to wait months before it was patched up and enjoyable. This was the norm and I was sick of it.
So I started supporting only EA and Kickstarter games, more than I could afford at times. Dead State is one of those games and I was very happy to support Doublebear.
Sadly DoubleBear betrayed its fans and sought to deceive new buyers into believing that Dead State was a finished product in order to take full advantage of the Holiday shopping season. Brian and the Dead State team had pages of known bugs and some of them were game and story breaking.
Ask yourself what reason would a Developer move a product that is known to be a buggy mess from Early Access to calling the game fully released. We the gamers are there Publisher and we were not on their backs pushing them to release the game in a unfinished state in order to reap the profit from the Holiday season.
My over all point is that when small gamer funded games pull the same fast one as big AAA developers something has to be done about it. This type of behavior and not be rewarded.
These type of actions corrupt the new system from within. If this is allowed to happen then we get get a bunch of small studios acting just like the AAA ones because they can.
I and many others went onto Dead States forums to ask for an appology and get an answer why they felt the need to move a unfinished game from EA to fully released. We all found ourselves pounced on ,forum post locked and in several cases found ourselves banned. These type of actions are those of people wanting to hide what they did not ones wanting to correct the mistake that was made.
I don't know DoubleBears reasons to fall to to such a low level. If they had funding problems there are so many other more honest options. We gamers have shown ourselves to be very giving.
I ask people to avoid this game until the game is finished
Was this review helpful? Yes No
1,105 of 1,201 people (92%) found this review helpful
51.6 hrs on record
Posted: December 20
All right folks, I have never thought of writing a negative review on this game, but now I really have to.
At first, everything was fine - killing zombies and hostile humans, upgrading shelter, recruiting dudes. It seems that starting locations/NPCs/quests were polished enough, made good impression. (Graphics sucks, but I can live with that.)
But then... bugs. Oh my god, I have never ever seen a game so full of bugs, unbalanced everything and stuff like that.
About half of the quests can not be completed. You are either given a task by NPC that never appears on your map and in quest list or you do everything requested and it it still on your list, can not be turned in.
Armor is too strong. With mediocre helmet/vest/gloves you are almost invulnerable to zombies and can kill dozens with bare hands. Endgame enemies are armored like hell, can only be damaged by critical hits even with the hardest hitting guns.
Some locations are clearly broken (yes, Austin hotel stairs, I`m talking about you!), pathfinding is awful. Characters teleporting somewhere far away when stuck (often).
Critical events also look broken. If most of the shelter agrees with my decision, why do they come to me next morning saying "you are an awful person, how could you do such a thing", Hey, yesterday you agreed to that!
I saved an NPC claiming she would be able to find a cure for virus. Next day she even tells me about the components required, but... the quest never appeared. According to devs, this quest (and "cure" ending) were removed from the game and her dialogues were actually a bug. WTF?
Eventually I visited every location and now I have nothing to do. Go fishing, sleep, talk to people. Repeat. It`s 80+ day of the game, nothing happens that would lead me to the end.
Game is in fact interesting and promising, but releasing it in this condition...
And guess what, yesterday (19 Dec 2014) devs said "guys, we`re going on vacation, next patch in a month". WOOOOT!

Take your time, wait, DO NOT BUY this game until they have released at least a few patches.
Was this review helpful? Yes No
635 of 720 people (88%) found this review helpful
33.3 hrs on record
Posted: December 20
I was pretty happy getting this game because looked good. But when u start advacing in the game u'll find out that this full release is really a pre-alpha. With every update they make they are breaking the game even more. I will suggest to get this when is on sale ( like 95% off ). So save your money is my tip.
Was this review helpful? Yes No
420 of 472 people (89%) found this review helpful
4.2 hrs on record
Posted: December 23


Was this review helpful? Yes No
425 of 485 people (88%) found this review helpful
9.4 hrs on record
Posted: December 23
Great concept! But everything else falls flat.

