State of Decay 2 does not have a "main story" like the first game, being more of a freeform sandbox game. Almost all survivors you encounter are randomly generated. Even the four pairs of starting survivors you can choose from have randomly generated names and traits.
The Heartland DLC is much more story focused than the main game, with a number of pre-generated survivors with set attributes and skills that can potentially be recruited.
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Main Game Characters
Starting Survivors
In General
When you first start a new game, you can select from four different pairs of survivors to be your two starting survivors (The Surly Siblings, Perpetual Breakup, Old Buddies, and Odd Couple). These four groups have fixed appearances, but randomly generated names and traits. During the tutorial, you also recruit a Soldier and a Doctor with different appearances depending on the selected group and randomly generated names and traits.- Battle Couple: The Perpetual Breakup and Odd Couple have managed to survive a good few years into the zombie apocalypse together.
- Developer's Foresight: If you manage to keep any of them alive till the end of a map, they'll have unique dialogue for after you defeat the Blood Plague.
- Friendly Sniper: The Soldier is this, equipped with an Arctic Warfare Magnum rifle. He/She saved you from a horde with covering fire during the tutorial and joins your group before the zombies overrun the army camp.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: The female member of the Odd Couple wears a black biker jacket.
- Sole Survivor: The Soldier and the Doctor are the last members of the army camp from the tutorial, everyone else having pulled out a while ago.
Special Enclaves
The Auto Mechanics
- Big Damn Heroes: The rookie group member who left the group earlier due to poor treatment from the leader ends up returning during the final zombie siege to help everyone fight the zombies off.
The Brewers
- The Alcoholic: They have a poor habit of going into dangerous situations while nearly blackout drunk (on multiple occasions), which causes no amount of consternation for you when you try to team up with them.
- Recovered Addict: After almost being eaten by zombies one too many times, they do eventually learn to lay off the booze and vow to use their still for medicinal purposes.
The Cannibals
A friendly group of survivors who you meet when responding to a distress call, only for them to deny making any such call. After helping them out a couple times, they'll give you a few gift deliveries of "mystery meat". You eventually learn that they're cannibals who've been hunting down and butchering lone survivors for meat.- Affably Evil: They're cannibals who hunt down and butcher lone survivors, but they're nothing but generous to your group, offering you gifts of "mystery meat" as tokens of friendship. Ultimately, they never directly betray your group, it's you who turns on them after learning they're cannibals.
- Cannibal Clan: The "mystery meat" they've been generously giving your community eventually turns out to be human flesh.
- Losing the Team Spirit: Instead of killing them all, you can just kill their leader. The remaining cannibals will surrender and run off to leave town, and your character hopes that without the leader's influence on them their human flesh-eating ways will come to an end.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: You receive no real reward for completing their quest line other than the usual experience and influence gain from doing any quest; since you end up wiping them out, you don't get any special Allied enclave bonus, and they don't drop any particularly unique loot either.
The Ex-Military Survivors
- Elite Mooks: Being ex-military, they're considerably better armed than the usual NPC survivor enclave.
- Hired Guns: You can recruit them as bodyguards for free after completing their quest line. Alternatively, they can launch assaults against plague hearts for you.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Their quest line involves escorting one of the survivors to their old base where some of their old friends have become zombified. That survivor freezes upon arrival, too traumatized by the experience. Later, that survivor goes missing, and you discover they have run away from the group because they are tired of killing.
The Hospital Staff
- The Medic: They're former hospital staff who want to start a local clinic to help survivors. If you complete their quest line, you get a radio option where you can radio them for instant free healing.
The Pathetic Survivors
A group of desperate survivors who have been on the run for months, who contact you to beg for assistance from you in the form of resources. They're poorly equipped (armed only with knives), pathetically unskilled, and in general seem ill-suited to survive in the zombie apocalypse.- The Load: Every single one of them has significant negative traits that impact their basic combat skills. Recruiting them into your community at the end of their quest line results in 3 extra mouths to feed with crippled combat capabilities. At best some of them will have a special skill like gardening or computers that you're looking for.
The Rude Survivors
A pushy group of survivors who demand that you share with them the resources you've been "hogging".- Ungrateful Bastard: They show absolutely no gratitude for you helping them by giving them supplies, and they eventually demand that you give them your home base.
The Zombie Hunters
- Creepy Souvenir: They seem focused on collecting trophies from the zombies they kill — one side mission involves finding a lost member who was out collecting teeth.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: You receive no real reward for completing their quest line other than the usual experience and influence gain from doing any quest; one of them gets killed and turned into a zombie, and the other two eventually decide to leave town, so you don't end up with an Allied enclave once everything is said and done.
- Too Dumb to Live: Shockingly, their plan to capture a bunch of zombies goes poorly.
The Network
In General
- Close-Knit Community: The Network's M.O. is all about helping one another, and looking out for your neighbors. This is reflected in that a lot of Network goods focus on benefiting the community rather than firepower, however that's not to say they're lacking in that regard.
- Improvised Weapon: In contrast to Red Talon which primarily uses advanced military prototype firearms and blades, the Network is generally equipped with heavily modified civilian firearms and Dead Rising-style crafted improvised melee weapons, which are nonetheless almost as effective as Red Talon's weaponry.
