That zombie deer eating a wolf carcass in the 2020 State of Decay 3 announcement trailer? Forget about it. The creature never made it past the concept phase, and developer Undead Labs is now being candid about why: the game barely existed when that flashy debut video was created.
Philip Holt, head of Undead Labs, revealed in a recent interview that the trailer represented little more than early speculation. "There really wasn't a game or a game team when we were working on that trailer," Holt explained. "The game was in a Word document. There were like four or five people."
The cinematic was produced by Blur Studios as a pre-rendered showcase of possibilities rather than a roadmap. As Undead Labs scaled up development over the past six years, priorities shifted. Some ideas stuck; others got cut.
"As we've had a chance to build the team and get going on the game, some of those elements, I think, are going to persist in the game that we deliver," Holt said. "And some of those things, we're just like, yeah, we're not doing zombie animals."
The zombie animal concept wasn't the only feature that excited fans in 2020. The trailer also hinted at snow mechanics and camping systems. Whether those make the final cut remains unclear, though players will get a chance to find out when the alpha launches in May.
State of Decay 3 has experienced a longer development cycle than typical for the franchise. In September 2024, Undead Labs shelved updates for State of Decay 2, shifting the studio's full attention to the threequel. The predecessor had received roughly 40 content drops across six years following its 2018 release on PC and Xbox One.
The studio has also partnered with Obsidian Entertainment to build what Microsoft calls a "shared world feature," drawing on technology Obsidian previously used in Grounded. The system aims to deliver a more flexible cooperative experience that allows multiple players to own and shape the same world simultaneously.
No official release date has been announced yet. The alpha should provide the first substantial look at how much the final game has evolved from that early concept trailer.
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