It’s now been more than three years since State of Decay 3 was first unveiled in the middle of 2020, and we’re still no closer to learning when the game will come out or how it’ll really look.
The series had grown in popularity across its first two games, though, and there will be plenty of people waiting anxiously for more information about this sequel, which Xbox is billing as a major first-party game in its Xbox Game Pass pipeline. We’ve got all the details that do exist right now for you, right here.
State of Decay 3 reveal trailer
The only really concrete bit of public information about the next State of Decay came way back in mid-2020, when we got the pre-rendered trailer you can see below.
It’s an atmospheric and fairly brief piece, but gets across the tone that the game is likely to be shooting for – with a clever inversion of what you’d expect to see while out hunting.
State of Decay 3 release date rumours
The trailer doesn’t end with any sort of release window, so we’re sadly in the dark when it comes to an expected release date for State of Decay 3.
There has been a little noise on that front, though, with Phil Spencer mentioning in March 2022 that he’s been trying out the game and is hugely impressed by how it iterates on the previous title in the series. That made it sound like we might not have to wait too long for a bit more information to appear, but it’s been absolutely ages since then with no further news.
In September 2022 Xbox’s Matt Booty confirmed that Undead Labs is working with Gears of War devs The Coalition on the game, and making it in Unreal Engine 5, collaborating to bring some tech from Gears of War into the game. That’s an exciting collaboration but doesn’t get us any closer to a release date.
So, basically, don’t hold your breath – we don’t have any reason to think that State of Decay 3 will appear even in 2024, sadly.
What platforms will State of Decay 3 release on?
Where we can be a little more confident, though, is around the platforms it’ll appear on. Since the developer is now owned by Microsoft Studios, you can be almost certain that it’ll only come out on Xbox and PC.
We also expect the game to hit Game Pass on its release date, as another reason to sign up to Microsoft’s great subscription service.
However, even this still leaves one big open question – will the game come out on Xbox One? State of Decay’s first two entries both did, but it’s now been three years since the release of the Xbox Series X and S, so we’d say that it’s a safer bet that this will end up being a current-gen title, and that it’ll therefore skip the Xbox One.
State of Decay 3 gameplay and story
While the one trailer we have for the game is entirely CGI, it nonetheless helps us to glean some information about what the game might include when it releases.
For one thing, it confirms that we’ll again be having to concentrate on survival by scavenging and hunting for food. The cold weather that’s featured prominently might mean warmth and shelter mechanics could enter the field of play, too, making survival even more challenging
The prominent (and scary) zombified deer in the trailer also makes us hope that there’s an expanded amount of wildlife to worry about, both of the infected and normal sort.
Either way, the game should retain the core gameplay of its predecessors, as a third-person action survival title that lets you explore big areas to gather resources in an attempt to keep a camp going and avoid being overrun by the living dead.
We’re hoping that this sequel, with a bigger budget, will be a big improvement over the still quite glitchy State of Decay 2, though, with smoother controls and fewer bugs, but we’ll have to wait for any form of gameplay showcase to be revealed before we have any information on that front.
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