Jumping into the deep end of a multiplayer survival game can be a recipe for disaster, as I found it in my first-ever taste of the State of Decay series. My last encounter was with State of Decay 2, where I was unceremoniously dropped into a friend's game. It was complete with fully built settlements and swarms of zombies banging down the doors while I was still fumbling with the mechanics. I felt very much out of my depth and never really revisited the game.

Heading into our closed-doors look at State of Decay 3 at Gamescom, I was a little worried I wouldn’t enjoy it and would be going through the motions. I knew I wanted to love it, and I had already planned to play it on release just to support the studio following its ceremonious dumping (aka divesting) by Xbox. In fact, I have implored the Xbox community to buy it, whether it hits Game Pass or not.

As it turns out, not only is the relationship with Xbox not completely severed (it’s now officially confirmed to be launching straight onto Xbox Game Pass alongside its 2027 release window), but the demo proved to be an absolute blast in the time I had with it. The world of State of Decay 3 is pretty fascinating to navigate even amidst incoming waves of the dead.

Alpha playtests are smoothing out the road ahead for closed beta by end of 2026

Before jumping into the demo, the developers shared some roadmap news: the current build is being pulled apart by alpha playtesters, who are providing early technical feedback before us normies jump in. Undead Labs told us that a closed beta will launch by the end of this year, with player access and platform support continuing to ramp up toward the 2027 launch.

When you strip it back, State of Decay 3 remains a community management survival game set deep within the zombie apocalypse. You control a single character at a time in an open-world third-person environment, acting as the caretaker for a fragile community. You are forced to make survival decisions such as where to live, whom to trust, and whether to let newcomers in or grow your own food.

Procedural survivors and evolving traits

One of the unique hallmarks of the franchise is its character generation, and State of Decay 3 takes it further. Survivors are procedurally assembled from a vast pool of names, cultural backgrounds, voice actors, visuals, and traits, meaning you can play for hundreds of hours and never see the same person twice.

Take Pat, for instance, a daredevil with high health and stamina who unfortunately makes a ton of noise. Pat is a rocket scientist with expertise in mechanics and demolition, but he is also easily overwhelmed (same Pat, same). New to State of Decay 3 are evolving traits. If Pat were to kill 100 zombies, that negative trait would evolve into something better, though the developers deliberately retain minor flaws to keep characters nuanced.

Then there is Queenie, a lone wolf with fatigue resistance and sniper training boosting headshot damage, but burdened with a “sketchy vibe” that makes her a bad choice for diplomacy missions. Overall, the trait names were pretty funny and add a much-needed injection of humor into what is a bleak backdrop.

Surviving the plague war

The demo picked up at Green Heart, a newly established northern settlement. The team had recently been chased out of their previous base at the fire training center due to the Plague War, a new territory-control system.

Plague nests act as large-scale dungeons and epicenters for an expanding network of infestations that organically grow and actively surround player settlements. Because the current team had fled in a panic, they had prioritized offensive firepower over food and water and needed to establish a new settlement.

To tackle their food shortage and lack of beds, the developers headed into the nearby town of Carolina to clear an infested hunting store and claim it as a second settlement. This location offered a professional-grade animal press capable of crafting far more effective ammunition than standard scavenged garage setups.

Luckily, State of Decay 3 introduces the ability to manage up to three settlements simultaneously, allowing players to expand their territory as they push back this plague network.

Now, when on the offensive, whether you go straight for the heart of the Plague is up to you, but you can approach more strategically by taking out surrounding weaker infestation sites first.

Make the game as difficult (or as easy) as you like with friends or solo

Combat in State of Decay 3 feels incredibly satisfying, and Undead Labs have worked hard to make guns feel more impactful.

Limb damage is a necessity when trying to slow down the onslaught. You can target specific appendages, blow a zombie's legs off with a shotgun blast, and gleefully watch them topple over. Players can also lean into creative environmental puzzles. The team showed us how to use stealth, or splash fuel across the streets. In one example, they placed a tape deck to attract zombies, luring hordes into a trap before clearing out the weak points of the plague heart.

I was also really happy to hear that even if you play cooperatively with three other players, you can tune sliders for combat, plague aggression, and resource management so the game matches your preferred challenge level. Want to make the higher-level zombies a rarer occurrence or make scavenging supplies a little more rewarding? You can do that and more. I’ll be tuning mine down to scaredy-cat mode, thanks. The true sickos can play on ultra hard lethal mode.

When we asked what constitutes a fail state for your game, it turns out that morale is everything. If your community morale tanks due to poor management, characters will lose faith in you as their caretaker and disband, running off into the hills. Lose enough of your community, and you fail your playthrough.

Looking ahead to 2027

Customization in general has been vastly expanded from the previous franchise entries. Players can transform standard vehicles into heavy, tank-like variants outfitted with specialized gear like gas filters, cargo expansions, extra fuel tanks, or spike wheels.