- Previous Player-Character Cameo: The Network is essentially what the Trumbull Valley Survivors eventually became. Their current leader is even Lily Ritter.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Unlike the militaristic Red Talon, the Network is more akin to this trope. One of your group members will comment that if you join the Network and then want to leave, it's no big deal.
- The Bus Came Back: Not the Network itself per say, but many characters from the original State of Decay show up as Network operatives, such as the aforementioned Lily and Ray Santos.
- Action Survivor: These tend to be what the Network is made up of, just a large group of regular people helping each other out.
- Disc-One Nuke: Sometimes a Network Trader will spawn in, and are almost always guaranteed to be carrying a Network Transmitter; only 500 influence, and grants an additional two outpost slots intead of the one from a signal booster. Due to how finicky traders can be, you could see one as early as the first day or two in a run, or never at all.
Lily Ritter
The leader of the Network and a Big Good who wants to help survivors in the apocalypse. For more about her, see here
.Raymundo "Ray" Santos
Another key figure and generational politician-turned-survivor in Trumbull, Ray is a seemingly sketchy guy at first who turns out to be a genuinely well-meaning man. For more information on Ray, see here.Kamilla "Kami" Báez
A newer member of the Network and an escapee from the rumored "Camp Eerie", she can be heard from time to time on the radio. This can include hearing her escape as she broadcasts it, or being another voice to chime in on the radio sometimes.- Deadpan Snarker: Tends to throw out cold and witty remarks directed at Red Talon, and also makes quips as she gives out general advice.
- Token Evil Teammate: Compared to the rest of the Network's more non-confrontational style of operating, Kami is a lot more harsh on those who could be seen as enemies, namely Red Talon.
- Unreliable Narrator: Played with. While there has been numerous pieces of evidence from different sources (notes you can find, Sasquatch's Suspiciously Specific Denial, etc.), one of the lead developers
Brant Fitzgerald left a comment on a reddit post that whether or not Kami is lying about Camp Eerie or not is left purposefully vague.
Red Talon
In General
- Affably Evil: While the jury is still out on the evil part, the radio voices for Red Talon (namely Theresa) have no problem addressing their lack of care for those who don't fall in line with them, even making certain comments about opposing survivors in some cases.
- Badass Army: While they do have a decent few failures to their name, Red Talon is objectively the best fit for combating zombies save for none. All of their recruitable agents are certifiable one man armies who can get the benefits of almost every specialization in every skill. They also possess equipment implied to have been experimental even by the military's standards, such as having handheld railguns and a vast drone system that delivers both supplies and fire support to their soldiers.
- Disc-One Nuke: Red Talon soldiers are recruitable from the first minute of a playthrough (provided one has the prestige for it) and come bundled with extremely high skills and good equipment. However, they also tend to cost more in upkeep than normal survivors, and though they are one-man killing machines, Red Talon soldiers do lack certain skills that normal specializations have (i.e. the drop kick ability), which can instantly stun a feral. They often come equipped with unique CLEO weapons which demand a unique ammunition type that can't be found in the world, requiring the Red Talon unique workshop to make more. If given time to skill up, regular survivors with regular high-end weapons can be almost as good as Red Talon for half of the cost.
- Elite Mooks: They're by far the most well equipped and well trained faction in the post-apocalypse, outclassing even what little we see of the remnants of the U.S. military. Nothing short of a group of Nightmare Juggernauts can crack a computer-controlled Red Talon team in the free-roam campaign.
- The Federation: They claim to be this, allowing towns and partners under their protection to do as they please and exerting very little oversight. This is what they use to excuse the rumor that one of their camps is secretly running a slavery operation, since they have no control over it.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Red Talon operatives still get the standing reward debuff (indicating the community's distrust in them) even if the majority or entirety of the community is made up of Red Talon. Being so distrusted also doesn't prevent them from becoming the leader of the community.
- Grey-and-Grey Morality: On one hand, Red Talon is working to defeat the zombies infesting America. On the other, their methods include forced labour camps where refugees are little better than prisoners.
- Hold the Line: Red Talon has scrawled "No Retreat" messages upon the walls at Camp Osprey and elsewhere in the game, calling the U.S. military cowards for abandoning survivors to their fate.
- Informed Attribute: They are said to be a ruthless organization that enslaves survivors under their protection. While that is likely true, we see little of that in-game, and Red Talon offers nothing but assistance to the player community. They even drop free weapon caches to the player and provide military-grade ordnance to any community that truly makes a difference. Subverted in the sense that sometimes a mission will crop up from a survivor asking you to kill a Red Talon operative who took their community members hostage.
- Master of All: Red Talon operatives have unique specializations that combine aspects from every specialization in a skill, allowing them to be excellent at almost anything.
- Mildly Military: Red Talon is more like a mercenary group that has effectively stepped into the void left by the actual military retreating to parts unknown. Osiris Command, what's actually left of the U.S. military, even dismissively refers to them as immature fools playing soldier.
- Necessary Drawback:
- Due to Red Talon's sinister reputation, people don't trust them and as such they take longer to level up their community standing.
- Due to their high skills or trauma from their service, Red Talon operatives often demand higher upkeep than regular survivors. Quartermasters in particular demand three times the sleeping quarter of everyone else. Many of them also refuse to do menial labor around the base, possibly because they are used to having support personnel handling that for them.
