Undead Labs has been a studio that has made the leap to international fame thanks to State of Decay, a franchise that offers an experience focused on survival in a world full of zombies. Such was the good reception of their previous works, that Microsoft decided to bet on their acquisition, after which they immediately began working on State of Decay 3. However, it seems that the development of the title would not be as ideal as desired.
In an interview conducted by Kotakuthe famous medium has managed to speak with 12 employees and former employees of the study, where they have assured that the development of the new installment of the franchise is being “chaotic”, and in addition, some of the former employees accuse Undead Labs of discrimination.
Undead Labs accused of discrimination and chaotic development with State of Decay 3
According to the interview participants, the studio beta tester team has been working really hard to try to correct the errors that were in the title. However, and always according to Kotaku sources, “Managers ignored these concerns and said things like ‘Don’t log multiplayer bugs’ in an attempt to teach artificial progress”.
In addition, the interviewees state that “Development milestones were a stack of unconnected features that weren’t about making a fun game and were more about checking items off a list.” This, apparently, would have caused a series of frictions within the study, which would have increased after some episode of «discrimination against women employees, non-binary and other marginalized groups».
One of the founders of Undead Labs talks about his vision for State of Decay 3
On the other hand, it was also ensured that the development was an absolute chaos, because «people left and were replaced by juniors. […] Even when code experts told a product that something wasn’t functional, they ignored the comment and added more features by the deadline.”.
We will have to see how this controversy about Undead Labs progresses, and despite the fact that it could be statements that do not show the reality within the development of State of Decay 3, it must be remembered that Kotaku previously revealed some crunch problems such as those of Naughty Dog or those of harassment of Activision Blizzard. For now, we can only wait to see how events continue to unfold.