It’s been a tumultuous time for development teams around the Xbox umbrella, including Undead Labs which is in the process of changing ownership amid the “Xbox reset.” This left us with tons of questions about the state of its upcoming zombie-survival game State of Decay 3 and if it’d even see the light of day. Well, I played it at gamescom 2026 and I’m happy to report that the short 30-minute demo I saw and went hands-on with shows a lot of promise. Even as an early alpha build, I got a good impression of the improved gunplay and movement, and the general feeling that this is a State of the Decay worthy of the current generation while building on the series’ fundamentals.
This is still very much about community management and base-building, both of which have been expanded in a few notable ways. From what I saw, facilities and buildings don’t necessarily have linear upgrade paths and can instead specialize in specific functions through branching upgrades. What’s just as important is which characters you assign to which facilities – for example, those who have perks or traits suited for the medical field can boost the rate at which other survivors will recover.
What I saw in greater detail was the deeper trait system where every procedurally assembled character has their own set of perks and quirks that can evolve. These kinds of systems were a core part of State of Decay 2, and they seem to have a greater impact now. One survivor had the trait of “takes long showers,” thus taking up more water resources to maintain the settlement. But he was also adept at melee combat, so perhaps his showering habits are worth the trade-off for when you want to use him in the field. Another character had a trait that said she had sniper training, offering extra damage with long-range guns and for headshots, but she was more injury prone – and with a more granular injury system that calculates damage to specific body parts and applies debuffs to certain functions (like weapon accuracy or movement speed as examples), it’s something you have to take into consideration more than previous games.
When you’re managing 30-plus characters, accounting for these traits can make for a really interesting dynamic when deciding who to control when fighting zombies in the field and who you assign back at base. My hope is that they’ll be as impactful in the long-run as they were in the immediate hands-on I got.
But State of Decay has always been just as much about fending off hordes of zombies, and things work differently in State of Decay 3. There are plenty of towns, facilities, and general points of interest that make up its large open world and when you pull up the map, you’ll see infestation networks spreading all across the world and branching into adjacent towns. Infested settlements and plague nests are the hotspots you want to hit in order to cut off the spread, and these make for intense battles.
There is always a heart of the infestation at these locations, sometimes buried beneath a facility or in the garage of an autoshop, and some could be more intricate dungeon-style areas. But it seems regardless of location, you need to find four of its weak points spread across the location in order to destroy it. You’re also fending off a bunch of zombies in the process, and once you’ve opened the heart of the infestation, an even bigger zombie horde will come after you. It’s absolute chaos when you’re pumping all of your remaining bullets into the heart as bloaters and juggernauts back up the zombie wave, but once it’s destroyed, the remaining zombies die out.
It sounds simple enough, but for me, the smoother and punchier gunplay helps the moment-to-moment combat feel a lot better than previous entries. It was evident with the AK-47 with a drum mag that I used to slay zombie crowds and the silenced pistol for one-tap headshots, and that was scratching the surface – I also saw how you can lure and bait groups into flammable oil spills, or use stealth more effectively to shave off a few zombies before all hell breaks loose. There’s a running slide you can do to knock weaker zombies down and execute a finisher to keep the standard melee bat-swining more interesting. And as mentioned earlier, these playstyles can be further emphasized when controlling survivors with skills and traits suited for them. Overall, State of Decay 3 plays like a proper third-person shooter, and it’s a great contrast to the management sim we come to the series for.
At least from this early version, it seems that the main thrust of State of Decay 3 is map-wide territory control by way of clearing out infestation sites and keeping them from coming back. Over time, infestations will spring back up and sieges on established settlements will also pose a persistent threat, which is the juggling act of survival games and something the series is familiar with. So, in the process of gathering food, water, and other utilities to keep your survivors going, there’s that simulation running in the background to keep you on your toes.
Of course, there’s drop-in / drop-out co-op multiplayer in State of Decay 3 and without limitations on how players within the session explore the open world. The team at Undead Labs also referenced a sort of dynamic difficulty system that makes sure that you’re not blasting through zombies with total ease; it may lay off the gas pedal if you’re repeatedly running into a wall as well. These are all things that are sure to be worked out as development continues, as well as the somewhat rough technical performance of the early alpha build I played.
More broadly, I hope that this dynamic of territory control via combat and settlement management sim can hold my interest when it comes time to put hours and hours into it as I did with State of Decay 2. It took time for Undead Labs to get its previous game in a good spot and is now a pretty robust package, and perhaps this upcoming entry can come out of the gate stronger.
The team is sticking to having a closed playtest toward the end of 2026 with a full release sometime in 2027 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam. We have plenty of hands-on previews from gamescom 2026, so be sure to check out our first impressions of Fable’s combat, Gears of War: E-Day’s campaign, and Metro 2039.
Michael Higham is an editor at IGN who regularly contributes with reviews, previews, features, and news in written and video form. He’s usually entrusted with covering long RPGs and tech products, but he’s got range when it comes to games. You’ll also catch him at events and hosting video content, including IGN’s weekly podcast Unlocked.
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