The signs are increasing that the zombie franchise “State of Decay” might be planning an MMO spinoff. With Patrick Wyatt, one of the founders of ArenaNet, they have brought a multiplayer specialist on board. Are DayZ and H1Z1 soon to face even more competition?
Undead Labs hires MMO veterans
Techtimes.com reports that State of Decay is planning to enter the big multiplayer business after a deal with Microsoft. At the moment, zombie MMOs are trending. With DayZ and H1Z1, competition is on the start line.
Undead Labs, the studio behind State of Decay, has secured a real MMO expert in Patrick Wyatt. Wyatt has worked for Blizzard, co-founded ArenaNet, and also contributed to En Masse, the publisher of Tera. In a blog post, Wyatt wrote:
“I can’t talk about what I’m doing here … not yet. But … I’m a bit specialized in developing really big multiplayer games. So I guess I’ll be working on something in that direction as soon as I get one of those cool lab coats that everyone is wearing around here.”
Techtimes believes that Wyatt’s MMO expertise could already manifest in the State of Decay “Year One Edition” in 2015. However, it is also possible that they are planning their own MMO against the backdrop of the State of Decay world.
My MMO thinks: How much truth there is to the rumors is still unknown at this time. With the new generation of consoles being even more connected to the internet than previous ones, a trend seems to be emerging where the Xbox One and Playstation 4 are clearly opening up to MMOs. However, these often turn out to be hybrids or models in which only certain classic features of an MMO are implemented.
Even if this term will be defined more broadly: In the coming years, many well-known franchises could plan their own MMO spinoffs or at least heavily steer their current games in this direction.