Graphics: I'm not a graphic snob, but even 14 years ago these graphics would be dated. I can get over that, however it plays into combat. It's hard to see where you can move to during combat due to the dead bodies on the floor. You can't tell the difference between a looter or a zombie, you have to scroll over them...I mean if they are holding a shotgun, prolly going to be a looter.

Combat: The tactics are okay, in the new patch the characters seem to connect a lot more. However it's hard to set up a battle and get your characters to where you want them to be. This should be the highlight of the game but the ratio of how much damage you put out and get is way off.

It's challanging in a good way, but when you have to save before a fight it's a little too much. Plus there is no real upside from fighting, unlike most tatical games you gain levels or xp, in this game concept you gain xp for upgrading your shelter.

I feel like your always grossly out numbered, looters aren't push overs and even zombies can take several hits to kill.
Was this review helpful? Yes No
388 of 449 people (86%) found this review helpful
12.5 hrs on record
Posted: December 23
Edited because the flag was removed. Game is filled with bugs and i would not recomment.
Was this review helpful? Yes No
345 of 398 people (87%) found this review helpful
6.9 hrs on record
Posted: December 23
This game is not done. It feels like its on the edge of being great but honestly if the developers consider it 'complete' then they were shooting for a great game 20 years ago.

I really really want to like it and I plan on playing it again in a few months after a few patches but honestly if you have to refer people to look in the install folder for the instructions if they get stuck... and its 2014? you are doing something wrong. That was acceptable in the 90s, not now.

Was this review helpful? Yes No
301 of 348 people (86%) found this review helpful
20.3 hrs on record
Posted: December 23
Dead State needs some serious rebalancing in the early stages... I'm all for gritty and realistic, but when it seems more than half the looters you encounter on your first day have guns, and you don't, it negatively impacts initial enjoyment as you watch your characters getting blown away in 2 shots, before you even land a single melee blow on the looter...

Additionally to this, the tutorial is virtually pointless and the manual does not give much more insight... Dead State lacks 'hover over' tool tips for character conditions, once again making early play arduous whilst you're trying to figure out what exactly is going on...

Dead State shows considerable potential, but IMO it feels as though it still requires alot of work before reaching it and I would not recommend buying Dead State as is...

If you don't mind your survivors getting blown away at the drop of a hat on your first day, while you're still trying to figure out the basics, then Dead State is almost certainly for you however...
Was this review helpful? Yes No
342 of 401 people (85%) found this review helpful
3.2 hrs on record
Posted: December 22
Can barely get passed that intro mission without wanting to delete the game. Tried to swap characters positions, ended up hitting my teammate with a bat. That was the last thing i did before uninstalling
Was this review helpful? Yes No
280 of 329 people (85%) found this review helpful
64.2 hrs on record
Posted: December 21
The game is honestly fun. I should love it. It has a lot of what I enjoy in video games, recruiting a bunch of party members, building a base, turn based combat, rpg elements, zombies, and much slaughter. . . But the game is not finished. Not even close. It is so chock full of bugs to be completely absurd. Last night I recruited Ulysses Ford and his three compatriots but lolguesswut! Ulysses and Darlene don't actually show up anywhere! But they go to talk to me in their little morning chat events and their models aren't even on screen! I have access to a helicopter but no options to do anything with it (can anyone confirm that any of the endings are actually working?)! The hotel was an effing nightmare getting through as you have to move your guys around ten times to get to where your party is "gathered before venturing forth" up the damn stairs when they are all grouped right the eff up any way! Couple that with the times when you can go through a door after going up the stairs, one of your dudes will be standing inside the door and you have to move him out into the hall (full of mercenaries with some of the best armor in the game and righteous weaponry) before you can get one of your other guys to either break the door down or pick the lock.... I want to love this game but it still needs a ♥♥♥♥-ton of work before it can be called "complete." Dammit DoubleBear, this is why we have trouble trusting Early Access games these days! Complete this ♥♥♥♥ing game if you're gonna tell us it's a complete product.
Was this review helpful? Yes No
223 of 266 people (84%) found this review helpful
18.4 hrs on record
Posted: December 21
Let's get to the meat of why I said no. and this game rates at 50 / 100 points

With regard to the development team they put a decent amount of work into this and YES it still requires work. There are bugs. There is no audio where there should be, there is "music" but it's the same depressing music, while at the school and the same music for combat.. ho humm boring. I still know how to read and I guess that's a great thing considering you will read until your eyes drop out. Even cool quirky comments between characters can be missed when characters are on mission because unless you are looking at them you will miss it. SO NO AUDIO! +40.

