The previous State of Decay titles were both fairly straightforward zombie survival games that never impressed technically and lacked proper cutscenes. However, shortly after State of Decay 2 was released, Undead Labs was acquired by Microsoft.
When State of Decay 3 was announced nearly three years ago, we got to see a cinematic GCI trailer that looked amazing, and it seems like this kind of presentation and storytelling is something we can expect from the adventure as well. The Twitter user Idle Sloth have noticed that senior cinematic artist Alan Diekfuss on LinkedIn lists in-game cinematics as something he is currently working on for the game.
Idle Sloth also points out that director of animation and animation technology Simon Sherr signs on LinkedIn:
“Developing a new Microsoft studio under Undead Labs in Orlando Fl, Directing animation and Animation Technology in UE5 for Microsoft XGS Undead Labs’ “State of Decay 3″ and fostering cross-studio animation technology collaboration and animation technology initiatives across XGS.”
In short, it looks like we can expect Undead Labs to really raise the bar for State of Decay 3 in terms of cutscenes and animations. Unfortunately, we still have no idea when the game will be released, but hopefully it’s not too far away considering that it was announced back in 2020.