Whether you are customizing vehicle paint jobs or strapping gas tanks to your ride, State of Decay 3 is shaping up to be quite the evolutionary leap for the series.

Whether you are completely new to State of Decay or jumping in enthusiastically from its predecessor, the developers seem to be doing a great job with balancing system depth with better onboarding for new players. I’m pretty confident this is going to be exactly the multiplayer smash that Xbox needs on Game Pass.

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As someone who actually hails from Birmingham, UK, finding out there was a medieval zombie survival game set in my hometown was morbidly fascinating. Naturally, I had to check it out at Gamescom to see if there was actually anything from Birmingham in the game or if it was an unusual marketing ploy.

Playing a janky beta build under the watchful eyes of the developers while grappling with a mouse and keyboard (the real horror for my console gamer brain) was enough to scare me before I even saw my first zombie. But despite fumbling through the controls, trying to figure out how to equip an axe, and getting quickly humbled by the undead Brummies, I left genuinely looking forward to seeing more.

Surviving 14-century Brum

Developed in Unreal Engine 5, God Save Birmingham leans heavily into the deep, hardcore survival mechanics popularized by Project Zomboid. During my hands-on time, I quickly learned that fighting off the infected isn't just about mindless button-mashing. You've got to manage a web of stats and status effects while keeping a close eye on your hunger, thirst, fatigue, and many, many injuries.

I stumbled getting to grips with the combat in places, but that was mostly down to my lack of keyboard skills. Armed with some medieval tools, you can target an enemy's head for a crushing blow or take out their knees to topple them over. Items in the environment can be moved to block gaps, or a chair can be tossed as an improvised shield. I went from stumbling past box crates to hurling them at my enemies.

Of course, weapons wear down fast, doors take time to smash through (as the devs kindly guided me away from spending too long trying to break through a boarded-up window), and if you aren't careful, you'll find yourself battered, bruised, and desperately searching for shelter before night falls and Birmingham gets more horrifying.

A historically accurate apocalypse?

Now to the real reason I really wanted to attend this demo: I simply wanted to ask the team why on earth they had chosen Birmingham, of all the towns in the UK, to set their game?

The answer was simpler than I expected: not just that Birmingham already looks post-apocalyptic, but that when they were looking for a setting, it fit the bill. One that was manageable for their team size but possessed a rich enough medieval history to build upon. They settled on the humble Birmingham while sifting through extensive social research and historical materials published by the Birmingham Museum.

So contrary to my previous assumptions, it isn’t just called Birmingham for the hell of it; the team told me that they are striving for genuine historical authenticity and faithfulness to 14th-century Birmingham.

While they take some creative liberties here and there to ensure smoother gameplay flow, the city's layout, architecture, and major infrastructure are meticulously researched using floor plans and historical data from the museum. In fact, if you manage to survive long enough in the build, you can actually track down work-in-progress landmarks like the historic Bull Ring and the iconic St Martin's Church standing tall over the medieval streets.

I did not manage to last that long, which is more reason for me to actually play and see for myself when the game launches.

Offering my services for the purpose of historical preservation

God Save Birmingham is targeting an initial PC Early Access launch on Steam in 2027, with console ports being evaluated down the line. The most recent update and build on display has also added co-op mode so you can hack and slash at the dead with friends.

One small disappointment was that, while the dialogue is currently text-based, there was no Brummie accent in the game. The developers know where to find me if they want to cast a local. (I even do a pretty convincing Brummie zombie impression after a few pints).

Jokes aside, I look forward to playing it at my own pace, preferably with a controller in hand rather than sweating under a press-booth spotlight. I can't wait to dive back in, test out the survival loops and take a semi-historically accurate tour of my hometown as it goes completely to hell.

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Getting to attend Gamescom and play upcoming blockbusters can be a double-edged sword, at least for someone multitask-challenged like me.

Moving from station to station at a breakneck pace, trying to memorize control schemes while a developer watches over your shoulder, always breaks me out in a sweat. I’ve never really been someone who can juggle multiple games at once. I tend to pick a title, lock in, make it my personality, and obsess over it until completion. Simply because my brain can't easily process competing control systems. So, doing that fifteen times over at Gamescom... you can imagine my anxiety.

That being said, the moment I sat down with Fable, any lingering panic was quashed with the first swing of my oversized hammer.

Playground has absolutely nailed the combat

The combat system could not have been more intuitive or frictionless; I don’t think I glanced at the controller guide once. I simply followed the sardonic Humphrey (played by Matt King) through a series of abandoned caves, wildly weaving my hammer, calling lightning bolts from above, and firing a rapid-fire crossbow with abandon against the hordes of skeletal enemies.

