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XBLA champion State of Decay out on PC this year

Undead Labs teases sandbox future.

State of Decay, the terrifyingly successful open-world Xbox Live Arcade zombie game, will be released on PC before the year is out.

Undead Labs boss Jeff Strain shared the news in a livestream yesterday - points summarised on the game's forum.

Ah, he's happy.

The PC version will have enhanced graphics, higher resolutions and an improved framerate. "The PC version will not have different content or features, however," wrote the studio's communicator, Sanya Weathers. Is she ruling out co-op?

There won't be official modding tools but Undead Labs has "no objection to mods or modders" and is looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

A controller-only PC version of State of Decay will be available early through Steam's Early Access program for the sake of gathering feedback. Naturally, the final PC game will have keyboard and mouse support.

Full patch notes for the upcoming Title Update 3 on Xbox Live will be available this week, apparently. That update will allow you to take NPCs on missions with you.

The studio also teased the sandbox future of State of Decay - Jeff Strain outlining the goal as a world with no finish but finite resources or, in other words, a game of "'how long can I stay alive?'".

"Without going into too much detail," added Sanya Weathers, "you start in the world, build your community, clean the valley out - and when it runs dry, you can leave with some portion of your community and go to 'the next valley'. The next valley is the same map repopulated with resources...but harder. More zombies. More difficulty. Just...more."

She said more details are coming within a week.

She also reiterated what we'd heard before about the future of the State of Decay series: "The future of the SOD world is under active discussion with our publisher [Microsoft Studios], but we can't say anything beyond that."

In other words, the intended MMO follow-up to State of Decay, codenamed Class4, isn't a done deal just yet.

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