State of Decay 3's 2020 reveal trailer was just a concept, and zombie deer won't be on the menu in the final game

State of Decay 3 was first revealed back in 2020 ahead of the Xbox Series X and S launch, with a cinematic trailer and no gameplay. The teaser showcased ambitious elements for the zombie sandbox series, with zombie deer as the highlight. But the truth is, outside the broad outlines and early prototyping, the game barely existed beyond a Word document at the time.

In an interview with Sunny Games, Undead Labs studio head Philip Holt confirmed, following the reveal of State of Decay 3's May 2026 alpha playtest, that the 2020 trailer was based entirely on a concept.

"So that trailer, there really wasn't a game or game team when we were working on that trailer, like, it was so early," he said, adding that the core team at the time consisted of just four to five people. When asked about the zombified animals featured in the trailer, Holt said, "No zombie deer!"

2

Holt explained that the 2020 trailer was created when development was still in its earliest stages, with no real game or team in place. The cinematic trailer was produced by Blur and was fully pre-rendered. Holt said the trailer was meant to reflect early ideas of what the studio thought might be cool to explore in State of Decay 3, rather than the actual game. Over time, as the team grew, some of those initial concepts carried over, while others were dropped entirely, including the idea of zombie animals. "We're not doing zombie animals," Holt confirmed.

Previous reporting from 2020 suggested that Microsoft was going around asking the team for trailers to build hype for its next console generation. The trailer caught the development team at Undead Labs by surprise and led fans to believe infected animals would be one of the sequel's defining new features.

State of Decay 3 recently resurfaced after a six-year gap, with an alpha set to begin in May. Undead Labs did release a cinematic trailer for the game back in 2025 to keep fans at bay, but aside from that, the development team has largely been radio silent. The full game has no release date yet and will be the first new entry in the series since State of Decay 2 in 2018, coming to Xbox Series X and S and PC.