- Not the Intended Use: Due to the game spawning more freaks the higher the overall standing of a community is, Red Talon's standing penalty is actually a blessing in disguise; they can be used to destroy plague hearts and wipe out infestation without ballooning the community's standing overnight.
- Promoted to Playable: They go from being a background faction in the Lifeline DLC of the first game to having their equipment and operatives added in the Daybreak DLC of the second game.
- Training from Hell: Red Talon boot camps are apparently so intense, many operatives find the zombies downright cuddly by comparison. In gameplay terms, some Red Talon recruits have higher max health to reflect this.
- The Remnant: Though they're not part of the U.S. government, they're a mercenary group that represents the last organized effort left in the United States to push back against the undead and retake the country in a "bring the war to them" type of fashion. They seem to represent the last efforts of having an advance organized military (or more closely, a militia in their case), as they are one of the last factions left with advanced infrastructure and a professional chain of command akin to the army. The U.S. government is still around, but they have seemingly other priorities than taking out the zombie threat.
- Zombie Apocalypse Hero: They are a group of professional zombie killers who have been waging war against the dead for quite some time. Even after the regular Army pulls out and leaves everyone in the dark, Red Talon remains active and even goes on the offense against the dead, reclaiming and setting up walled outposts in infested areas. Their unique specializations (which even ex-military survivors lack) hint at the fact that they have been trained specifically to survive and thrive in the apocalypse.
Heartland Characters
Player Characters
Larisse Davis
The child of a single mother who has come to Trumbull Valley with her Aunt Fi to meet her father, Mickey Wilkerson.- Badass Driver: Her special skills are built around driving and upgrading cars. Her traits also significantly reduce the amount of damage vehicles take when ramming zombies or obstacles. She even starts out equipped with a tire iron.
- Disc-One Nuke: Unlike Quincy, she starts out with an assault rifle, which makes dealing with the first Plague Feral and the early game in general more manageable.
- Easily Forgiven: Mickey Wilkerson is remarkably forgiving of her shooting him in the face if she decides to protect Xander from the Wilkersons. He even admires her "fire", and the two can part ways on good terms. Thought it seems that headshot was Only a Flesh Wound.
- Jack of All Stats: She has well-balanced stats and can be spec'd into a decent variety of synergized playstyles; she can choose any Cardio specialization except Acrobatics and any Wits specialization except Discipline, though her Shooting skill is limited to either Assault or the default Weapon Handling; decent builds include Backpacking + Resourcefulness for a max inventory capacity Human Pack Mule or Scouting + Weapon Handling for significantly increased firearm usage before breakdown.
- Made of Iron: She has the Endurance skill as well as the "Made Her Own Way" trait, which give her higher than normal health.
- Stone Wall: If she doesn't spec into the Powerhouse specialization for Cardio, she won't have a melee weapon specialization due to already having Endurance as her Fighting skill; she'll have good health, but won't be as effective in melee.
- Uncertain Doom: At the end of his questline in the Homecoming DLC, Mickey notes that he no longer has any living family members, though it's ambiguous as to whether this means Larisse died after the events of Heartland or simply disowned her ties to the Wilkerson name (which is one way to conclude her questline in Heartland).
- Wrench Wench: As a seasoned car chopper she's a skilled mechanic.
- Wrestler in All of Us: She has the Endurance specialization, which gives her a body slam as a special move. She can also spec into the Powerhouse specialization in Cardio for drop kicks and head stomps.
Fiona Davis
Larisse's Aunt Fi who is accompanying her niece in the search for her father. She's a former high school principal an an avid jogger, and is distrustful of strangers.- Action Survivor: Her Fighting and Shooting skills start out the lowest of all the starting characters, suggesting she hasn't had much combat experience. Helena, in contrast, starts out with a decently leveled Gunslinger specialization and nearly maxed out Fighting skill, due to being a former cop. Aunt Fi is a pretty good runner, though, thanks to her Marathon specialization and Avid Jogger trait.
- Close-Range Combatant: Her Discipline specialization is geared towards melee combat, and she can spec into either Striking or Swordplay for her Fighting specialization.
- The Cynic: She's distrustful of strangers and always reminding Larisse to be careful of strange new acquittances.
- The Heart: As a former high school principal, she's both this and The Cynic at the same time. Her traits give her a morale boost and her hero skill is the "Inspiration Words" radio special ability which will heal your active character when used.
- Machete Mayhem: She starts out equipped with a machete and can spec into the Swordplay fighting specialization.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: She starts out with a snub-nosed .357 magnum revolver, though it doesn't really suit her as her available firearms specializations are either the default Weapon Handling or Sharpshooting, neither or which really sync well with revolversnote .
- Token Good Teammate: She's less than enthused about Larisse falling in with the Wilkersons and their criminal gang.
Quincy Maxwell
A Network operative who has been tasked by Lily Ritter to enter Trumbull Valley and check up on Lily's old friend Ray Santos, whose radio broadcasts have gone dark recently. Quincy is a gruff, older ex-convict in a tattered suit. For this assignment he has been paired with Helena, an idealistic young rookie cop.- Improvised Weapon: He learned to make shivs in prison and now specializes in turning normal objects into deadly weapons. He starts out armed with a sword made from a cutting machine, and can make various high-end improvised weaponry with his Weaponsmithing skill.
