State of Decay 2 Zedhunter Announced as Free DLC Content 2019

The State of Decay 2 Zedhunter announced as free DLC content that's set to arrive in 2019. It's the first of three free drops for the game that will enhance the general experience of this open world zombie survival management game further. This announcement comes with the details of the game delivery its content to over four million active players on Xbox One and Windows 10 PC platforms. The general details of what comes with this are to follow, below are smaller and more intense details as to what's included here.

Eight new crossbows

Three sharp new melee weapons (swords!) – the Wraith, Mamba, and Masterwork Bokken (which is a blunt training sword)

Three new close combat weapons (aka knives)

Five fresh and exciting blood plague consumables – the Zedbait (attracts zombies), Zedeye (allows you to see in the dark), Zedrenaline (gives a temporary boost to health and stamina), Scentblock (makes you invisible to zeds), and bloater gas grenades + launcher

One facility mod to craft additional blood plague consumables

The ability to craft crossbows + bolts in your home base

Brand new re-spec option (to reset a survivors core skill specializations)

The Crossbow In-Depth
Stealthy: The crossbow is a perfectly silent weapon that lets you score glorious head shots without drawing unwanted attention. Some crossbows are even fitted with scopes that let you deliver the kill from a comfortable distance.

Efficient: Crossbow bolts can often be recovered after use, which lets you stretch your ammunition budget much further than you would with a firearm. What’s more, you can use even a baseline Workshop to craft crossbow bolts from materials and parts. Higher end Workshops also let you build your own crossbows!

Durable: Crossbows never jam or break. You’ll never be stuck in the wilderness with a crossbow that won’t fire.

Surgical: Crossbows aren’t as clumsy or random as a shotgun or a rifle. This translates to a significantly higher chance of finding a plague sample when you kill a plague zombie

Re-Specs
Selecting a skill specialization is a difficult choice and it’s easy to look back on your decisions and wish you’d made them differently. With the new training manuals that are added to the game your survivors will have exactly that option for any specialization choices made for the four core skills (Cardio, Wits, Fighting, and Shooting).

Any survivor who has reached seven stars in one of the core skills can use one of these training manuals to remove a specialization from that core skill and gain the option to select any standard specialization of that skill. The books even unlock specializations that weren’t previously available to that survivor to change things up further

There is one small trade off that’s important to note. Your newly retrained survivor will gain experience for the newly selected skill much more slowly than normal. That's the price you'll pay.

For a chance to trade for one of these rare books, track down the next Mysterious Wandering Trader you see on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

Plague Consumables
Zedhunter features three potent plague consumables that can drastically enhance your survivor’s abilities. It should be mentioned that they’re basically poison to humans, sickening their user with a touch of plague infection when consumed. Certainly a little infection worth it for the ability to see in the dark, or sneak past zombies without drawing their attention.

This update also includes a few other new consumables that offer your survivor some new strategies. For instance, who hasn’t wanted to bottle up toxic bloater clouds, creating poisonous gas grenades that you can throw or well launch at human enemies?

New Quirk Skills
There are five new quirk skills to the game, each of which offers a new buff to the survivor (or to their community). You’ll find these skills on newly encountered survivors in the world so be sure to use that “Inspect Character” option when interacting with NPCs to determine who has something new and perhaps valuable to add to your community.

Hygiene increases the amount of plague infection needed to push this survivor into full blown blood plague.
Recycling gives your community a regular income of parts and materials.
Shopping accelerates this survivor’s search speed while letting them find useful items more quickly during scavenging.
Sleep Psychology effectively increases the number of beds available to your cozy community.
Soundproofing reduces the noise driven threat of zombie attack on your base.

There will be skill books for each of these new quirk skills (as well as the already existing Sewing skill). You can find these skill books by tracking down the Skills Trader when that character visits your town.

Close and Personal
Zedhunter improves your arsenal of hand held killing power with three new melee weapons. These weapons are designed to reward the stealthy player by being exceptionally silent in combat. They've also gone and added three stylish new close combat weapons that you can use when your primary weapon inevitably lets you down.

New Missions
To help introduce this new content, there have been several missions added to the game (and updated others). If you want to experience these new missions, keep an eye out for anything labeled Mysterious Broadcast!

With those exciting details, there will be a lot to come in the future for the game. Be sure to read our review of the "Daybreak" DLC that recently released which is a group based survival mode among other smaller extras. There's also the general State of Decay hub to see additional coverage for the release. It'll always be updated with fresh announcements, news and pieces on the title.

Read our State of Decay 2 Daybreak Review
View our State of Decay Hub