Undead Labs: State of Decay 3 was once planned as an MMO
CEO Philip Holt said the studio pivoted away from the MMO scale in late 2022 and later found a publisher to fund the game's final months after Xbox cut ties.
Undead Labs spent several years trying to turn State of Decay 3 into an MMO that could capture the scale of a global zombie apocalypse, the studio's CEO Philip Holt said in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz. The studio changed direction toward the end of 2022, deciding to return to a scale closer to that of the first two State of Decay games.
Holt said the current version of State of Decay 3 has been built since late 2022 or 2023, and that much of the earlier work was discarded. In his words, the studio essentially rewrote the entire State of Decay game.
After Xbox cut ties with Undead Labs, the studio found a publisher to fund the final months of State of Decay 3's development. Even with that support, Undead Labs still had to lay off a significant number of staff.
An MMO ambition that predates the reveal
State of Decay 3 was announced with a cinematic trailer in 2020. The teaser bore little resemblance to what was actually being worked on and was pushed out to bolster a Microsoft showcase, as was later learned.
Jeff Strain, the studio's founder and a long-time advocate of an MMO take on the series, left Undead Labs in 2019. After the 2020 announcement, a small team worked on MMO technology while the rest of the studio supported State of Decay 2, until Holt and the team opted for a smaller scale at the end of 2022.
Looking ahead, Holt said it is highly unlikely the studio will spend as much time on its next game as it did on State of Decay 3.
Quick answers
Why did Undead Labs stop making State of Decay 3 as an MMO?
CEO Philip Holt said the studio decided toward the end of 2022 to return to a scale closer to the first two State of Decay games, discarding much of the earlier work.
Who is funding State of Decay 3 now?
After Xbox cut ties with Undead Labs, the studio found a publisher to fund the final months of development, according to Holt.