State of Decayis azombiesurvival game that was developed by Undead Labs and published byMicrosoft Studiosin 2013. The story of the game is somewhat secondary, but it follows the travails of a group of survivors as they try to survive in and then escape Trumbull Valley. However, the main point of the game is to see how long the player can keep their group of survivors alive as they loot resources and weapons from across Trumbull Valley. The game received twoDLCsinBreakdownandLifeline.
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The game has been remastered several times over the years and has even received a sequel with another on the way, but this hasn’t slowed down thevibrant modding community that has aimed to customize, improve, and build upon the base ofState of Decay.
Updated Jul 31, 2025 by Josh Davison:While the modding community of the firstState of Decayremains vibrant and passionate even after all these years, it would less than ideal to overlook the modding community that has also gotten to work on the sequel.State of Decay 2mods are just as ambitious and expansive as those available for the first game. The community for this installment is just as eager to improve the game, iron out some of the flaws, and add their own vision to this community-based survival zombie game. To reflect that, this list has been updated to include some of the best mods forState of Decay 2as well.
15Community Editor Allows For A Look Behind The Curtain
ManyState of Decay 2mods aim to help the player cope with the often cruel randomness of the game. Sometimes one’s best survivor gets ambushed with seemingly no chance of escape or survival. Sometimes the community desperately needs food and ammunition, and there is none to be found anywhere.
The Community Editorseeks to give the player a new edge byallowing them to change various elements of their save file.This allows a second chance at saving a survivor community that they might have grown attached to and are unwilling to watch wither and die. This one was developed and uploaded by Nexos Mod user KaiHeilos.
14Mod Manager Streamlines Integrating Mods Into State Of Decay 2
Sometimes,State of Decay 2mods can clash with one another. Most video games aren’t really made to be tinkered around with post-release by so many outside developers. The wrong combination of mods can keep a game from running properly.
Thankfully,theState of Decay 2Mod Managerlets players look through the various mods they’ve downloaded,see which mods are compatible together, and even help differentState of Decay 2mods run more smoothly together.Many PC releases have a mod like this, and they are always a godsend. This mod was also made and published by KaiHeilos.
13Short Night Makes It Easier To See The Dawn
Nights can be a particularly punishing time in zombie games. Any zombie game that has a day-night cycle, fromDays GonetoDying Lightand evenMinecraft,make it clear that the night belongs to the monsters. In addition to the obviously reduced visibility, nights inState of Decay 2mean more active zombies and more special infected to ruin a perfectly good supply run.
Short Night from Nexus mod user killeraltairshortens the night so that players are more likely to live to see the dawn.To compensate, it also lengthens the daytime inState of Decay 2. Making a more pleasant experience for the player is a foundational concept in the modding community, andState of Decay 2mods take the same approach.
12100 Inventory Slots Allows For More Lucrative Supply Runs
The inventory system ofState of Decayis one of the more finicky elements of the game. Like its zombie game cousin,Resident Evil, the inventory system can seem restrictive to an almost unrealistic degree at times. This is something modders have tackled in bothState of Decaygames.
The Vehicles Have 100 Inventory Slots mod by Nexus modder Justiny/choojustinseeks to resolve this by going spectacularly far in the other direction. At the end of the day,it’s possible to fit a lot of stuff in a car with enough determination,so why not just say the player can shove 100 units of inventory in their car?
11Ideal Community Generator Creates An Ideal Society
It’s hard to say who would survive a real zombie apocalypse. There’s no guarantee that it will only be the most hardened and skilled survivors, as life is more chaotic and unfair than a video game. This manifests itself in bothState of Decaygames, with a random set of survivors that aren’t necessarily able to fulfill all of the duties that a survivor community would need.
The Ideal Community Generator tackles this issue. ManyState of Decay 2mods attempt to compensate for how unfair the random number generator can be in these games, and this mod by Nexus user evilgrin75 does the same. It allows the player topersonally construct their survivor communityso that the RNG doesn’t completely ruin an attempted playthrough.
10Skilled Survivors Stay Home Keeps Players From Losing Useful Allies
From here on, all the mods will be forthe firstState of Decay.Survivors inState of Decayhave different skills and perks attributed to them. Despite that, each one of them will, at some point or another, leave the home base to go out and gather supplies. This means that the player will almost certainly have to rescue them out in the wilderness within a certain amount of in-game time, or else that survivor will perish.
Skilled Survivors Stay Homecomes from modder star-mystyk, and it keeps this from happening.Survivors such as medics and cooks will stay homeinstead of going out to get themselves killed.
9Realistic Flashlight Mod Improves The Flashlight
Videogames often have a weird relationship with flashlights, often representing them as a pinprick of light instead of a light source that brightens an entire room.State of Decay, conversely, makes the flashlight into a device that will essentially make a surface glow instead of illuminating them from afar.
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Realistic Flashlight Modcomes from SilentResident, and it fixes this discrepancy by tweaking the flashlight mechanics. Nowthe flashlight actually lights up a surfaceinstead of magically making it glow.
8NPCs Use Guns Beta Allows Allies To Shoot Something
NPCs inState of Decayseem to be afraid of guns. They always arm themselves with melee weapons when battling zombies. This is likely to keep NPCs from wasting ammo, which is a very precious commodity inState of Decay, but it still limits how helpful an NPC ally can be.
NPCs Use Guns Betacomes from modders free8015 and BIZ and uploaded by user luc1dox, and it fixes this bygiving NPCs guns and their own unlimited stash of ammunitionthat doesn’t come from the player’s own ammo. Admittedly,this mod is labeled asa beta and hasn’t been updated since 2014. As such, it’s likely to be quite buggy without any improvements likely to be on the way.
7Realistic Shadows Mod Provides A Graphical Upgrade
Shadow effects have also been a consistently strange and ill-understood element in videogames. Shadows are, understandably, a weird and difficult thing to program, andState of Decaycertainly has some room for improvement when it comes to its shadow effects.
Realistic Shadows Modcomes from SilentResident, and itlowers the contrast between shadowed and unshadowed areas.Before, shadows would practically black out an area. However,this mod tones downthe darkness, making the shadows look more realistic and less oppressive.
6Brant’s Military Surplus Adds DLC Weapons To Base Game
TheLifelineandBreakdownDLCs forState of Decayadd new weapons to the game, but they don’t retroactively act those guns to the prior game modes. This means thatBreakdownweapons aren’t in the vanilla campaign, and theLifelineweapons aren’t inBreakdownor the vanilla campaign.
Brant’s Military Surpluscomes from MattyDienhoff, and it fixes that.So long as the DLCs are downloaded, theirweapons will appear in the older game modes as well.
