State of Survival

State of Survival Review: Shelter, Heroes and Crates

Building a Settlement in a Ruin

The base is laid out among wrecked buildings and overgrown roads: a shelter to expand, farm plots for food, workshops, walls. Clearing infected from the surrounding blocks unlocks more space, so growth and combat are tied together rather than separated into menus. Combat itself plays as small squads with heroes at the front, health bars over the enemy line and abilities firing on cooldown — quick enough to watch, shallow enough to leave running. It is the standard structure of the genre executed with better art direction than most.

Heroes and a Vehicle to Rebuild

Named survivors are recruited, levelled and slotted into squads, each with a role and an ability, and the collection is where long-term progress sits. The distinctive addition is a vehicle: a battle truck upgraded through parts, with its own level and combat power, which fights beside the squad and gives an alternative track to pour resources into when the hero roster stalls. Around that sit chapter missions with a written story, which is more narrative than most games of this shape attempt. Story chapters carry written scenes between fights, which gives the hero roster names worth remembering rather than statistics alone.

Crates, Biocaps and What Apple Lists

The App Store sells biocaps from $0.99 to $19.99 and crates at $2.99, $4.99, $9.99, $19.99 and $49.99. Apple rates the game 13+ for infrequent realistic violence, horror themes, suggestive themes and weapons, and — unusually for this genre — does not list loot boxes, despite the crates. Google Play carries no advertising badge, showing 4.3 stars from 2.31 million reviews on 50 million installs, against 4.6 from 382,000 App Store ratings. The install is 1 GB. The absence of a loot box descriptor is the odd detail here, since crates behave exactly like the ones Apple labels elsewhere.