“We are putting tons of work into making sure what we put on the screen looks like it’s ours (ownable) and belongs in our world. Everything tells a story from the scratches and bite marks on the wooden stock of a gun to the way your beloved vehicle has been assembled,” explains Laybourn. “We think carefully about the mood and tone of any given time of day right down to the tape used to hold your shoe together. The quality of games (in general) is so high, it’s really about what you’re saying and how. State Of Decay has always struck a tone that people love. It’s got heart and soul, a great blend of horror and beauty, levity, and depth… these ingredients need to come through regardless of the fidelity of the assets.”“
Speaking of ingredients, you can also expect to see survivors that have become quite adept at… well… not getting eaten, by surviving several years into the apocalypse. This, in turn, has evolved into a resourceful era where clothing, supplies, and weapons have been modified to accommodate their needs — expect weapons to have mismatched barrels with heavily modified magazines, or clothing reinforced with armor plates. They’ve “leveled up” in this maker culture to be more eclectic because the world of State of Decay 3 has been “picked over” by now, and finding components to modify their existing weapons will be much more likely than looting a wholly formed one that’s ready to go.
This also means that players will be able to customize their play experience to a greater depth than they have in the past. Undead Labs believes that investing time to craft “your” crossbow vs finding a few generic crossbow types is going to be a lot more fun and will help reinforce State of Decay 3’s unique setting.
This type of feature feeds back into the principles of the studio: ingenuity, adaptability, and collectivism that were all on display in the newest trailer. “We chose to present something that felt very cinematic in its presentation to tell a bit of a story, to be a tone and a mood and signal an intention about where we’re taking the franchise. And I think the trailer succeeds on that,” says Holt.
For now, the team is hard at work on the game, and will have more to share at a later date around co-op, customization, and other fun features that they can’t quite get into detail just yet (but they sound very cool). As it stands, State of Decay 3is primed to be the tip of Undead Labs’ creative spear, serving as the vehicle for their continued evolution — and we can’t wait to see more.
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