- Jack of All Trades: Like Larisse, in many of his skills Quincy can select from 3 different skill specializations rather than the normal 2, allowing him to spec into a wider selection of character builds.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Helena states this about him, as even though he's The Cynic and states that sometimes people have to prioritize helping their own people over helping others, he's still a believer in the Network's mission of helping others and banding together.
- Recruited from the Gutter: He's an ex-con who was recruited into the Network by Lily Ritter, and is extremely grateful to her for giving him a chance when the rest of the world just saw him as a criminal.
- The Sneaky Guy: He has the Stealth specialization and his Hero Skill lets every survivor in your community sneak quickly and open locked doors quietly.
- Super-Empowering: His Hero Skill, "lockpicking lessons", lets every member of your community run while sneaking and lockpick locked doors, abilities which are usually reserved only for survivors with the Stealth specialization.
- Ultimate Blacksmith: He has the unique Weaponsmithing specialization, which lets him craft masterwork weapons including both assault rifles and melee weapons.
Helena Cruz
A Network operative and Quincy's partner. Her cheerful and idealistic personality form a contrast to Quincy's more gruff and cynical personality.- Action Girl: Her past as a cop has really prepared her with the skills needed in the zombie apocalypse. She starts out with decently leveled Gunslinger specialization and almost maxed out Fighting skill, as well as modestly leveled Scouting skill from experience scanning crime scenes.
- Ascended Fanboy: She loved watching cop shows as a kid and eventually became a cop herself.
- Eager Rookie: She's an idealistic rookie cop.
- The Gunslinger: She has the Gunslinger specialization (which greatly increases her reload speed), and her starting weapon is a custom lawman's .357 magnum revolver (which greatly synergizes with the Gunslinger specialization). Her Scouting specialization also lets her shoot weapons for longer before they break.
- Hand Cannon: Her starting weapon is the Lawman's Viper, a custom version of the game's normal .357 magnum with overall better stats. It deals great damage and can penetrate multiple enemies, but is pretty Awesome, but Impractical since it can't be silenced and is louder than anything short of a .50 BMG antimateriel rifle.
- Lawman Baton: Her starting weapon is one. Her Fighting skill also starts out almost already maxed out and upgrades into the Striking specialization, which focuses on blunt weapons.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: She tends to believe the best of people she meets for the first time and is a true believer in the Network's motto than people are stronger together, in contrast to the more wary and cynical Quincy.
Malik
The City-Raised FarmerA resident of Trumbull Valley and the first survivor you meet in Heartland, within the first few minutes of the DLC. The last survivor of the Jurassic Junction enclave, he joins your group and offers you the use of the base in exchange for you helping him clear out the base of the zombies that overran it. He has the Subsistence Farming skill and allows you to operate the farm at Jurassic Junction to a very high capacity.
- The Alleged Car: His Brogan Trekker car is almost completely smashed and barely running. It basically only serves to get you to Jurassic Junction, where you can get a better vehicle after claiming the base. The trunk does have the highest storage capacity of any vehicle in the game, so it may be worth it to repair it if you can't find another one nearby.
- Bold Explorer: He used to be an urban explorer before moving to the countryside and his build is geared around exploration. He has infinite sprint when lightly encumbered thanks to his Urban Explorer trait, and his Scouting skill lets him instantly see all lootable containers when entering an area. His Acrobatics specialization also lets him mantle and fall better than normal survivors.
- Bus Crash: In the Trumbull Valley map of the main game, which takes place after Heartland, his grave can be found behind Jurassic Junction 2. He's the only playable character who is specifically mentioned as having been killed when Jurassic Junction was destroyed, but dialogue implies there were at least a few additional casualties.
- Gardening-Variety Weapon: His starting weapon is a farmer's brush axe.
- Le Parkour: His Acrobatics specialization lets him mantle over objects with less stamina cost and roll when falling from great heights to avoid fracturing his legs. It also gives him an enhanced dodge roll in combat.
- Sole Survivor: He's the last survivor of the enclave that was based at Jurassic Junction. His two previous companions are among the Plague Zombies nesting at the site.
- Sherlock Scan: He starts out with already almost maxed out Scouting specialization, which lets him spot zombies on the radar from a much greater distance and instantly see all lootable containers in a location.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: He starts with an M870 shotgun.
Brock
The Crafty ScoundrelAn ill-treated minion of the Wilkersons who specializes in manufacturing drugs of the recreational variety. He has a friendly and energetic if somewhat foolish personality and is quite fond of party drugs and setting things on fire.
- Awesome, but Impractical: His weapon selection of choice; he wields a personal gold-plated Desert Eagle and a mail-order Japanese sword, both of which look awesome but are fairly impractical weapons in the zombie apocalypse. It fits with his overall "big goof" personality. That said, he can spec into the Swordplay and Gunslinging specializations, making such weapons more practical.
- Bling-Bling-BANG!/Hand Cannon: He starts equipped with a gold-plated .44 Desert Eagle he bought at a police auction, likely previously owned by a much more successful drug dealer.
- Cloudcuckoolander: He's described as a "local buffoon" and is apparently always high. Part of the reason Nat dislikes him so much is that he's kind of a screw-up and once led a zombie horde to their base by accident.
- The Ditz: He's friendly and energetic, prefers cool-looking but impractical weapons, is high much of the time, and once accidentally led a zombie horde to his home base.
