State of Decay 3was announced one year ago during an Xbox Games Showcase event, confirming what Microsoft studio Undead Labs was currently working on. Since then, little news has been shared regarding what’s likely to be another open-world survival game. Fans are hungry for new information aboutState of Decay 3, which has led to discovering what could be an exciting new detail. A job listing at Undead Labs hints thatState of Decay 3will be built on Unreal Engine 5.
The job listing comes fromUndead Labs' listing on the BambooHR website. The specific job in question is for a contract Sound Designer who would join theState of Decay 3team in Seattle, Washington. One line in the job listing mentions implementing audio through “Blueprints (UE5),” which rather speaks for itself. Blueprint is Unreal Engine’s visual scripting system and can be used for a wide variety of functionality in a game even without coding experience. It’s a branding carried over from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5.
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As for whatState of Decay 3potentially using Unreal Engine 5 would mean to players, it’s simply a general idea thatState of Decay 3should be a meaningful step forward fromState of Decay 2.State of Decay 2was already a major step forward from the original game built on Unreal Engine 4. Unreal Engine 5 would hopefully allow Undead Labs to further explore its potential.
With that said, Unreal Engine 5 isn’t necessarily as big of a step forward as some previous iterations ofUnrealor other engines may have been. That doesn’t meanState of Decay 3won’t have significant improvements, of course. However, many of the biggest feature focuses of Unreal Engine 5, like virtualized geometry and dynamic real-time global illumination, don’t necessarily fit with the technical limitations of an open-world survival game.
Fans of theState of Decayfranchise have likely already seen the new cinematic trailer forState of Decay 3. And while cinematic trailers don’t typically mean much when it comes to in-game visuals, it’s still a very impressive trailer. Fans are likely to expect improvements, particularly for theXbox Series X/Sgeneration of consoles.
Ultimately, however, whether or notState of Decay 3is running onUnreal Engine 5remains unclear. Expectations put in a job listing may not be entirely reflective of the projects actually ongoing at Undead Labs. Still, withState of Decay 2running on Unreal Engine 4 and Unreal Engine 5 being a relatively small step forward, it wouldn’t be a surprise.
