State of Decay 3 Games Showcase Deep Dive | Official Xbox Podcast

**Philip Holt** (0:00)
Games in this podcast range from E to M.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:03)
Hey everybody, welcome to The Official XBOX Podcast, the only podcast coming to you from Inside XBOX. But as you can see, we're not in the traditional studio today. No, instead, we are down in the historic Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle at Undead Labs. We're about to sit down with a couple of fine folks who are building a game I'm very, very excited to get my hands on, State of Decay 3
Now, Game Showcase showed us some of what we can expect, but there's so much more. So today, they're going to talk us through what we saw, talk about some details you may have missed, and answer way too many of my questions. Let's get to it.
Okay. We're here with Philip Holt, the Studio Head of Undead Labs, and Wayne Laiborne, the Art Director of State of Decay 3 Philip, Wayne, welcome. Thank you guys for bringing us in today. Welcome to the podcast. How are you?

**Philip Holt** (0:49)
Doing great. Thanks for coming all the way out to Seattle. I'm happy to have you here.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:52)
Yeah. So far for me. So far. How about you, Wayne? How are you doing? I'm doing good.

**Wayne Laiborne** (0:55)
Yeah.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:56)
Awesome.

**Wayne Laiborne** (0:56)
Nice to meet you.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:57)
Yeah. You as well. Appreciate the time.
Super busy coming off the heels of showcase, and just what you guys got cooking is so excited. So we wanted to swing by and talk about it. I'm a massive fan of State of Decay. I played them all. I think State of Decay 2 came out the year I joined XBOX. They're pretty close to it. So it was like one of the first launches. I remember where everyone in the office was just excited and really looking forward to it. And so here we are, State of Decay 3 What sets you guys apart from other zombie games? And how would you explain State of Decay to someone that hasn't played before?

**Philip Holt** (1:25)
Yeah. So State of Decay is a zombie survival sandbox fantasy. And all of those words are important to contemplate. It's an open world game. It's very much a survival management simulation. So you're responsible for a community of survivors and you got to keep them alive. And the zombies are trying to kill you.
So there's base building, there's community management, there's resource, like you got to find food and water, and ammo, and medicine, and all those things to keep your community going. And you play against this very dynamic plague threat that's coming after you. And I think the thing that really separates the game tonally, perhaps from other zombie games, is that there's a big part of our game that because it's so centered around keeping a community alive, there's this idea of hope that tomorrow could come and it could be a better day, and that we have mutual responsibility to each other to keep us alive.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:23)
Yeah. I love that. I mean, I love that you said hope because that's like when I am trying to convey this game to someone else, that's kind of where my head goes. It's like hope and community because it does... So many post-apocalyptic games or zombie games are pretty dreary, like through and through. And I do feel like even in the past titles, like there is this element of like, you know, what are we trying to save? Like, look at this beautiful world, like look how we're working together. You do develop some compassion for the NPCs in your community in ways that I was even shocked I felt myself.
And so I do want to touch on that a little bit. And Wayne, I imagine, you know, part of like the hope in the community, like the vibe of the game, you know, that rests on your shoulders, correct?

**Wayne Laiborne** (3:01)
Yeah, it's as fun to make as it is to play, I think, because of the breath. Like, it's not just like the space for stillness, the space for nostalgia, the space for hope and love. And then there's also space for violence and horror and all those things.
And I think as artists and developers on the team, there's a room for a lot of us. Yeah. For all those different tastes in the same way as for players as well. So you can kind of pick your own adventure of making it just like you can when you're playing it.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:32)
Oh, that's fascinating.

**Wayne Laiborne** (3:33)
Yeah.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:34)
Now, let's talk a little bit about community, because obviously a huge crux of the game. Why is that word so important to you? And talk about what community means to State of Decay 3