“We basically rewrote the entire State of Decay game”: Undead Labs spent years trying to make State of Decay 3 into a full-blown zombie apocalypse MMO
Developing story first seen 4 hours ago
The new account reveals that State of Decay 3 spent several years in development as a planned MMO before Undead Labs changed course. The shift back towards the scale of the earlier survival games meant rebuilding much of the project, helping explain why the version now being made dates only from late 2022 or 2023.
After the game’s 2020 announcement, a small team worked on technology for an MMO while the rest of the studio supported State of Decay 2. CEO Philip Holt said the studio would not repeat such a sweeping rewrite; following Xbox’s decision to end its relationship with Undead Labs, a publisher agreed to fund the game’s final development months, though the studio also laid off a significant number of staff.
- Sources
- 2
- Outlets
- 2
- Left · Centre · Right
- 0 · 0 · 0
In short
- State of Decay 3 was once planned as a global-scale MMO.
- Undead Labs pivoted in late 2022 or 2023 and rewrote much of the game.
- A publisher is funding the final months after Xbox cut ties.
How this story developed
- 1 hour ago Undead Labs initially explored turning State of Decay 3 into a large-scale MMO about a global zombie apocalypse, expanding well beyond the series’ earlier survival games.
- 1 hour ago The new account reveals that State of Decay 3 spent several years in development as a planned MMO before Undead Labs changed course.
Explained simply
State of Decay is a series of survival games in which players manage a group of people trying to stay alive during a zombie outbreak. Undead Labs, the studio behind the series, is part of Xbox’s game development business.
An MMO is an online game where many players share a persistent world. The reported plan for the third game grew from the smaller group-survival format of its predecessors into a much larger online project, before the studio returned to a more familiar scale.
That change matters because it involved rebuilding much of the game and helps explain why its current version is relatively recent despite the 2020 announcement. It also took place amid changes in the studio’s relationship with Xbox, outside funding for the final months of development, and substantial staff layoffs.