It sounded ambitious for such an agile studio like Undead – but the sense I got was they wanted to rise to that challenge. Not just for themselves, but for their dedicated community of gamers who have been with them over the years. They wanted to deliver the State of Decay experience to them that they’ve always wanted to play. They just needed time to cook… and now it smells like they’ve got a stew brewing.

Naturally, with a game that has been in development like State of Decay 3, we’ve piled up quite a long list of questions – and today they have the answers. Recently we had a chance to talk with Creative Director Kevin Patzelt about a wide range of topics, like how it’s possible to have a shared world experience in co-op, how much bigger the map is compared to State of Decay 2, what will weapon crafting look like, and most importantly…

When can we play State of Decay 3?

Kevin Patzelt – We’ve been working on this for a while and we’re aiming for a 2027 release. Players are already playing an Alpha version of the game and are having a blast. We’re going to be expanding our Alpha and then Beta list over time and we are dying for players to come play. We’ve got an audience that’s hungry for this game, the signups were fantastic, they’re going to keep growing and we want to get more.

Players can sign up for the waitlist to participate at the State of Decay 3 Playtest website. The first wave of playtests will be limited, but we plan on sharing insights and feedback with everyone as we go, and there will be more opportunities throughout the year. 

Right now we’re focused on the core audience from State of Decay 2. Have we captured the heart and soul? Are they having fun? Is it what they were hoping for? And then we want to see what players new to the State of Decay franchise think of what we’ve built. So, expanding that is huge.

Is that actual gameplay footage in the State of Decay 3 trailer?

Kevin Patzelt – Everything shown in the trailer is from the game. We did not use CGI. We have some fun camera angles in there, but it is 100% game capture minus our studio logo.

Beyond that, there are a lot of over-the-shoulder shots. Whenever you see one in this trailer, it is a true 100% gameplay camera. We will be showing more of that over time, but absolutely wanted to include it in this trailer. We wanted players to start seeing what that camera looks like and how it will feel to play.

The other thing I’d like players to notice is the quality bar of the moment-to-moment experience is higher than anything we’ve achieved in Undead Labs’ history. State of Decay 3 is being built in Unreal Engine 5, and we’re creating better quality versions of what makes our game the survival sandbox it is, and the combat experience is really, really important to us, and I think you can see it coming through in this trailer.

Another thing [to take away from the trailer] are the sneak peeks at the evolving threat at Plague Nests. These are new to State of Decay 3 and you’re starting to see elements of these really tough, dungeon-like areas. The trailer also shows what tactics might apply to not only playing by yourself but with your friends.

And the last thing I’ll say is we’re just scratching the surface of what this game is offering for players. It’s a very heavy moment-to-moment combat-oriented trailer but we also give you a sneak peek into one of the settlements. In the trailer, you can see one of the many settlements you can claim, including some of the facility and community elements. We plan to show more of that as we go on.

In this trailer, it was important to knock people’s socks off with the quality of the game. And we’re going to start revealing the depth of our game, because that’s what really makes a State of Decay game special. It isn’t just the zombie shooting, popping heads, all that fun stuff. It’s everything beneath that: the simulation, the systems, the community evolution, the settlements. That’s a huge part of what actually makes it special. And so you can get a snippet of that, but we’re going to evolve on that and expand on it over time.

Wait, what’s a Plague Nest?

Kevin Patzelt – Plague Nests are something we’re really, really excited about. We looked at the Heart Attack Update from State of Decay 2 — Plague Hearts were dynamic and would start sending zombies your way. Players really, really enjoyed that. Plague Nests are the next evolution of that experience.

Think of it as an enemy with its own plans. We spent a lot of time thinking through what it does, how it works, and how it reacts to what actions the players take. These are dynamic sources or hubs of enemy encounters that players can go in and destroy, even if only for a little while.

I’ve always had this perspective that consequences are one of our most important design pillars. If you wanted to sit on a hill and watch your settlement burn, the game’s gonna do it. It is not hanging around for you to make a choice or for you to take on the enemy. The enemy is coming towards you whether you act or not. That’s incredibly important.

Nests also have multiple ways they behave and grow. We call them personas, where every time you roll one, it might take on a different form, a different behavior set, a different way that it comes at you. This is going to keep things fresh not only within the play session, but save to save — no two saves are ever going to play the same.

So, some nest behaviors might be spreading quickly and fast at you. Some might stay close, but become really, really difficult and grow really, really nasty, encouraging you to come at it. And these behavior sets are extensible for us to develop over time. We’re having a lot of fun with that. This nest system is fantastic for us and I think the players are going to really enjoy deploying different strategies to keep it back, to kill it, to take it out, to manipulate it. It’s a lot of fun.

How much more fun is it going to be to fight zombies? Because it looks super fun.

Kevin Patzelt – We’re doing a huge level-up to our entire combat system on both sides. One side of that equation is the human side, the player side. One of the biggest things that we can say is that State of Decay 2 had one attack button and now we’ve got two. As simple as that might sound, what we’re finding as our team plays is that there’s a lot of fun combat moments with an extra melee attack. I’m excited to see what our alpha players do with this, the strategy that you can have in the moment-to-moment experience.

There’s a quick attack and a power attack now. I can nudge one zombie back, take out another one, and then do a dodge. You’re almost creating these fight circles but in a sandbox game. You’re able to respond to different scenarios, especially as they expand and grow. And once a freak comes into play, it changes the landscape entirely.