- Functional Addict: Likes to sample his own product, though the only detrimental result is he always has the munchies and eats more food than normal. Healing items are also twice as effective on him.
- Human Pack Mule: His unique Wits specialization, "Field Testing", is a modified version of the Resourcefulness specialization, allowing him to carry more stuff. Doubly so if you spec his Cardio skill into the Backpacking specialization (his Cardio can be spec'd into either Backpacking or Marathon), which stacks and increases his ability to carry lots of stuff even further.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Starts out with a mail-order wakizashi as his melee weapon. His fighting skill can also spec into either the Striking specialization or the Swordplay specialization.
- Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Brock is only available in "The Last Wilkerson" storyline, while Keesha is only available in "The Search for Santos" storyline.
- Pyromaniac: Loves to blow stuff up and starts out armed with half a dozen firebombs. He lets you build firebombs and performance enhancing drugs, while Keesha lets you build mines and craft specific calibers of ammo.
- Professor Guinea Pig: Is noted as often testing out new drugs on himself first.
Keesha
The Eager InventorAn idealistic new member of Ray Santos' enclave, Keesha wants to be more proactive than Ray, and ultimately joins your group in hopes of taking a more active role in helping combat the Blood Plague crisis in Trumbull Valley.
- Demolitions Expert: Loves to blow stuff up and unlocks the ability to craft explosives and ammo.
- Disc-One Nuke: She unlocks the ability to craft any specific ammo type and comes equipped with a submachine gun with a professional silencer, giving you the ability to deal with hordes and ferals early in the game if you haven't managed to find a decent silenced semi-auto high-capacity weapon yet.
- Functional Addict: Despite being a chain smoker, her cardio skills are unaffected (unlike other smoker survivors) and she can run just as good as any other survivor, and even used to be a professional gymnast. She only suffers from a moderate stamina penalty.
- Le Parkour: Her unique Gymnastics specialization is a version of Acrobatics with added bonuses to her carry weight limit.
- Jumped at the Call: Unlike the more "live and let live" Ray, she wants to tackle the valley's problems head-on, starting with shooting ruthless tyrant Mickey Wilkerson in the face (he's fine, it's Only a Flesh Wound) and moving on to fighting the blood plague directly... with lots of bombs.
- Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Brock is only available in "The Last Wilkerson" storyline, while Keesha is only available in "The Search for Santos" storyline.
Chavez
The Lonely SurvivorThe last surviving Red Talon operative in Trumbull Valley, Chavez's squad was attacked and wiped out by a Juggernaut; Chavez's morale broke and he fled, ending up infected by blood plague. He contacts you on the radio asking for help in retrieving a dose of plague cure from his old overrun outpost.
- The Ace: Like the Red Talon operative recruits from Daybreak, Chavez has the special Master of All Red Talon combat skills that combine all four selectable specializations for each basic combat skill (i.e. his Fighting skill combines the best aspects of the Endurance, Close Combat, Striking, and Swordplay specializations). This makes him by far the most powerful survivor you can recruit. He's also equipped with powerful Red Talon weaponry (an RTX piranha and RTX extermination blade). He also allows you to construct the Utilities Complex facility, which provides free water and power to your base.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Like all Red Talon operatives, his Master of All skills are balanced out by the fact he levels up noticeably more slowly than a regular party member. Since Heartland is relatively short and he can't be imported into another map, you're unlikely to ever level him up to his full potential unless you play him a lot and faff about a lot instead of just going through the main quest line normally (though you can level him up a lot faster by building and using the training facility after recruiting Captain Logan, however this still takes more time than it does to finish the campaign normally).
- The Engineer: He's support personnel and remarks that he joined Red Talon primarily to build things, rather than to fight things. His special Pioneer skill also lets you build a utility station at base which provides you with free power and water.
- Gratuitous Spanish: He uses the game's default Hispanic Male voiceset for generic dialogue.
- Magikarp Power: Unlike most of the Heartland recruitable survivors, Chavez starts with no specializations and at a relatively low skill level, but as a Red Talon operative once you fully level up his skills they can be upgraded to the special Master of All skills unique to Red Talon characters.
- Sole Survivor: He's the last surviving member of his squad as well as the last living Red Talon operative in Trumbull Valley.
- Survivor Guilt: Suffers from this due to fleeing from combat while the rest of his squad was wiped out, giving him a slight morale penalty.
Reba
The Grumpy HunterA lifelong Trumbull Valley resident, Reba is an ornery older woman who used to run a local diner, where she'd provide the daily meat herself through her expert hunting skills. After the diner shut down, she's been living a very hard life and spending her time hunting and drowning her sorrows in moonshine. The zombie apocalypse certainly hasn't helped her situation, and she currently seems to be feuding with every single other living human left in the valley.
- The Alcoholic: She's lived a hard life and has been buying enormous amounts of moonshine from the Wilkersons. Mickey actually wants to cut her off so she doesn't drink herself to death, while Nat couldn't care less as long as they make money.
- The Aloner: Grace, Santos' associate, sees Reba as a tragic figure, old and alone due to her life circumstances and ornery nature. If you help her out, she joins your group trying to establish a human connection with others.
- Chef of Iron: She wields a meat cleaver and has the special Butchery skill, which is a Swordplay specialization with additional food-related bonuses. She also unlocks the ability to upgrade your kitchen. She's also quite skilled with firearms, starting out with a bolt-action hunting rifle and decently leveled Sharpshooting specialization.
