Jez Corden has shared a tease for another Xbox game to appear in this June’s Xbox Games Showcase.
Microsoft has established their Xbox Games Showcase as a premium event for their fans. There’s nothing particularly unique about these events that other game companies have not done before, but Microsoft deserves credit for making them successful.
It is also, of course, ironically one of many events game companies are now scheduling for June, in around the same month, possibly even week, that the ESA would host their now defunct E3 events. For all the talk of the industry no longer needing E3, we now can’t avoid noticing just how much all these game companies are reliant on E3’s schedule every June to hold their biggest promotions.
But now to get back to Xbox’s games. We have seen that Microsoft’s long gestating series of projects are finally bearing fruit. Xbox gamers now have Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II to look forward to, and we now have rumors that Gears of War 6 could be appearing in this June’s Xbox Games Showcase. But that’s not all.
Jez Corden dropped a huge rumor a few hours ago on Twitter. He said:
“I’m excited about Gears 6 for the June Xbox Showcase, but there’s another game whose state I’m incredibly excited to learn more about.”
Microsoft officially announced State of Decay 3 all the way back in Xbox Games Showcase 2020 (isn’t it interesting how this goes full circle?). We had learned since then that Undead Labs was working with The Coalition for this title. And that suggests that the profile and caliber of this title could be significantly higher than that of its predecessors.
As a zombie survival horror franchise, there is an upside to making this title into a live service game. Undead Labs already treats State of Decay 2 like an online multiplayer game anyway, with a constant stream of updates.
Microsoft is not exactly holding this title back; rather, the game has been working on incrementally increasing budgets so far. And State of Decay 2’s production values don’t exactly put it on the same level as the giants like Fortnite and Call of Duty, but perhaps one can say it’s already at an enjoyable level, comparable to Helldivers II.
But even if Undead Labs didn’t take that next step, there’s upside to Microsoft just having their own ongoing zombie survival franchise. It points to the variety of experiences available on Xbox, and with a higher profile, this game could grow into a bigger franchise in the near future.
