Dead State - Review Roundup

In addition the Rock Paper Shotgun posted a few days ago, there have been a few other interesting reviews:

Eurogamer gives it a 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, similarly, gives it a 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.

The Caring and Feeding of Nerds has also had an in depth look:

But it makes me wonder: why not leave it in Early Access to give the polish it deserved and needed? This isn’t AAA; there are no arbitrary deadlines set by demanding overlords and, from where I sit, it seems the hasty removal of the Early Access label hurt Dead State's release more than it helped. I know lots of games have Day 1 patches, even major titles like Dragon Age Inquisition. DoubleBear certainly is not working with the same level of resources as EA and Bioware, but how did this become an industry standard even for Indies?  

   

Before I go back to boarding up the windows and stockpiling canned goods along with other non-perishables, I want to stress that I DO recommend picking up Dead State. Don’t let my remarks in the paragraph above drive you off from what I feel is a worthwhile game. While most zombie games are about action or horror, ultimately Dead State is a narrative-heavy game that is as much about how pockets of humanity can cope with disasters on a scale they can’t possibly control as it is about killing zombies and making experience bars go up.