"Undead Labs today announced that it has completed its separation from XBOX and is now operating as an independent, employee-owned game development studio."
"Development of State of Decay 3 remains actively underway at Undead Labs. The game is currently in alpha, with the team continuing toward the previously announced milestone of entering a closed beta before the end of the year."
"Unfortunately, today we are also saying goodbye to a significant number of our colleagues. It's difficult to reach this moment knowing that not everyone who helped get us here gets to make the rest of the journey with us. "
I honestly wouldn't have put strong odds on State of Decay 3 seeing the light of day. Even before the Microsoft mass layoffs we hadn't heard much about the survival game since the 2020 reveal trailer, and we found out later the game only existed in a Word document when that trailer was released.
In 2024 it rose from the dead again with another trailer, and then there was basically nothing until this past April when alpha tests were announced. Then July hit, and Undead Labs was part of the "significant restructure" at Microsoft: the studio was dumped, in other words.
But as its name hints, Undead Labs simply wouldn't die and becoming employee-owned sounds like a great first step toward a new future... but as we saw with Double Fine, that first step also includes, you guessed it, more layoffs. Even good news comes with bad news these days.
