One of the first details that Philip Holt leaves is related to the timeline that the State of Decay deliveries have followed. In the first game, just a couple of weeks have passed after the zombie outbreak and in the second, a little over a year has passed, the government has collapsed and the survivors have to get ahead by forming communities. State of Decay 3 is set a few years in the future, when the group of survivors has had several experiences and seen death up close many times. Now the zombie threat presents itself in a new form and the survivors have to adapt.
Internally, Undead Labs identifies the first State of Decay as a game whose entity is the characters and the story, while in State of Decay 2 they focused more on the systems that support the gameplay. With the third installment they seek to maintain the characteristics of State of Decay 2 and, at the same time, recover the essence of the original game.
State of Decay 3 trailer shown in 2024.
During the interview Philip Holt also talks about combat, a system that has been a priority from the beginning. To improve this aspect of State of Decay 3 they have gone to the origin, that is, to the movement of the character. Undead Labs has put special emphasis on making the character respond much better to commands and worked to make the combat experience accessible to new players, but at the same time have enough depth to be able to play hundreds of hours without the experience becoming boring.
Anyone who is thinking about entrenching themselves in their shelter can now forget about it. In State of Decay 3 the plague will advance and become stronger, so players will have to find a balance between fortifying themselves and having enough tools and power to face the zombie threat. «You can't stay at your base thinking, 'I'm going to run my community and ignore the outside world. [La plaga] will attack you,» says Philip Holt.
In case of playing cooperatively in a shared world, group members will have full control over the community and it will be possible to play synchronously or asynchronously. Consequently, it will be important to have good companions. In State of Decay 3 the games will be hosted on servers. Anyone who wants to play alone can do so without any problem. Cooperative multiplayer will be one of the attractions of State of Decay 3, but the development team recognizes that a large portion of players prefer solo play, so they have never stopped paying attention to this experience.
Finally, Philip Holt admits that the State of Decay 3 trailer they showed in 2020 was conceptual and that at that time the game was closer to the idea than to reality. Infected animals appear in the trailer, but they will not be present in the final game.