State of Decay was a somewhat surprising hit on the Xbox Live Arcade, becoming the fastest-selling downloadable title on the service and second in total sales only to Minecraft. Its first DLC Breakdown added a sort of infinite, increasingly difficult sandbox game mode.
The next DLC, Lifeline, was announced recently but details were scarce. There was confirmation that it would include a new map, but not much else was said about it. Now we're hearing the first details from Undead Labs, and we've learned you will play as a solider.
In Lifeline you'll see the zombie apocalypse from a new perspective, starting off as a well-supplied military unit sent out to rescue and protect citizens from the zombie infestation. Your main objective will be the rescue of scientists in the city of Danforth, whose work is crucial to solving the zombie issue.
Undead Labs stated in the update on their site, "You start the game as a well-equipped, well-supported military unit, and then must learn to improvise as one resource after another is depleted... and isn't coming back. This is at the height of the initial crisis. You still have a chain of command and access to off-map support, but the voices over the radio are making it clear that things are rapidly breaking down."
The developers know that the military are often go-to bad guys in zombie fiction, and that they are often depicted as harsh and cruel. With some of the team having hands-on military experience, they wanted to offer a different perspective stating, "The military is made up of many good men and women who stand on the line that divides safety and civilization from chaos and war."
The experience is meant to be the reverse of State of Decay and most zombie games- you start off well-armed and supplied, lose resources over time, and must learn to cope with it, rather than build yourself into a powerhouse from nothing.
There are more details on Undead Labs site, including some background on how you'll begin your mission and what the story is. They also explain how they'll continue to announce details, so keep an eye out. There is no release date set for Lifeline as of now. State of Decay was released on June 5, 2013 for Xbox 360 and November 5 on PC. The trailer below is for the game's last DLC, Breakdown.