The rest Graphics, unique or different ideas, new story lines, semi realistic world, sand box play however adds up to maybe a +10.

If you want a End of Day sim this is not it.
If you know AYTHING about FIREARMS this game will piss you off.
If you know about scavenging this is not for you, you again will be pissed off.
If you get excited about just poking around to find random bean and toilet paper you might like this game.
If you hate trying to find random junk in random places this game is going to aggravate you.

What would make this game better!

Take all the great things from XCOM / Jagged Alliance and make it a Zombie game. I have no idea why Double Bear did not do this!
Was this review helpful? Yes No
203 of 240 people (85%) found this review helpful
95.8 hrs on record
Posted: December 24
You want opinions, well, here they are.

- The character interaction between the people at the shelter is fantastic.
All the characters have different likes and dislikes as well as personalities.
Some might be kind and helpful, other might be psychotic and one or two might be complete sociopaths who care for nobody besides themselves.
You also get to interact with them in a meaningful way at times, meaning you can at certain points steer them into choosing paths (for example there was one who asked me if they should be a better shot or a better harvester).

-The map. It's HUGE, there are so many places that you can visit that it's almost overwhelming at times. There are different types of locations from an abandoned gas station to a two story hospital and a nine-story hotel.

It's not your usual type of leveling, you don't level up by killing but by the goals you finish to better the shelter. For example, bring home 100 food and/or 50 luxury items. These can be mixed and done at random. One of my favorite is 'decrypting' data-discs by basically solving an anagram.

-The shelter/basebuilding
It's nothing fancy but it gets the job done. You have certain things you can build to improve the shelter, such as a sturdier fence or a car to be able to travel faster on the map. It's nothing extraordinary but it's effective and does what it's supposed to.

Very simple and disappointing. However, since there are more than one faction (besides the zombies) you can now and then run into different groups fighting each-other and decide to either jump in and start killing or wait out to see who's the victor and then attack them.

Now for the bad parts.

-Bugs, bugs and more bugs
Some bugs can be annoying, such as not being able to loot certain stuff while others might be somewhat game-breaking (as event not triggering or not being able to fix broken things in the shelter). This is something that can and should put most people off from playing the game as of now since if you spent 40+ hours just to have everything break down and then make you wait til there's a patch that fixes it.

Because of the bugs I can't recommend this since I can't even finish the game due to CTD's at the end fight.

I would give this game 7 carrots out of 4 bears holding 20 poker-cards.
Was this review helpful? Yes No
165 of 202 people (82%) found this review helpful
25.7 hrs on record
Posted: December 24
Not worth it right now at that price (28€) unless you are extremely tolerant of zombie games. Not a good SRPG or Survival game, shelter feels lifeless since every survivor just stands still, engine can't handle maps with lots of enemies, no basic SRPG features like interrupts/overwatch, pathfinding outside of combat is often complete crap, human AI is hopelessly dumb and just rushes to you in a straight line whether or not they're using guns, zombies do not roam and bandits don't patrol either, zombie maps are so easy they're a whack-a-mole minigame, bandits and zombies teleport to the edge of your field of view when they are on the move and out of sight in realtime, you can shoot through some obstacles, can't rebind keys, AZERTY keyboards can't even type the damn M key in the datacenter (and yes switching to an US keyboard doesn't work), when lured on a position bandits all converge on it and stay there until the end of times, UI is serviceable but is missing some key features like showing looted containers, zombies who are crippled can't attack, OST is forgettable at best... It goes on and on.
Filled to the brim with bugs and lacks features/polish, deserved more time in developement.

