Undead Labs and Microsoft have been pretty hush-hush about State of Decay 3 ever since it was announced in 2020. To be fair, talking about a game set during a zombie apocalypse could be considered in bad taste during a global pandemic. However, the little we've learned so far merely suggests that the devs just don't have anything to show as of yet.
It seems that even when Microsoft does talk about State of Decay 3, it's in a rather unconventional manner – namely, the 100th episode of the XboxEra podcast. As a part of the celebrations, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer made a surprise appearance to congratulate the team and have a short chat. Spencer has been part of XboxEra community for a while now, appearing on multiple episodes and even as a part of its forum.
What was more surprising than his appearance though, was what he spoke about. At long last, we heard something about State of Decay 3, although it really wasn't much (thanks, PureXbox).
"...this one's probably not that big of a surprise for people who have watched me play, but I was a big State of Decay 2 player...looking at State of Decay 3, I'm incredibly excited about some of the advancements they're going to make," said Spencer. "They've had this pattern - they've talked about it publically from State of Decay 1, to 2, to 3 and what they want to do, and we haven't shown a lot [of SoD3]... it's a game I really enjoy playing, I'm a big co-op player, I like building, I like resourcing...and I'm really excited about where that team's going."
That's not much to go on – but if Phil Spencer is talking about it openly, it could mean that the game has made some major strides in development.
Back in January, we reported that State of Decay 3 could be a while away, as suggested by a LinkedIn Job description. The description in question suggested that Undead Labs was still in the process of setting up a new studio for State of Decay 3, leading us to theorize that the game was still a long while away.