That’s according to a new report published by Kotaku† Development of State of Decay 3 started in late 2018, but the project struggled to get off the ground due to several team reorganisations and substandard management. State of Decay 3’s development was announced in 2020, much to the disapproval of the Undead Labs studio staff. For example, one developer says: “We didn’t want to announce the game yet because we didn’t even know what it would be around then”.
In addition to problems from management, the report also contains complaints about sexism. Female employees were reportedly ignored, often blamed and received sexist comments from others during meetings.
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Undead Labs was acquired by Microsoft in 2018. Studio employees tell Kotaku that they were initially afraid of a change in their work culture from Microsoft. It turned out that the problems came from the studio itself and they secretly hoped for help from Microsoft, which only intervened last summer and implemented internal changes. The HR manager, among others, had to “quietly” resign and new managers were hired.
The morale in the studio is mixed at the moment. According to the report, there are some employees who feel that there is finally a turning point after all the drama. Others remain skeptical and expect more people to leave the studio.
Current studio head Philip Holt said in a statement: “I acknowledge that some of our employees, current and former, have shared that their experiences at the Lab have not always been positive. Our culture of the past is not an example of who we are today, nor who we want to become. We’ve made a lot of changes in recent years: a brand new leadership team, including a new HR director and department in 2021, and we’ve hired about 75 employees since the start of the pandemic.”
State of Decay 3 is currently in development for Xbox Series X/S and PC. An exact release date or details about the game are unknown.
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