So bad I actually had to write a serious review.
Was this review helpful? Yes No
181 of 227 people (80%) found this review helpful
0.8 hrs on record
Posted: December 22
Awful, the game is unplayable. it is so buggy. the game would lag and characters would flash all over the place. I am sure it would be a good game but I was never able to play enough to find out.
Was this review helpful? Yes No
170 of 213 people (80%) found this review helpful
0.5 hrs on record
Posted: December 24
As a Kickstarter backer, I was excited for this release before it even existed.
Then the developer decided to act infantile over a single member of the community and lash out publicly. This is not behaviour befitting an aspiring entrepreneur.

This is all it takes to make or break yourself in the business world (not necessarily the gaming industry): Professionalism.
You have it, use it. Failure to use it and your customers think less of you. Such as the case for me.

I am disappointed to have stood behind this developer and invested in their idea, because their demeanour is unfitting of someone I would ever collaborate with.

Bottom line, support developers that deserve it. This one does not.
Was this review helpful? Yes No
149 of 193 people (77%) found this review helpful
1.8 hrs on record
Posted: December 24
Buggy and almost unplayable
Was this review helpful? Yes No
133 of 181 people (73%) found this review helpful
2.7 hrs on record
Posted: December 24
It's like DayZ. Looks bad and is far beyond as fun as it sounds like. It's worth 1/5 of the original cost. In addition it has some big problems with FPS, I hadn't seen 5 FPS in over 10 years before I bought this crap.

2/10 would not recommend.
Was this review helpful? Yes No
128 of 175 people (73%) found this review helpful
0.5 hrs on record
Posted: December 24
Buggy, ugly, unoptimized, poorly written mess.

Let's meet a developer.

Let's see the review.

Let's see the response.
Was this review helpful? Yes No
82 of 115 people (71%) found this review helpful
67.3 hrs on record
Posted: December 24
Dead state is a convoluted little game.
Overall, it is obviously competentenly made, but it is also obvious that over the course of development mistakes were made and nobody quite bothered rectifying them.
The problem with this is that all the glaring little errors that managed to escape scrutiny appear late in game, precisely by the time it has you by the balls, you are having the time of your life, and naturally you are expecting the situation to escalate, but it doesn't. Instead, it just folds up like a house of cards.
All of this looks like a result of a terrible lack of oversight, and in too many areas.
Well, since I'm no professional gaming journalist, let's just make an obtuse little list.
So here we go, in no particurlar order:

Balancing issues - there are precisely three tiers of armor in the whole game. One is, to put it mildly, ♥♥♥♥ and has all the usefulness of a wet tissue paper. The other excludes zombies from the list of viable threats completely. Finally, the third one is a ballistic vest and and any other armor with a better defence rating. You put those kevlar sunday suits on, you never have to worry about anything ever again, nothing can seriously harm you anymore, which instantly turns the game into a glorified mall looting simulator. Everything else can be worked with, but if you're making a combat-heavy game and then take any thrill out of it, you aren't exactly gunning for a favorable impression. And you can get the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ vests fairly early in-game, too. I've got my first three around day 18 or so, and that's not that far into the game at all, and I didn't stumble upon them either - an NPC directed me there.

Speaking of the loot, Dead State is a damn good looting simulator. There are all sorts of neat little locations you can shamelessly rob, tons of people you can liberate from their stuff, and in general it is very satisfying to haul bags of freshly stolen military rations back to your hideout. Or at least it would be, if you didn't have to wrestle with the inventory every time you have to do that. If you are trying to haul a serious load, you will have to click a gajillion times though at least three menus. And you will end up having to do just that, because, as you progress through the game, your character roster will expand and expand and expand, even if you suffer losses, there will be ample replacements, and all those buggers will want to eat, if nothing else.

