For some reason I just have a good feeling about State of Decay 3.

SoD2 has had incredible post-launch support, the concept has always been very strong, all the IP needs is cleaning up technically and a few new ideas. The change in leadership which happened years ago may be a good thing for the IP, sure there were cultural issues mentioned where people were being treated poorly but those were also apparently fixed as soon as Microsoft got involved.

I don't really think they need to reinvent the wheel for this IP, it just needs to be a more technically impressive game.

Also "adults" gleefully speculating who Xbox will shutdown next, making jokes directly to studios about them being shutdown next, gleefully whipping out the "I told you so" card as a form of bragging about how they were right about evil Microsoft are disgusting pieces of shit and need to go touch some grass and get the fuck out of this hobby because they help give all gamers a bad name as pathetic basement dwelling trolls.

(Saw it mentioned on ResetEra Xbox OT that Obsidian was having their timeline spammed as the next closure).

I'm somewhat skeptical of Jez's claim here honestly, and even if it is doing well now, I still don't think we will see release until at least 2026. The behind the scenes article that Kotaku did on Undead Labs in March 2022 stated that from the time of the Xbox acquisition in 2018 till late 2021, Undead Labs got barely any work done on State of Decay 3. That article mentioned severe workplace culture issues involving Phillip Holt, who replaced founded Jeff Strain as studio head after Strain left in 2019, and the head of the studio's human relations department, supposedly there was alot of sexism/racism/homophobia issues with female, non-binary, LGBT, and non-white employees having their opinions ignored by their managers and supervisors, with the HR head inadequately addressing those issues and Xbox not stepping in and addressing those issues for 3 years due to their hands-off policy of 1st party management; Holt favoring new employees from other studios he had formerly worked at for promotions over Undead Labs employees who had been there longer; etc.

Additionally, the article suggested that the team largely spun their wheels those first 3.5 years of development on SoD 3, it says that during those 3.5 years there was mass turnover, expansion of the studio too quickly, multiple teams on multiple early prototype builds of SoD 3 arguing over which prototype was best and employees being moved around between those teams frequently, people wasting time working on relatively minor technical systems like parkour and different enemies spawning in different weather types while ignoring the elephant in the room, the need to design a proper, strong main storyline. According to that report, Undead Labs was unable to get a proper pre-production vertical slice demo ready for Xbox leadership by the September 2021 Holt set for them, and the vertical slice demos didn't really shape until until early 2022. 

If that is true, then SoD 3 only exited pre-production and entered full production just over 2 years ago. AAA games these days usually need at least 4 years of full production, so if full production didn't begin until around February 2022 like the Kotaku article suggested, it stands to reason then that the earliest we might see SoD 3 release is February 2026, 4 years later.

Then again, it was a Kotaku article and Kotaku is pretty crap and seems to have it out for Xbox, so maybe the article was crap and they got alot more work done on SoD 3 those first 3.5 years than the article claims they did. I'm skeptical about the sexism and racism claims at the very least, but I wouldn't be surprised if the stuff about them spinning their wheels for years and not really getting a proper vertical slice demo done until late 2021 was true. 

I'm late game but not finished yet. I'm not getting the hatred for Gears Judgment. It's a spinoff for sure. Is it the stars thing? Just reminds me of arcade stuff which is neat. I see some stuff that made it into Gears 4.  Hasn't been my fave Gears game but it's been fine.

For you rumour lovers again.

Jeff Grubb is now saying about PD that "some people think there's things that don't look great/are in rough shape, but just as many, if not more, now that he has spoken to more people, think it looks really good and is coming together, it should be in the June showcase" and that they've "figured out" most of the problems. He was also on Twitter yesterday clarifying things, Lul...Insiders.

Ignoring insiders, almost every videogame has rough patches during development and many games that had awful development, come out to greatness, we need to stop freaking out about hearing when a game has a rough patch in development. Creating games is complicated and sometimes roadblocks are hit, it's down to the developer to figure a way through that roadblock, there's not a single game which didn't have roadblocks.

Insiders have been all over the place lately, and especially Grubb who seems to cover his ass no matter what.

This is why I'm trying to post them less in general and trying to ignore them.

Lost almost all respect for any "insider" lately aside from NateDrake, Lol...Nate is a nice guy, actually admits when he's wrong and has been very accurate lately. There's Tom Warren too, I still consider him credible but I think he takes his career reputation more seriously as a professional journalist so you never see him running around podcast to podcast leaking a bunch of stuff then saying something opposite moments later.

Didn't they say the same with State of Decay 2? and that launched super buggy/glitchy.

The hate was mainly towards the multiplayer and how different it was to the traditional Gears multiplayer. 

Continue on and hope that your digital library is supported through in whatever form it takes in the future.

Has anyone played the new BTB Heavies in Halo Infinite? My goodness, it's glories! The maps are perfect for vehicle use and just plain fun. 343 needs to keep adding forge BTB maps.

It may have been posted already, but the new Halo Infinite trailer does a great job highlighting all the multiplayer content added to the game since launch.