- Classical Hunter: She's been hunting game ever since she was a kid and used to run a diner where she'd provide the special meat of the week herself from the field. She starts equipped with a hunting rifle and has a number of hunting-related traits and bonuses, such as using up less food than other survivors (due to being able to acquire her own) and her Hero perk also provides the community with a daily income of food from hunting activity.
- Fiery Redhead: She has red hair and a grizzled, combative, fiery personality.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: She's the least cooperative survivor you can recruit in Heartland and will often start fights with the other members of your community. She's also feuding with both the Wilkersons and the Santos Auto Shop.
- Grumpy Old Woman: She's a very ornery older woman and is feuding with both Nat Wilkerson and Ray Santos. She accuses Santos of being a thief because she paid him to repair her truck, but it broke down afterwards. She neglects to mention said truck broke down because she tried to run over a Juggernaut with it.
- Never Mess with Granny: She's an older woman who's a hardened countryside survivor and seems to be the only person in Trumbull Valley who's not intimidated by the Wilkersons. Her enclave of one is also called the Badass Homestead. If recruited into your community, she has nearly maxed out Butchery fighting specialization (essentially Swordplay with some food-related bonuses), as well as a decently leveled Sharpshooting specialization.
Diana
The Shy MakerA mysterious stranger and scavenger who you rescue from attacking zombie hordes on multiple occasions. She's initially distant in her interactions with you due to her mistrust of people, but she eventually shows up at your base and asks to join you after you save her a couple of times. A loner and cosplayer, she unlocks the ability to build a fabrication station at base for manufacturing backpacks, professional-grade weapon attachments, and even spare parts out of nothing.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Her hunting crossbow can be this, as her potential Shooting specializations (Weapon Handling, Assault, or Sharpshooting) don't apply to itnote . Doubly so if you're playing "The Last Wilkerson" scenario, since Larisse can't manufacture crossbow bolts in her Vehicle Shop like Quintin can in his Weaponsmith forge.
- Bow and Sword in Accord: She starts equipped with a hunting crossbow and an Excadaver sword. Her Fighting skill also upgrades to Swordplay.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She wears a garish multicolor cartoon rabbit outfit, but is a skilled fabricator.
- Geek: She's a cosplayer, wields a replica of a sword from a (in-universe) comic book, and even makes a Firefly joke when she joins your group.
- Human Pack Mule: She's a veteran Disaster Scavenger and has the Backpacking specialization that lets her carry more stuff as well as a unique Scavenging specialization and Scavenger hero perk that helps locate lootable objects (and also lets her automatically collect a daily allowance of spare parts and materials for your community), as well as a special backpack that weights very little despite having the maximum 8 inventory slots and is described as being Bigger on the Inside. Her hoarding trait also boasts the materials storage capacity of your base.
- Loners Are Freaks: She's an aloof loner, and perplexes your group in your initial interactions with her. Her poor social skills also result in her gaining influence more slowly than other characters.
- Super-Empowering: Her fabrication station drastically reduces the rate at which weapons degrade while also letting you print at will the spare parts you need to repair them, making weapon degradation essentially a non-issue for the rest of the game.
Vic
The Desperate HusbandA firefighter paramedic whose daughter was recently killed by zombies, causing a rift between him and his husband Isaac. Isaac recently left him, feeling that Vic won't stop blaming him for their daughter's death, and Vic asks you to help him locate Isaac after you catch a open broadcast of him trying to reach Isaac over the radio.
- The Medic: He was a firefighter paramedic before the zombie apocalypse, and unlocks the ability to upgrade your medical facility to a trauma pharmacy, where you can manufacture first aid kits, heal the entire community at once, or give the active character regenerating health.
- Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Depending on your decision during their quest (lie to Vic that Isaac is dead or tell him the truth), you'll end up recruiting either Vic or Isaac into your community. Vic improves your ability to treat injuries, while Isaac improves your ability to treat blood plague and also lets you craft Echo experimental zed performance enhancers.
- Regenerating Health: One of the potential benefits of his trauma pharmacy is giving the active character regenerating health for a set period of time.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: He comes equipped with an Ursus shotgun.
- So Much for Stealth: His "revs the engine" trait is described as a nervous tic that makes cars he drives significantly louder than normal.
Isaac
The Mournful FatherVic's husband, a bioengineering professor obsessed with the blood plague who left him after the death of their daughter, feeling that Vic, who couldn't stop talking about their daughter's death, blames him for what happened. When you find him, Isaac asks you to lie to Vic and tell him he's dead, so that Vic can move on with his life.
- Anti-Debuff: His bioengineering professor trait and obsessive cleaning hero perk give him significantly higher than normal resistance to Blood Plague infection, while his Obsession skill significantly reduces his rate of fatigue accrual.
- Chemistry Can Do Anything: Recruiting him lets you build a plague research facility, letting you craft various zed potions using plague samples for various effects such as night vision, temporary invisibility to zombies, or temporary stat boosts.
- The Eeyore: Due to still being depressed over his daughter's death. He has the "ready to give up" trait, which noticeably reduces his max health. Thankfully, he doesn't cause a morale penalty to the rest of your group.