Hovever, the interface problems don't really end there. For example, you can't really view character stats and inventory on the same screen, so often you have to backtrack between two different tabs to see what exacly you should be arming mr. New Guy with so he wouldn't blow his ♥♥♥ up or. All of this would be acceptable if you were dealing with a game lke W2, where new party members are few and far between, but nope, no dice, there is a huge roster of potentially available characters and you will have to rotate them from time to time.

There are also a lot of smaller questionable design decisions, and them being lacking is often apparent in the late game - for example, the way zombies cannot pose any threat to you no matter the numbers. You are never risking getting bum-rushed, mobbed, dragged to ground and eaten, when facing a big group - not any more than during a one-one fight, which kinda goes against the conventions of zombie genre, because them shamblers are supposed to have strength in numbers. But no, as far as the game is concerned, there is very little practical difference between a fighting a mob of zeds and fighting them mano a mano.

Speaking of which, balance issue notwithstanding, the combat system leaves a lot to be desired. It would be acceptable in a 20-hours game, but, once again, the deeper you get, the more obvious its lack of depth is and it's not going to get any better, because the few options it can offer are laid out in front of you from the beginning.

Finally, the plot. Without getting too much into details, I was pretty disappointed to learn about the ending. While execution was par the course, there was much more promise to it. See, there were all sorts of little breacrumbs with omnious hints here and there, but it turned out they've had zero relation to the plot itself. In addition, it appears that some content was straight out cut, and the threads were just left there hanging.

There's also an issue with the bugs ranging from mildly annoying to game-breaking, but discussing those is pointless. Indie studios like Double Bear can hardly afford quality QA, and whatever the reason for game being the way it is right now, the bugs can at least be fixed. Bad design is forever.

In general, Dead state is a game you can nitpick for a long time, but - credit where it's due - only because Dead State is a big game with a lot of effort put into it. There is a lot enviromental storytelling going on, the sound meter makes you think and use the situation to your advantage, since both living and the dead can react to you making a ruckus, there is a lot of characters with unique interactions, quest lines and personality qurks, the management aspect is interesting and adds another, much needed layer of complexity.

Problem is, though, for each and every one of these points there is counterpoint. The areas get duller and duller the further you venture from your starting point, the noise gimmick becomes meaningless because there is little combat difficulty to speak of, so you can just shrug and go in guns blazing, the character interaction is shallow and only manages to grab your interest by juggling characters around and never focusing on any of them - and that's actually a good thing, as this is a cardboad cutout fest worthy of the worst Bioware games, management aspect looks interesting but never delivers, because you won't ever find yourself starved for resources or even operating at a loss, and so on and so forth.

I guess it is worth its money, since I've got my 60 hours of entertainment out of it, but it's not worth the disappointment you will inevitably experience.
And that does the game in.
Was this review helpful? Yes No
47 of 63 people (75%) found this review helpful
22.0 hrs on record
Posted: December 24
TL;DR: Buggy and unfinished. Don't buy it. Wait for the 2015 summer sale, hoping it will be patched.

I backed the kickstarter and I was pretty excited about the whole game, especially the concept.

Turns out the only thing they managed to pull off is the concept, everything else falls painfully short.

Extremely buggy in so many ways. Sometimes pathfinding won't let you enter a room. Other times combat wont end even with no enemies near. Enemies and allies sometimes teleport through walls, or sometimes stack ontop of eachother and become untargettable. Oftentimes animations freeze and your characters just hover around.

Combat is generally very uninspiring. Not tactical, not exciting. It's a chore.
Looting also is very unimaginative, quickly becomes boring.
Inventories are a mess. Sorting doesnt work and managing alot of items is extremely frustrating.
Companions clearly have some effort put into them, but lack any meaningful interaction.
Balance is way off, both in combat and in managing the shelter.

Still, despite all it's flaws it's not a lost cause.
The world map is huge and exploration is exciting, also the shelter has a number of interesting mechanics.
If you can look past the last-gen graphics and interface you can find the makings of a truly good game underneath.

Sadly though, I can't recommend the game before it's extensively patched, or perhaps even modified by the community.

edit: typos.
Was this review helpful? Yes No