State of Decay 3 was first revealed again in 2020 forward of the launch of the Xbox Series X/S with a cinematic trailer that confirmed no gameplay. The teaser signaled loftier narrative ambitions for the zombie sandbox collection however the reality is that the sport didn’t even exist but, outdoors of broad outlines and makes an attempt to prototype what Undead Labs’ subsequent sequel would appear to be. Studio head Philip Holt not too long ago confirmed that the trailer was basically pretend and mentioned its zombie deer are usually not on the menu for the completed sport.
“So that trailer, there really wasn’t a game or game team when we were working on that trailer, like, it was so early,” Holt mentioned in a brand new interview with Sunny Games after State of Decay 3‘s May 2026 alpha playtest was revealed. “You know, the game was in a Word document,” he said, adding that the core development team was less than a dozen people at the time.
“It was really the very beginning of [the] software,” Holt continued. “The trailer was done by Blur, it was all pre-rendered. It represented, I think, a concept, our thoughts at the time of what might be cool to explore in State of Decay 3. And as we’ve had an opportunity to construct a crew and get occurring the sport, a few of these parts I feel are gonna persist within the sport that we ship and a few of these issues are simply, like, we’re not doing zombie animals.”
(*3*), Microsoft was going round to its studios asking for trailers in 2020 to construct hype for its subsequent console technology. Current and former builders on the sport mentioned they have been stunned by what was proven, together with a zombie deer that confirmed up within the trailer and led followers to imagine contaminated animals can be one of many sequel’s new options. The showcase included reveals for video games like Rare’s Everwild, which was later canceled, and Playground’s Fable, which is just scheduled to launch this fall. “We didn’t want to announce the game because we didn’t even know what it was at that point,” one State of Decay 3 developer instructed Kotaku on the time.
This is hardly the primary time a sport reveal was rushed. Microsoft infamously confirmed off an Xbox One reboot of Phantom Dust utilizing a pre-rendered trailer that was untouched by the builders at Darkside who have been really making the sport. It was by no means launched. Issues like this are why plenty of sport trailers now embody disclaimers about whether or not they’re in-engine and plenty of gamers say issues like “no gameplay, no hype.”