- Fragile Speedster: His traits give him increased stamina but significantly reduced health, so he can run and fight longer than normal, but can't take many hits. His Cardio skill also specs into either Backpacking (for significantly increased stamina) or Marathon (for reduced stamina drain from running).
- Glass Cannon: He's got a lot of stamina, doubly so if he specializes in Backpacking for his Cardio skill, and if you combine his Obsession specialization (which is basically a modified Disciple specialization for increased melee efficiency) with a Swordplay fighting specialization he can really dish out the damage. However, with his incredibly small 90 health he can't take many hits at all; a lone Plague Feral can kill him in one good combo.
- Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Depending on your decision during their quest (lie to Vic that Isaac is dead or tell him the truth), you'll end up recruiting either Vic or Isaac into your community. Vic improves your ability to treat injuries, while Isaac improves your ability to treat blood plague and also lets you craft Echo experimental zed performance enhancers.
- Squishy Wizard: He can manufacture a variety of special zed potions for various special combat effects, but has low health and can be killed rather quickly by direct attacks.
- Terrified of Germs: He has the "obsessive cleaning" Hero bonus, which gives you increased infection resistance.
- Triple Shifter: His Obsession skill gives him reduced fatigue severity (his max stamina drains more slowly when he's tired, allowing him to operate longer in the field without needing to rest back at base).
- Utility Party Member: He's less combat-focused than his husband Vic, as he doesn't start with any specializations besides his unique Obsession skill and has significantly lower than normal health, and benefits the community primarily through his plague treatment bonuses, allowing the crafting of advanced experimental zed potions.
IzzBee
The Helpful HackerAn eccentric hacker who contacts you over the radio after you defeat the first Plague Wall, asking for your help in calling in a CLEO supply drop. IzzBee has been studying CLEO ever since the beginning of the outbreak and has worked out a way to call in supply drops at will.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Other members of your community refer to her as a "weirdo" when first encountering her, and her behavior certainly backs up that first impression, at least until she starts dropping CLEO care packages out of the sky.
- Conspiracy Theorist: It's noted she has a String Theory map in her hacker shack, and she believes that CLEO is operated by the government and has ulterior motives.
- Genki Girl: She has a high energetic girlish voice, a very young and
Moe face compared to other female characters in the game, and the "infectious energy" trait which describes her as enthusiastic or obnoxious, depending on who you ask. Her hacker shack is also covered in colorful whimsical graffiti. - Late Character Syndrome: Her four primary skills except for Wits start out at relatively low levels, and she's likely the last survivor you'll recruit and won't be recruited until the last couple of missions, so leveling her up to full before finishing the game is generally unlikely. She mostly serves to operate the CLEO relay to call in supply drops.
- Little Useless Gun: She starts with no melee weapon and armed only with a tiny .22 PPK pistol (albeit with a customized microdot sight).
- Long-Range Fighter: When properly leveled up she's as good a gunfighter as anyone else, but her crippled Cardio and Fighting skills means she's significantly handicapped in melee combat.
- My Greatest Failure: In the main campaign's Trumbull Valley map, it's revealed that IzzBee ended up destroying Jurassic Junction and killing some of the Heartland survivors due to a miscalculation with modifications to the CLEO relay that resulted in blowing up the base. The remnants of the group eventually ended up going their seperate ways, and IzzBee has felt guilty about the whole thing ever since.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Role-wise she's got quite a lot in common with Lily Ritter from the first game. She seems quite young, has poor fighting skills, starts out armed only with a Little Useless Gun (though unlike Lily you can change her equipment and take her out on missions), serves primarily to operate communications equipment back at base, and even seems to take over as your Mission Control radio voice when she joins your group.
- Utility Party Member: Her Cardio and Fighting skills are crippled due to her "indoor person" trait, so she can't run very far and performs poorly in melee combat. She also doesn't start with any basic specializations and her Shooting skill starts out almost at the beginning. Her main benefit is letting you call in CLEO supply drops. You also can't call in supply drops while playing as her as she needs to be on the controls of the satellite relay.
Captain Logan
The Last SoldierThe last surviving military member of the Echo Group, the government task force created to study the Blood Plague. He and Echo's last surviving scientist, Dr. Hoffman, contact your community for assistance in defeating the Plague Walls, and he joins your community to help you in this endeavor after you defeat your first Plague Wall at the crashed airplane.
- Made of Iron: He has much higher health than normal, due to his Endurance skill combined with his Lone Survivor trait. His backpacking skill also gives him much higher stamina as well.
- Master of None: His skill specializations have all already been selected (he has Backpacking, Discipline, Endurance, and Assault), and his overall build really isn't geared toward doing anything particularly well (he can carry more stuff and go full auto with an assault rifle better, but that's pretty much it.). Notably, he has no weapon specialization and thus will only ever be average at melee combat. His only unique trait is his special Drill Instruction training skill that lets you upgrade the Jurassic Junction watchtower into a training center. He does come with a decent M4A1 assault rifle, but by the time you've killed the first Plague Wall and recruited him you should have found much better gear yourself.
- Optional Party Member: Inverted; Captain Logan is the only survivor other than Brock/Keesha who joins you as part of the main quest. All of the other recruitable survivors in Heartland are found as pop-up sidequests.
- Sixth Ranger: Logan joins you relatively late into the main quest; in fact, the mission in which he joins your community marks a sort of Point of No Return after which some of the other recruitable survivors may cease to spawn on the map. Only IzzBee is recruited after him (and used to be recruited earlier).
