We had a blast yesterday at the first Year One: Survival Edition live stream. I mean, it started with Brant and Geoffrey awkwardly cuddling and it only got more fun from there. Look, you had to be there. So, will we see you on April 14th? http://www.twitch.tv/undeadlabs at 1 PM PDT/4 PM EDT/9 PM UT.
I’m just messing with you. You can also watch this week’s recording: http://www.twitch.tv/undeadlabs/b/647087225
But if you don’t have an hour to spare, I live-tweeted all the juicy YOSE details at @undeadlabs. (Note: Most of this is already known to you if you follow us closely here on the site and out on social media.) Here’s what all I said on Twitter and in the stream chat channel:
We took four of our favorite heroes and wrote all new material for them. Sasquatch, Hawk, Kilo, and Vance are the four heroes migrating from Lifeline to the whole game.
What do you get if you’re a returning player who wants to upgrade to YOSE? Gurubani, the epic hero exclusive to returning friends of SOD. She has a suppressed WW2 scout rifle. While the rifle itself will need repair, just like every other weapon in the game, the built in suppressor will never need replacement. She was inspired by the lead designer of SOD’s experiences in India. Her weapons are just freaking cool, and her starting stats make her a top quality hero. You’ll find her in all parts of the game (original, Breakdown, Lifeline) and you can start as her in Breakdown. We wanted to make Gurubani VERY special for the returning players – the people who made State of Decay a success.
Gurubani is for returning friends. The Prepper’s Pack is for first day (well, first few days, really) buyers, whether or not you’ve played before – there’s a new gun, a new SUV, and a handy folding axe with sharp edges for maximum mayhem. The Prepper Pack SUV has a camo paint job, and the gun is an assault rifle with an underslung grenade launcher. No more switching between a rifle and a launcher, when you have both kinds of ammo!
We redid the animations, and added some badass new combat animations.
In the original, losing a weapon meant… shoving a zombie to death? In YOSE, you have an unbreakable knife always at hand.
Ammo refills, and snack making, are both going from Lifeline to the whole game. We also added Lifeline’s feature of manually repairing your weapon (instead of having to wait) to the whole game.
The draw distance is a lot further than it used to be.
We have a new mission type! Drops the best loot in the game, like a supply pinata. Assuming you can turn the beacon attached TO the supply beacon off before every zed in the game attacks you. But what’s the story deal with the new mission types? Well, it lets us tease things for the future of the franchise, storywise…
We spent…a lot…of time redoing the pathing. There’s still some goofy [stuff] but it’s WAY better than it used to be.
Yesterday we put out a new update on the 360 that added the menu option to move your save game to the cloud. Once you do that, and after you get YOSE, you can turn on the XB1 and get your save, and carry on. If you choose to move your save, by the way, the feature will move all your saves at once: Original, Breakdown, and Lifeline.
If you stay loyal to a format – Xbox360 to Xbox1, Steam to Steam – and you’re using your same account name, you automatically get 33% off of YOSE.
Retail preorders for the disk are already cooking along. Each store has a different pre-order bonus – a unique skin for the unbreakable knife. Everyone gets the knife, of course, but the visuals are cool.
We’ll have more information on digital preorders (and digital pre-loading, to max your fun factor on launch day) very soon.
We think YOSE plays like a whole new game – we wanted to make it worthwhile for you to come back to Trumbull Valley. We just brought everything up a level. Why? We had the most wonderful chance to make State of Decay look and feel like our internal daydreams vision, and we took it.
Everybody? We can’t thank you enough. State of Decay would never have happened without our community, let alone this shiny edition. And without you, there wouldn’t be a future for SOD at all.
We hope to see you all at the April 28 launch. But we’ll be streaming a few more times before then 🙂 Look for us again next Tuesday, same bat time, same bat channel.
Want to queue up a question for next week? Ask it in our ongoing comment thread!