State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition – Skill Leveling

Learn the four basic skills that every survivor needs to master to stay alive.

Playing State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition is one thing, but mastering it and leading your group through the worst of the apocalypse is another. The latter will prove difficult, and you’ll have to master several game concepts in order to be successful. Perhaps the most vital of these is the combat in State of Decay, but today we’re going to focus on the four basic skills that every character has, and what they mean in the grand scheme of things.

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The four basic skills include Cardio, Fighting, Shooting and Wits. Some survivors can possess additional skills known as Traits, but we’ll get into that a bit more another time. For now, the important thing to understand is that each skill can be ranked up to level seven, usually by performing actions related to that skill. As an example, killing zombies with melee combat will help rank up your Fighting skill, and once you max it out, you’ll unlock a Special Technique to go with it.

Cardio

The concept is a fairly simple one to understand – If you run out of stamina, you’re dead. You can’t run away and you can’t continue to fight. This makes Cardio one of the most important skills that players will need to train in State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition. To do this, make sure your character spends time sprinting. If you run out of stamina, try eating a snack to give yourself a boost, then get back to training. When you rank up your Cardio to level seven, you’ll have +30 more stamina than when you started.

Fighting

To level up your Fighting skill, you’ll only need to fight zombies. This shouldn’t be an issue, since even the first few minutes of game play will see you battling the undead. If you really want to jump to the front of the line and reach level seven in a hurry, try taking on a horde with the help of one or two other survivors. It’s risky, so decide how important combat skills are to your game.

Shooting

When players level up their Shooting skills, it will provide them with certain bonuses, like reduced recoil and increased accuracy. At level four, players can choose to specialize in a firearm type. If you want to level up your Shooting skill, just kill zombies with firearms. You get bonus XP for killing two zombies with one bullet (think shotguns here), or by stringing a streak of five consecutive headshots together. By reaching level seven you’ll get a 60 percent bump in recoil reduction.

Wits

The Wit skill ties directly to how quickly and quietly survivors can search for supplies. At level one this action will take you 10 seconds, but by the time you hit level seven you can search quietly in only four-seconds. That’s a pretty big jump considering the threats that lurk outside most abandoned houses. It should also be noted that during the mission Home Away From Home, players will get a bump in their Wit skill every time they approach a potential Home Site.

If you enjoyed State of Decay on the Xbox 360, we can help you transfer your data to State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition on the Xbox One.

If you’re looking to get your hands on all of our State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition content in one place, visit our State of Decay guide and become the ultimate survivor.


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Prima Games Staff
The staff at Prima Games.