State of Decay 3 was little more than a “Word document” when it was first announced

State of Decay 3 was announced all the way back in 2020 with a cinematic teaser trailer and little else. While not an uncommon practice in the video games space, the team at Undead Labs have now revealed that when the game was first shown off work on the title had barely begun, claiming that all they had was a simple “word document.”

Years on from its initial reveal trailer, Undead Labs’ State of Decay 3 is finally beginning to materialise, with sign-ups for the game’s technical alpha officially going live. Alongside this, the studio spoke to YouTube channel Sunny Games, discussing the past 6 years worth of development.

Regarding the game’s initial 2020 reveal trailer, Undead Labs Studio head Philip Holt revealed just how early they were in development at the time, stating:

“So that trailer, there really wasn’t a game or game team when we were working on that trailer, like, it was so early…You know, the game was in a Word document…It was really the very beginning of [the] software.”

According to Holt, the trailer was created by known CGI studio Blur, confirming that “it was all pre-rendered,” representing “a concept, our thoughts at the time of what might be cool to explore in State of Decay 3.”

Unfortunately, it seems as though a number of these concepts won’t be making their way into the final product, with one of the trailer’s most notable aspects – the addition of zombie animals – being canned, with Holt stating:

“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.”

As mentioned, releasing CG trailers far ahead of a game’s actual launch is nothing new, but in the case of State of Decay 3 is it now quite clear that the project was announced way too early.

KitGuru says: Are you excited for State of Decay 3? Is the removal of zombie animals a big deal to you? Let us know down below.

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