Smoke and mirrors in the gaming industry are nothing new. The first trailer for Killzone 2, Halo 2’s infamous Earth City demo – the list goes on. None of those made it into the actual game (except the latter as a playable prototype in Halo: The Master Chief Collection), and the same rings true for State of Decay 3’s first trailer.
You may not remember it. Debuting at the Xbox Games Showcase in 2020, it showcased snow-covered environments and a lone human, who peers through the scope of their rifle to see a zombie deer. Pretty chilling stuff…except there wasn’t really any game at the time, according to Undead Labs head Philip Holt.
“So that trailer – there really wasn’t a game or game team when we were working on that trailer, like, it was so early,” he revealed in an interview with Sunny Games. “You know, the game was in a Word document. It was really the very beginnings of software.” At the time, Undead Labs had four to five people on the sequel. Shortly after the trailer, the studio confirmed that it was in early pre-production.
“The trailer was done by Blur, it was all pre-rendered, it represented, I think, a concept – our thoughts at the time of what might be cool to explore in State of Decay 3. And as we’ve had a chance to build a team and get going on the game, some of those elements I think are gonna persist in the game that we deliver, and some of those things are just, like…we’re not doing zombie animals.”
In case that wasn’t clear enough, Holt repeats it for those in the back. “No zombie deer. No zombie deer. No zombie deer.”
Thankfully, we won’t have to wait much longer to see what State of Decay 3 actually offers. Undead Labs announced alpha playtests starting in May, with sign-ups currently available. Participants can expect base-building, four-player co-op and plenty of violence. Those who don’t make the cut will have other opportunities to look forward to this year, though a release date remains pending.