Transitioning on the fly between melee, ranged, and spellcasting was a piece of cake to navigate, and I felt the impact with each ABXY input. And the utterly ridiculous Befoul spell, which turns foes into chickens, was abused on every cooldown. I made sure to kick each and every chicken I created, though I later found out you could also cook them in a flame bath.

The combat was so much fun that I genuinely didn’t want the session to end, despite it being the last appointment of my day and knowing a cold beer was waiting for me on the other side.

We played through the same demo twice with two very different character builds, and on two different difficulties. I would have happily gone for 3 more rounds. The ultimate test, of course, will be whether that loop holds the same novelty and feel across an entire campaign. But the foundation is absolutely rock-solid.

Playgrounds vision and staying true to a classic

Following my hands-on session, I sat down with the developers at Playground Games to discuss how they are steering the franchise during their tenure, specifically regarding their combat philosophy and approach to player progression.

One of the core design pillars of the reboot is to give players “total freedom of expression.” While your active combat loadout must consist of the set triple combo, a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, and a set of spells, you are completely free to mix, match, and swap components to craft a playstyle that feels entirely personal to you.

The action flows organically, allowing you to string disparate moves together in any order you want (cooldowns aside). Whether you prefer a sluggish, heavy-hitting warhammer or a swift, sharp sword, momentum remains smooth, responsive, and deeply satisfying.

The devs were emphatic about their approach to progression. It shouldn’t be about passive stat increases where "numbers simply go up." Upgrades need to feel transformative during gameplay.

Players earn experience through combat and exploration, spending skill points on a dedicated tree to upgrade spells and abilities multiple times. Weapons also get their own upgrade paths; in my second playthrough of the demo on a harder difficulty, I shot at enemies with a crossbow that fired so fast it might as well have been a machine gun.

An example we played was the Lift spell. Initially, it would levitate a single enemy, but a later upgrade would let you slam down that enemy into a violent, crowd-clearing area-of-effect style blast.

The team leaned hard into clever interactions between the spells and weapons too. Turn an enemy into a chicken, clip them with a fireball, and watch them transform into a temporary ghost chicken. If an enemy recovers from a suspension or chicken state, they will briefly stagger and flap their arms, leaving them completely wide open for a punishing counterattack.

Honoring the dark and gritty wit of the original Albion

Rebooting a beloved, legendary franchise is no small feat, and the team is acutely aware of the delicate tightrope they are walking. Balancing modern designs with the unique British charm and underlying darkness that defined the original Lionhead games is a massive task, but it’s one they clearly understand, and that fuels much of their decision-making.

The physical comedy so integral to the series' DNA extends directly into the mechanics. Shoot a skeleton's head off, and it will flail around blindly; shoot a leg off, and it will still desperately crawl toward you.

The dynamic reactions aren't just reserved for your enemies, either. The whole world of Albion responds directly to your actions. If you decide to test out your gravity-suspension spells or chicken cooking magic on innocent townsfolk in the capital of Bowerstone, you will be judged accordingly by the locals. Yet, the system's nuance shines through its reputation mechanics: NPCs form varied opinions based on their individual moral compasses, meaning a ruthless display of power might disgust some citizens while quietly impressing or intimidating others.

Under the shadow of the "Xbox Tax"

If you are just as excited for Fable as I am, this will be one of many previews you read (and thanks for reading mine too!). No doubt, many of them will sound remarkably similar, given we all played the exact same vertical slice of the game. But what has struck me since arriving home and looking at reactions is a familiar sense of foreboding about Playground’s release.

It’s hard not to notice the toxic undercurrent surrounding the game already. Long before anyone even touched a controller, the internet was already dissecting trailers frame-by-frame just to complain that the female protagonist wasn’t attractive enough…now I’m seeing an eye-roll-inducing wave of bad-faith takes cropping up online regarding Fable’s gameplay, based on a tiny boss fight clip. Unfortunately, I’m not surprised, given the current trend of spicy takes getting attention, but I also firmly believe these criticisms are a direct consequence of the game being developed under the stewardship of Microsoft.

The "Xbox Tax" has become a bit of a meme in recent years, but whether you believe it’s a real thing or not, it does represent a widespread frustration with Microsoft's recent corporate missteps. Missteps that lead people to put its first-party output under a hyper-critical microscope that is undeserved for the individual teams. There’s a worrying number of people who seem eager to sharpen their pitchforks for Fable right now. Not enough stagger animations? Campaign length too short for a long development cycle? I’ve seen it all already, and it's mainly from people with no intention of ever playing the game.

I worry that when the game finally launches, players won't judge Playground Games on their own merits. I’ve seen this exact thing play out before with major releases like Starfield and Avowed. I'm not here to argue those games are amazing by any means; they certainly had many faults, but the rabid appetite from internet fanbases to tear them down was completely out of proportion to their actual flaws. Genuine, constructive critique gets completely drowned out in a sea of toxic internet point-scoring.

