We recently wagged chins with State of Decay devs Undead Labs. They made a zombie survival game. And it was pretty brilliant (if not brilliantly pretty.) But what exactly drew them to the notions of A) Zombies and B) survival.
Undead Labs own Jeff Strain weighs in…
Click:Jeff Strainis obviously an industry and genre veteran, having worked on RPGS likeWorld of Warcraft, Starcraft, DiabloandWarcraft III. Is there anything in particular that drew him to zombies?!
UL: Zombies are awesome! But specifically, this concept - what would you do if the apocalypse broke out, and how would those decisions play out over time - is something a bunch of the guys on the team had been kicking around for years.
You’re also talking about the ultimate enemy. There’s no guilt about shooting a zombie. You can’t negotiate with it, you can’t reason with it, you can’t cure it. At the same time, zombies never get tired and never get up. They take the tension in any situation and crank it to eleven.
Let me just quote Jeff himself on what drew him to this type of game:“I also love the theme of rural self-reliance. I grew up in the south, around people who know how to do useful stuff like starting fires with their eyeballs and scaring off javelina (look it up) by shaking them by the tusks. My C++ skills are useless when the zombies come, so I'm headed to the country to hang with folks who know how to do useful shit.”
State of Decay: Breakdown is available on Steam and XBLA from November 29th.
For the unabridged account of our extensive chinwag with Undead Labs, click here!