One of the most important facets of future gaming platforms for Undead Labs founder Jeff Strain is changeability. With games launching in a variety of different states of completion these days, it’s crucial for developers to have the option to alter their product as time moves forward. An online service needs to allow for on-the-fly updates and speedy downloads, which is why Strain is looking to the Xbox One and PC for his team’s future games.
"For us, when we look at the future of our games both on PC and on console, it's not just about digital distribution but the ability to have games that have a live service model behind them,” he told Gamasutra. “Games that are a continual experience rather than a throw-it-over-the-wall product. Whether you want to call that our MMO heritage, or just the kinds of games that people are playing and where the industry is going, this is what's exciting to us.
“So when we're looking at our next round and what we're doing in terms of development, we see the PC and the Xbox One as very peered platforms — different playerbases and different content expectations — but for the first time we can and want to be delivering strongly a shared, consistent experience across both platforms.”
State of Decay, even in its mostly unfinished state, sold well beyond a million copies. Undead Labs knows how to make games that sell, so any platform holder would be lucky to have the creative team aboard.
