State of Decay 3 reminds us that it's still in development with a sad new trailer that mostly just makes me think of Dead Island

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Four years after it was announced with a frosty teaser, Microsoft served up a brand-new State of Decay 3 trailer at today's Xbox Showcase—which, I'm sorry to say, did not include any indication as to when it might actually be out.

There's a powerful element of the famously sad Dead Island trailer (you know the one) in this new State of Decay 3 teaser, and a little bit of a narrative twist near the end—which honestly I think is a little bit sad in itself. Does anyone ever stop to think about who these people were, what they had, what they did, and what they lost before the whole braaaains thing? The needs of survival has a way of focusing attention on the moment, fair enough, but I think it's a perspective that could stand to be examined a little more.

Although the focus on survival seems to be a bit off here. As senior editor and PC Gamer survival pro Chris Livingston noted while we watched the trailer, that guy was carrying all sorts of useful equipment—why did she grab his toy dinosaur?

Back to matter at hand: It's a nice trailer but functionally, just a reminder that State of Decay 3 was in fact announced at one point and is still in development. There's no mention of a release target, and currently the State of Decay 3 page at stateofdecay.com still carries nothing more than the 2020 announcement trailer. Hopefully this teaser means more information on the game will be forthcoming fairly soon, but for now we're simply left to wait.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.