On the zombie side, the enemy lineup is the same as SOD2, but evolved. What I mean by that is we spent a lot of time differentiating and specializing the role of each enemy type. That includes the striations of our normal zombies.  The slow, desiccated, eroded zombie has a different behavior than the fresher, less decayed zombie, which has a different behavior than ones that have armor. All of these play very differently, especially as you start getting outnumbered or when you’re making noise and running around and trying to save your rear end or the rear end of your friend next to you.

How much bigger will the map be compared to State of Decay 2?

Kevin Patzelt – State of Decay 3 is a much larger map than anything we had in State of Decay 2. The playable space for a player is about 4 times the size of a single State of Decay 2 map, and it is fully open to the player from the second that they join the game. There’s a much larger space for them to explore, expand in, and move through.

What’s it going to be like building a settlement with other players?

Kevin Patzelt – I have always believed that our game is at its most fun when we’re hanging out together. We’re noticing a couple kinds of multiplayer player behaviors so far, and I’m really excited to get more input from the Alpha. Our approach to multiplayer has been to make sure players have freedom and fun playing together, side by side, as well as if they choose to head to different corners of the map and ‘play together, but apart.’

In one sense, we’ve seen players build up a single settlement together. They’re building facilities, they’re scouting together and looping back. They’re strategizing a collective set of goals — “I’m going to take out this infestation, why don’t you go there? Let’s meet up at the Plague Nest.” So, there’s kind of a co-progression that we’ve seen a lot of that’s really, really exciting.

I’ve also seen the behavior where they can split off, spread out, and do their own thing together, but alone. That works in our game as well. With untethered co-op, players can do whatever they like. And so, what we’ve seen is a quicker progression on the settlement front where we’ve got one base, but we want to add a second, and even a third, where we customize each base to our individual goals. Meanwhile, my contributions can help your goals and vice versa. And then that expansion happens really quickly.

And then I think there’s an element below that, which is: what facilities do I put into the space? What strategy do we have? And again, that could be a co-pursuit of our collective goals or my individual goals. For example, all our food and water incomes. We want to get those solidified. Or maybe I just want to go beat stuff up. Let’s optimize with an Ammo Press, an Explosives Shop, and let’s get all the guns we can and let’s make everything that we can blow stuff up with.

Again, there’s different play styles and different goals for different players. And I think those can coexist together in this world. Now that you have more options with multiple settlements, you can have these multiple perspectives and gameplay styles.

How will that shared world work in State of Decay 3?

Kevin Patzelt – The shared world is another huge investment on this title. When we looked at what State of Decay 2 players wanted, what they are really asking for, it was two things: better multiplayer — a true online experience with their friends — and they wanted that shared space. That’s what we’re delivering.

In a shared world, any one of us can make changes to the world. You can come in, asynchronously of me, playing the same save at different times. You can move the story forward, you could build facilities, you can get a second or even third settlement — players can now have up to three bases that they can then grow and expand into over time

And then there’s even an extension beyond that, which is there’s other groups in this world, other groups of NPCs that have, again, their own desires. We call these Enclaves. We’re expanding the Enclave system from State of Decay 2, where they have their own wants, desires and perspectives on how to live in this apocalypse. And you can work with them, you can build trust with them, have an alliance with them, and eventually recruit them.

All those community elements together build out this kind of settlement network. You’re extending your space in the game and working with others to try to get that foothold into the world.

I saw a machete covered in blades in the new trailer – please tell me I can make that too.

Kevin Patzelt – Maker culture is a concept we’ve held in our hearts for several years now.  This concept impacts many facets of our art and our perspectives on what players will remake, reuse, upcycle, and renew in the world. In State of Decay 2, one of the common weapons was the golf club, letting players get that fun head kill finisher. To support our new timeline, I told the team early on that all the golf clubs are bent [in State of Decay 3] — what are you going to do now? What are you actually sourcing from? What are you building? I really love this idea of the DIY culture but our fans really love that as well.

So, you can see in the trailer, you’ve got a machete that’s now got a serrated blade on it. Like the golf club example, all of the machetes you can get from a hardware store are shattered. Now you can find altered weapons in the world that embody this maker culture concept. Some machetes are homemade with a serrated edge, others have rebar welded on the back of the blade, some have both! One of my favorite early concepts was the slicing weapon, but you might think, “Boy would I like a little more weight for better dismemberment.”

All these visual elements, these fun looking things, apply to the systems and how the gameplay functions. So, while the rebar-backed one might have better dismemberment, it causes a little more stamina usage, but that’s a choice a player can opt into.

As you upgrade your facilities, the visual fidelity, these maker culture moments add together and then it just fits into all the fun. It’s exciting to look at art pieces that we have that show up as items you can use.

I think that’s just ignited a lot of creativity internally and I think it’s just something that’s going to explode as we get further along and add more things after launch. More consumables, more usables, more facility recipes, all of those feed into this maker culture idea. I think that runs through the art that you see.

Looting and exploration are keys to survival; how are you improving that for State of Decay 3?

Kevin Patzelt – Scavenging has been a part of State of Decay since the very, very beginning and it remains the backbone of everything that you do. To keep scavenging interesting, we need to pay off a balanced risk/reward relationship.

Coming back to those Plague Nests, they represent some of the most dangerous areas, but because they’ve been dangerous for so long, haven’t been looted nearly as much as other locations. So, it’s got some of the best loot, but at a very high risk.

Another thing our studio is really good at is creating environmental storytelling moments. We’ve always encouraged players to go off the beaten path to kind of see what’s out in the world. And we’re emphasizing that again in State of Decay 3.

At its core, if you’re not exploring, you’re going to kind of get stuck because your players are eating and drinking and need to survive and you need to find a way to meet those needs. And it all comes back to risking yourself by going out and looting for it.