Dead State Reviews

A number of reviews for DoubleBear Productions’ zombie-focused RPG Dead State have been published since its release, and we’ve done our best to round them up so our readers can check them out and get an idea of the game’s critical reception. There simply aren’t enough reviews to get a solid idea, but for now the press seems to be tepid on the title, and awarded solid but unremarkable scores.

Eurogamer, 7/10.

There’s nothing here that can’t be fixed with a few well aimed patches and balancing tweaks however. For all its lack of technical polish, there’s nothing game breaking and even as the challenge diminishes in direct proportion to your playing time, the stories that come out of the cast of broad appealing archetypes will keep you on the wheel through another day and night cycle.

Nothing much to look at, and with a premise that has been dulled through repetition, Dead State is a game that requires you to approach it with an open mind and a forgiving nature. Make the effort, and you’ll find a game that makes up in charm what it lacks in polish.

GameFront, 70/100.

I’m sure future patches will resolve these problems, and the majority of them tend not to be game-breaking. But it does prevent Dead State from feeling quite as polished as it could have been.

That aside, Dead State remains a solid and engaging experience into which RPG and survival fans will sink hours. It may not have ended up being the first, but Doublebear has certainly earned its place among the zombie survival greats.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun, scoreless.

But it is also very good at making you feel triumphant.

I caught myself crowing in delight today, after cleaning out a supermarket of its goods. I killed twenty zombies, all without losing a single ally to infection or sudden death. My haul? About fifty pounds of food, ten gallons of fuel, and a pocketful of fresh berries. A pittance, really, given how quickly my survivors eat through their rations, and how rapidly the generator drains our fuel supplies. But it was more than anything I had acquired in the last three game days. Enough for me to last one night without going onto the field. (Which I will still do, but hey. The luxury of choice is a luxury indeed.)

And if that isn’t a success in this dead-eat-not-dead world, I don’t know what is.