When comparing State of Decay 2 vs Gears of War 4, the Slant community recommends Gears of War 4 for most people. In the question“What are the best co-op games on Xbox One?” Gears of War 4 is ranked 36th while State of Decay 2 is ranked 39th. The most important reason people chose Gears of War 4 is:
Nowadays, some titles tend to exclude local multiplayer, focusing primarily on online play but Gears of War 4 is an exception. You can play both the campaign and all multiplayer modes with your friends via splitscreen.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Online co-op with friends makes the game more fun and strategic
Four-player co-op online with friends is great. You all get to work together to plan your next move, gather resources, and protect your base by killing zombies. The third-person shooter gameplay shines as you work cooperatively, since you can watch each other's blind spots to take out any enemies that might catch someone off guard. You can also pull off more strategic moves, like coordinating fire strikes to distract zombies, while another person hurries to collect the resources in an area. Working as a team lets you accomplish more and experience the game in a way that the single-player mode just doesn't offer.
Pro Good price of $29.99 USD at release
State of Decay 2 is priced well at launch at only $29.99. Even better, with the Xbox Game Pass, you can get the game for only $10 on either PC or your Xbox console. This is great for anyone who doesn't want to shell out the usual $59.99 for a retail game as soon as it's released.
Pro Excellent performance
Everything runs well at solid framerates on both console and PC. If you're on the Xbox One X, or if you have a high-end PC at max settings, you'll hardly notice any stuttering or FPS issues. The regular Xbox One and mid-tier PCs also run the game quite well.
Pro Open-ended approach to managing your base, resources, and survivors
You have the freedom to make choices in State of Decay 2 that determine how things turn out for your operations. You're tasked with taking care of groups of survivors during a zombie apocalypse, so that means gathering food and other resources to keep your people and your base safe.
When you know you're about to exhaust all the resources in one area, you have to decide if you want to keep your base in what's probably a safe location away from zombies, at the cost of having to cross more distance to find materials in the future. Or if you do move your base to a resource-rich location, you may end up getting swarmed by zombies more often, and potentially losing your survivors. These types of moment-to-moment choices end up having a big impact down the line, making each of your gameplay sessions unique.
Pro Local splitscreen multiplayer
Nowadays, some titles tend to exclude local multiplayer, focusing primarily on online play but Gears of War 4 is an exception. You can play both the campaign and all multiplayer modes with your friends via splitscreen.
Pro Really fun horde mode
Horde mode is a multiplayer co-op mode where up to 5 players try to survive against waves of enemies. It features regular combat and allows you to build fortifications, which you can do by collecting resources from killed enemies and using the fabricator. This allows you to build blockades, sentries, and various other defenses, giving it a very tower defense-esque feel, which is also a lot of fun.
You can also choose between 5 classes with each class being better at something different. For example, the Engineer can build and repair defenses much faster than others and the Heavy uses stronger weapons that allow him to kill large enemies much faster. As a result, teamwork is very important, so when your squad is co-operating like a well-oiled machine, it just feels incredibly satisfying.
Pro Exciting gameplay
In Gears of War you and a squad of several other soldiers fight against the enemies of humanity, using various weapons such as rifles, a shotgun, and even a weapon that fires saw blades. It's very fast paced and a lot of fun, rewarding not only effective use of cover and accurate shooting, but also quick decision making on when to charge your enemy and take them out with your knife or your chainsaw bayonet. This leads to a lot of very intense, sometimes brutal, and always satisfying battles, making Gears of War 4 a really enjoyable ride.
Pro Excellent visuals
Gears of War 4 has some really outstanding visuals with high quality textures, great lighting, and excellent shadow mapping. This makes all of the armored human characters, monstrous lizard-like enemies, and the various lush landscapes filled with ruins look especially good. All of this is turned up a notch with the help of excellent weather effects, such as rain, lighting, and gusts of heavy wind that carry massive objects over your head, giving Gears of War 4 a very cinematic feel.
Cons
Con Not available on Steam (It is now on steam)
State of Decay 2 isn't on Steam. You can only purchase it through the Windows Store.
Con No dedicated servers for online play
Not having dedicated servers makes online play hit-or-miss. The peer-to-peer connection means that one player in the lobby acts as the "host" for your game. If the host's individual connection is bad, then everyone in the lobby suffers with possible rubberbanding and packet loss. You'll be fine as long as the host's connection is okay, but if not, then you're out of luck. It would have been better to have dedicated servers to avoid these awkward issues.
Con Buggy
There are some random bugs that pop up during gameplay. They're mostly physics-based, with zombies dropping down from the sky as they spawn, or vehicles tipping over and flipping around for no apparent reason. Some of them are pretty funny and aren't too detrimental, but they still make the game look and feel unpolished. A few patches from the devs should iron out these issues.
Con Not for players who dislike micromanaging small details
If you don't like keeping track of resources and other necessities that come along with base-building games, then State of Decay 2 probably isn't for you. Your main objective is keeping your survivors alive and your base thriving, meaning you have to scavenge the open world for food and materials, make sure your peoples' needs are met, and a lot of other similar tasks. Finding and allocating resources is what makes or breaks your group and your operations, so if you hate keeping track of things like that, then you may not want to pick this game up.
Con Poorly done story
The story has some cool moments, but it mostly focuses on pointless drama and issues that end up feeling like filler because they have no real impact on the story or character building. This coupled with a few plot holes will make you want to press the skip button and just get back into the action.