- Sole Survivor: He and Dr. Hoffman are all that's left of Echo Group, which was wiped out by a long protracted battle against the Plague Walls due to sabotage by an unspecified group implied to be whoever's behind CLEO.
- Stone Wall: He has significantly higher than average health and stamina, and his high stamina combined with his Discipline specialization allow him to beat on enemies for longer than usual before tiring out, but at the cost of not having a weapon specialization, so he can't kill zombies as quickly in melee combat.
- Wrestler in All of Us: His Endurance specialization gives him the body slam special move to flip a zombie onto the ground instantly. Since he lacks any weapon specialization it's his only special move.
Other Trumbull Valley Survivors
Mickey Wilkerson
- Being Evil Sucks: At the end of his Homecoming questline, he decides to patch things with Lily, moaning that his family ruined itself with its actions.
- Big Brother Bully: Mickey regrets being one to his gay brother Eli. He and his brothers played cruel pranks on him because of his homosexuality, no less.
- Cold Sniper: Just like in the first game, he wields a sniper rifle and is a ruthless extortionist.
- The Dreaded: The Trumbull Valley survivors hate and fear the Wilkersons. After being attacked by them, even the military decided it was better to just avoid them rather than trying to hunt them down.
- Heel–Face Turn: In Homecoming, after the rest of the Wilkersons get themselves wiped out, Mickey ends up joining up with Dr. Hoffman and helping her try to unlock the mysteries of the outbreak and CLEO. He also decides to send an olive branch to Lily.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- If Larisse stands up to him when he takes her to try and shake down Xander, Mickey will actually respect her "fire" (though only after trying to kill her and being shot in the face by her as a result) and the two can part on decent terms. Mickey can even note that his own dad would have kicked his ass for defying him, but maybe he doesn't have to make the same mistakes his own father did. During Reba's sidequest it's also shown that in his own way Mickey cares about Reba and doesn't want her to drink herself to death, while Nat doesn't care at all and is happy to sell Reba moonshine until she dies of it.
- During his Redemption Quest in Homecoming, he's very gruff and blunt, trying to act tough, but all of his decisions now fall on doing the right thing. He and Ray become traders together, and while Mickey continues to be blunt with him, Mickey is protective of Ray, and the only time he ever drops the tough guy act, it's to tell people they have one last chance to talk to Ray, and to announce Ray's death, after he'd asked Mickey to give him a Mercy Kill.
- Sole Survivor: By the events of Homecoming (the main campaign's Trumbull Valley map), Mickey is the last surviving Wilkerson, although it's left unclear as to whether Larisse died after Heartland or simply disowned her ties to the Wilkerson name.
- Was It Really Worth It?: Mickey asks this of himself. He firmly decides, no, it wasn't. Not by a long shot.
- White Sheep: Not Mickey, but his gay brother Eli, who wanted nothing to do with his family's criminal activities.
Ray Santos
- Fatal Flaw: If one looks at Ray's stats, his special skill is Self-Promotion, which comes to bite him in the ass when he's too sick to help people effectively.
- Killed Off for Real: In Homecoming, it is revealed that Ray is dying of cancer and dialogue makes it crystal clear that he doesn’t have much time left. Mickey Wilkerson decides to look after him after his last storyline mission is complete at the Church of Ascension.
- Unfortunately, several days later Ray dies from his cancer. Before he did, he asked Mickey to ensure that he wouldn’t turn. Mickey made sure of that.
- Older Than They Look: Ray is often called an old man by others but because of his game appearance, he doesn't look past fifty years old. This sterns of the fact there isn't an elderly character model in the game.
- Precursor Hero: It's mentioned that the Network motto of "We're Stronger Together" and its general ideals of ordinary people banding together to help each other both come from Lily being inspired by Santos' example in the first game.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He's a very reasonable leader, though Keesha feels he's not proactive enough in confronting martial threats like the Wilkersons and the Blood Plague.
- Religious Bruiser: He's never lost his faith, and his final wish is to set up shop in the church where he was baptized.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: He wields a scoped .44 magnum revolver.
Doctor Hoffman
- Sole Survivor: She and Captain Logan are all that's left of Echo Group, and the two of them have been cut off from the rest of the military by sabotage by an unknown party. She's still working on finding a way to counter the Blood Plague, though.
- The Spock: Has a pretty stoic and cold personality, which unnerves the soldiers working for her.
Nat Wilkerson
Mickey Wilkerson's aunt and seemingly the current head of the Wilkerson country criminal clan.- Evil Matriarch: Seems to be the new head of the Wilkerson criminal clan.
- Never Going Back to Prison: Mickey Wilkerson's quest line in the main campaign's version of the Trumbull Valley map reveals that when the Army got sick of Nat's crap and came by to arrest her, she blew up the Wilkerson house, killing herself and everyone else in the clan other than Mickey, solely to take out the soldiers out of spite.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Wields a pump-action shotgun.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: She seems to have taken over from Job Wilkerson as the brains behind Mickey's brawn. Whatever happened to Job is never mentioned at all (the main campaign version of the Trumbull Valley map seems to imply he died at some point prior to Heartland).
Xander
- Distressed Dude: His sole role in the plot is being shaken down for extortion money by Mickey Wilkerson.
