Undead Labs first outing with State of Decay has been pretty successful on the Xbox 360. And while the original game plans for the then codenamed Class3 included a multiplayer component, it was later cut to make a solo-focused zombie survival experience with hopes of adding in a cooperative mode later. Unfortunately for multiplayer hopefuls, that part of the game will not be happening. Instead, any multiplayer content will be added to future games of the series.

The news was confirmed by Community Manager Sanya Weathers on the Undead Labs forums.

“I spent late last night talking to Jeff, and I'm about to spend a chunk of this morning talking to Jeff,” Weathers wrote. I was still holding out hope until... well, now.

But it's as final as it gets in the game industry. We won't be adding co-op to State of Decay. Multiplayer will be the heart of any future State of Decay games.”

Undead Labs boss Jeff Strain chimed in with a lengthy post to explain the decision. Strain explained that the team has been evaluating the future for State of Decay with Microsoft for everything ranging from future games to DLC, and the unfortunate length of time that it would take to develop a multiplayer component to the game, which Strain explains would take around 9-months to adapt the game's mechanics and features. In that time, support for DLC and other work would suffer, so the multiplayer plans were cut and will instead be a major focus in future games in the series.

"We could "check the box" and shoehorn multiplayer in sooner than that, but it wouldn't be a great experience, and certainly not one we'd be proud of. It's not simply a matter of adding the technology, but also redesigning core game systems to support multiple players, and then adding new content designed for people to play together," Strain wrote. "It's easy to imagine how all that would come together — as many have said, the game is practically begging for it — but retrofitting the game to add that experience would take the rest of this year, and well into the next. Worse, it would preclude our ability to offer any other kind of support for the game, including Title Updates and DLC.



We want to see a multiplayer State of Decay as badly as you do, but it’s not feasible to retrofit it into the existing game. That said, I can say definitively that co-op multiplayer will be the absolute heart of any future State of Decay games. As many of you know, we've always had ambitious plans for the future of State of Decay, and those plans have not changed."

On a positive note for Australian players, Weathers also confirmed that a revised edition of the game has been resubmitted after it was refused classification earlier this month. All drugs and medications have been replaced with vitamins to meet the requirement guidelines for approval (requirement guidelines that I still find somewhat hilarious).

 Source: State of Decay Multiplayer Plans Canned, Jeff Strain Multiplayer Post