You might recall that when Microsoft was hacking apart Xbox this past July, one of the studios that it was looking to sell offwas Undead Labs, developers of the State of Decay series, which also confirmedwork on an upcoming multiplayer third entry. Perhaps you have since been a little worried about the studio’s fortunes after hearing about the latest round of Xbox job cuts, but worry not because Undead Labs has indeedbought itself and has officially gone indie.
“Undead Labs today announced that it has completed its separation from Xbox and is now operating as an independent, employee-owned game development studio,” the matter-of-fact announcement reads. “Development of State of Decay 3 remains actively underway at Undead Labs.” The rest of the post further confirms that the new game will still come to Xbox and Game Pass along with PlayStation 5 and PC, and that it’s currently in alpha and on-track to hit closed beta by year’s end and launch in 2027.
Unfortunately in order to go independent, Undead Labs also confirmedthat it had to lay off an undisclosed amount of devs. “Unfortunately, today we are also saying goodbye to a significant number of our colleagues,” the LinkedIn post reads. “There have been far too many announcements like this across the industry, and we hate adding to that list. These are people we’d hire again in a heartbeat, and we hope the industry takes notice.”
