State of Decay 3 lead says the game only existed in a Word document when its reveal trailer dropped 6 years ago: “We’re not doing zombie animals”

State of Decay 3 was apparently barely a tangible game when it revealed its face to the world six years ago, which perhaps explains why the cool zombie deer shown off in its first trailer won’t be shrieking its way into the full game. RIP, zombie deer.

The survival threequel reared its mutated head after years of radio silence earlier this week with the reveal that a series of State of Decay 3 playtests would be coming throughout the year, starting next month, and players can trial “four-player co-op, some new base-building and resource strategies, and a whole lot of combat.” No messy survivor drama yet, then.

But Undead Labs studio head Philip Holt says that six-year gap between the reveal trailer and now could be explained by the fact that, urm, the game didn’t really exist back then.

“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 says in an interview with Sunny Games, noting “there was four or five people” on the project at the time.

“You know, the game was in a Word document,” he adds. “It was really the very beginning of [the] software. 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 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.”

Heartbreakingly, Holt puts a bullet in the brain of the infested creature we caught sight of all those years ago. “No zombie deer. No zombie deer. No zombie deer.”

As for what is making its way into Undead Labs’ third game, Holt says the new entry is mixing the best parts of State of Decay and State of Decay 2. The threequel is also set years after the zombie outbreak, meaning there’s a much bigger emphasis on makeshift survival strategies and repurposing crafting materials to sustain your community.

You can sign up for the State of Decay 3 alpha here.

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Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that’s vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he’ll soon forget.