Buried under the avalanche of pre-E3 news this weekend was the blip that Microsoft is spinning up five internal studios, including a brand-new one. The other four are basically being acquired by Microsoft, and one of those is one MMO players will probably recognize: Undead Labs.
Undead Labs, of course, just rolled out State of Decay 2, which has already racked up two million sales. Our writer found the game a fun multiplayer PvE survival experience on the whole, in spite of the rails and bugs.
The MMO community had its eyes on Undead Labs for years as it worked on first State of Decay and then the Class4 project, which was originally supposed to be a zombie MMORPG. In 2016, however, the company admitted it had switched gears from an MMORPG to do the smaller-scale, four-player co-op SOD2 instead.
The other four companies now under Microsoft’s wing? Compulsion Games, Ninja Theory, Playground Games, and The Initiative, the final of which is a built-from-scratch outfit.
