It's been a long time since Xbox first announced State of Decay 3, but it's finally almost ready to start public playtesting, with a "mysterious broadcast" from Undead Labs announcing plans for multiple Alpha Playtests in the near future.
You can watch this broadcast up above, which shows off a few bits of concept art and actual gameplay (albeit only a few seconds) from State of Decay 3, while also emphasising the role of the SOD community in shaping the game.
The first playtest will begin in May 2026, with more opportunities to follow:
"Starting next month, we'll be hosting a series of Alpha Playtests with the community. I'm not going to spoil the surprise for you, but I can say that it will feature four-player co-op, some new base-building and resource strategies, and a whole lot of combat."
You can sign up for these Alpha Playtests by heading over to the official State of Decay 3 website, where you'll be asked to link a Discord account in order to gain access. For what it's worth, it's currently telling us that the Discord Rate Limit is exceeded, so you may need to wait until the hype dies down a little bit until you can finish your signup.
The video mentions that players will have "plenty" of opportunities to playtest State of Decay 3 "throughout the year", suggesting an official release date for the final version won't land in 2026. Nevertheless, it's clearly in a state to begin public testing, and fingers crossed it'll continue to evolve into something special in time for a 2027 or 2028 launch.
We're just happy to finally get some news on it — this is a game that was revealed all the way back in 2020!