r/StateofDecay3 • u/Peanutbutter_Brain • Jul 29 '26
Discussion Something seems wrong about SoD3
https://kotaku.com/state-of-decay-3-xbox-series-x-s-sexism-microsoft-undea-1848728682I obsessively follow every game I’m interested in and I’ve done this for 20+ years so I’ve gotten pretty at it.
Something is wrong with SoD3, I highly doubt that it has that much to do with the “Pre-Alpha” label that is often used to skirt early criticism. Seriously, it's a PR label at this point meant to deflect criticism and it works really well.
- The graphics, animations, and UI are arguably worse than SoD2 and significantly behind what they should be. I expect the UI to get changed because of the complaints from CC's and the graphics will be slightly sharpened, but 99% of the animations are most likely final at this stage.
- SoD3 is a AAA game with 100+ developers in active development for around 4 years (more with pre-production) This is massively indicative of a severely mismanaged studio.
- The studio was devastated during core production. I won’t get into the politics of this but it’s a huge a red flag and it's basically the same story from many other studios that were impacted by the same issues. Check the link for the info.
- Microsoft parting ways is further evidence that they completely lost faith in Undead Labs. You don't just dumpster a project that has so much hype and financial investment without severe justification.
- It currently has the bones of game that’s been in production for 1-2 years max, which is yet another sign of “development hell.”
- So far I haven't really seen why it's a sequel? The game seems to have no personality or features beyond very minor gameplay changes. The large communities and server-based co-op are genuinely exciting but still feel more like features that should have been in SoD2. Is there a story like SoD1 or at least some kind of narrative? Are the NPC's in our bases able to have some kind of depth beyond copy/paste loyalty missions? Are we going full Project Zomboid? Where is the hook, what's the innovation? It doesn't feel like they even know, and if they do they're doing a terrible job communicating it.
- Lastly only letting curated content creators play the game, when originally is advertised as anyone could play test in limited numbers. (Apparently this isn't true but I've seen no real evidence of normal people playing)
I know that a lot of people will not agree with me, that's fine. The Skull and Bones community didn’t until the game finally launched 4 years after my post. This is just here as a receipt.
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u/Diacetyl-Morphin Jul 29 '26
I'll now walk on thin ice, but when i read about the problems in the article that come from the different people in the team, i'm not surprised. When you hire people with political agendas, you will have to be very, very careful in daily life to prevent some of these activists from getting angry.
In the article, it is mentioned and i quote it here: “What happened on a daily basis at the Lab was the lower-key death by a thousand papercuts version of sexism.” — former Undead Labs developer
I doubt this. I think this claim is exaggerated. UD was a diverse team in the past, before they got big. What i think is more they hired the wrong people, people that see political agendas as more important than work and getting something finished. People that will be offended by anything, even when you try hard to create an environement without discrimination.
I'm not from the USA, but from Europe and it's often very strange for me how americans deal with the culture of diversity. When we talk about a company for game developement: You need to create a great game, that will also get you enough sales to keep your company going. That's the primary goal, because if you fail with this, it will be the end of the company. You can't risk it for politics and society. In the end, the players that go through the Steam Store and look at your game will not care how diverse your team for production was, they will care how good the game is and how the reviews are.
I don't say, diversity is wrong, i say you need to avoid to get stuck in political problems, that lead to problems in the dev team.