State of Decay 3 stalled as the studio battled claims of discrimination

state of decay 3 has lingered in pre-production for the last two years, reports Kotaku

while Undead Labs has mutated from a lean and ambitious independent studio into a first-party Xbox developer grappling with major industry issues like a toxic workplace, discrimination and burnout.

In fact, reports Kotaku, Undead Labs was pressured to announce this state of decay 3 at the Xbox Games Showcase in July 2020, well before developers felt the game was ready for it. This, the Undead Labs veterans said, was followed by a rushed internal demo for Microsoft executives that hastened their sense of confusion.

state of decay 3According to unnamed sources cited by Kotaku, there should be two more internal demonstrations in fall 2021, and Philip Holt, the studio exec who was installed as Undead Labs’ chief of staff after Microsoft took over the studio in 2018, wanted both to contain the actual gameplay. Developers “revolted,” according to the report, at the work and crunch it would take to bring the project to such a state. While Holt relented, the disruption still pushed many Undead Labs veterans out the door, the developers said.

“If pre-production was like that, there was no way I could stick with full production,” an unidentified developer told Kotaku.

state of decay 3 does not yet have an official launch date or window. The Xbox Games Showcase 2020 announcement was infamous for a pre-render trailer that featured a zombie deer seen through the scope of a crossbow.

“They’re just starting out with a lot of things,” said another developer. In the meantime, Kotaku’s detailed report reveals Undead Labs to be agitated by internal dissent and suspicion over discrimination and wrongdoing, which many employees felt was being neglected by Microsoft’s new boss.