The game was announced so long ago that plenty of people had basically stopped thinking about it. Now it has finally shown signs of life again, and this time the update is a meaningful one: Undead Labs says alpha testing is almost here.

After years of near-total silence, Undead Labs has confirmed that State of Decay 3 is still alive and that alpha testing will begin soon. The announcement appeared on the official website with a short message for the community: “You’ve all been incredibly patient, and we hope you’re just as excited as we are that the time has come to finally start sharing State of Decay 3 with you. We want to be upfront that this first wave of testing will be limited, but we plan to share what we learn and the feedback we receive as the process continues, and if you don’t make it into this first group, you can be sure there will be more chances later in the year,” the studio said.

Registration is already open. For now, the developer has not clarified whether the alpha will be available only on PC, only on Xbox Series, or on both of the platforms the game has been announced for. Still, with the first tests scheduled to begin within a matter of weeks, more details should not be too far away. In the meantime, Undead Labs has also released a new pre-alpha in-engine screenshot. There is also an official announcement video in which franchise co-founder and lead art director Brant Fitzgerald spoke about the project:

Alpha testing starts next month, and four-player co-op is part of the plan

“Over the past few years, most of the team has been working on updates for State of Decay 2. The rest of us have been building some really cool stuff for State of Decay 3. We’ve been paying close attention to what you liked about State of Decay 2 and what you didn’t. We’ve read your feedback on Discord. We’ve watched your gameplay clips and your live streams on YouTube. Starting next month, we’ll be running a series of alpha tests with the community. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but I can say there will be four-player co-op, some new base-building and resource strategies, and a whole lot of combat,” Fitzgerald said.

State of Decay 3 was first announced in July 2020, at a time when the game was reportedly still deep in the concept stage. A couple of years later, Phil Spencer, now retired from his role as Microsoft Gaming CEO, began hyping the project as one of the company’s most anticipated first-party releases. Only a few days after that, however, Kotaku reported on development troubles that had left the game stuck in pre-production, as well as allegations involving poor leadership and sexism. The game finally re-emerged in public during the 2024 Xbox Game Showcase with a gameplay trailer. A few months after that, Undead Labs announced that support for 2017’s State of Decay 2 would soon come to an end, because the entire studio would be shifting its focus to State of Decay 3.

So yes, its overall state still feels pretty fluid right now.

Source: WCCFTech