Even with Fable launching on PlayStation 5 alongside Xbox and PC, I don’t think it will be entirely safe from the bad-faith warriors out for blood. I genuinely worry for the incredible team at Playground Games, who have poured their hearts into crafting something special and completely outside their usual Forza fare. But sitting here fresh off a tiny 30-minute slice of the game, I am rooting for it harder than ever. Fable deserves to be a hit, and it’s exactly what Xbox needs to shine as a flagship franchise. I just hope the Xbox tax collectors don’t bang too hard on the doors while we are all having fun.

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If you’ve already played in Neon Giant’s isometric cyberpunk world in The Ascent, the studio’s follow-up, No Law is going to blow your socks off. Now backed by Krafton, the Swedish developer is moving away from 2D action toward a first-person perspective rich in frankly insane detail and tackling something way more ambitious. No Law is a deeply systemic, immersive cyber-noir shooter set in the brutal, overgrown coastal metropolis of Port Desire, and I got a detailed behind-the-scenes look at Gamescom 2026.

Walking me through an early game mission, what I saw was far from just another by-the-numbers cyberpunk shooter, and the world-building and old-school immersive sim design were reminiscent of the original Deus Ex. No Law should definitely be on your radar for your 2027 gaming lineup.

Welcome to Port Desire (you’ll need an umbrella)

Port Desire wasn’t quite the typical dystopian aesthetic I expected in a futuristic setting. Gone are the endless sterile concrete jungles of traditional sci-fi; this city drips with lush foliage that looks even more striking at night. Carved into towering ocean cliffs at a neutral border shared by 3 rival nations, the city is choked by relentless creeping green vegetation. Every night, chemical agents are sprayed to beat back the overgrowth, and if that stops, nature wins. But it makes for a breathtaking backdrop. It was raining heavily throughout the demo too, adding to the vibes!

You play as Grey Harker, an ex-military veteran who just wanted a quiet life tending to his plants (kind of a John Wick origin story) until he was dragged rudely out of retirement. As Harker, you’ll tear through Port Desire’s criminal underworld with a thirst for vengeance.

Neon Giant has built Port Desire with an insane level of attention to detail. The city can be explored vertically, featuring authentic street addresses, floor numbers, and mailboxes that actually correspond to the NPCs living within.

All the shops have dynamic pricing, physical inventory shelves you can load by hand, and products with readable nutrition facts on the back. You can steal everything from groceries to the doorbell, though if you rob a gun store or rack up a high enough bounty, you’ll be shot on sight.

Every single character in the game can be killed too. If you murder a shop owner, their store will remain permanently shuttered for the rest of your playthrough, or if you kill a crucial receptionist who was supposed to check you into a mission location, they won’t be at their desk when you need them, leaving you to figure out the objective on your own. You can’t break the story progression by ending someone's life, but you can make it a lot more difficult for yourself if you accidentally take out someone of importance.

Zero hand-holding if that's what you wish

The most notable takeaway from the developers' presentation was Neon Giant’s commitment to player freedom and progression.

Port Desire can be explored entirely on your terms. If you want to be guided around with UI markers and waypoint arrows, you can do so, but the game can be flipped into full immersion mode. No hand-holding; you are simply given an address, and you’ll have to walk around checking house numbers and street signs to find your target. The city lives and breathes like a real city.

No Law also rejects the ethos of giving the player “busywork”. You won’t get extra XP for headshots, lockpicking, or hacking your way in. The devs explicitly said they wanted to avoid directing the player to a specific playstyle. For example, if you need to get into an apartment, whether you sneak or yippy-ki-yay your way in is up to you; there is no “best way”. The XP is rewarded simply for getting to the end destination, not how you got there.

There’s also no need to waste time selling inventory. Neon Giant wanted to eliminate tedious, immersion-breaking inventory management, so no more hoarding junk to vendor for cash. Use what you find, or leave it behind.

Choices in the game are meaningful; augmentation canisters and skill trees force you to pick a path. Respeccing isn’t a frictionless safety net for the player; choices are designed to make you feel the weight of your decisions. During the demo, the developers demonstrated two completely different approaches to the same mission. The first playthrough leaned heavily into stealth, lockpicking, and sneaking around sleeping targets. In the second run, the player had invested skill points into heavy rifles, which threw any subtlety out the window as he went in on an all-explosive, gung-ho assault. The level of detail wasn’t sacrificed, however, as an explosion in one room caused items to fall off a shelf 2 rooms away.

Both paths were entirely valid and led to the same XP reward at the end, but both felt completely organic to the world of Port Desire.

For the people who wanted 'Cyberpunk GTA', this may be your game.

No Law is targeting a release window of 2027 on PC, Xbox Series X|S and PS5, and its shaping up to be a monumental triumph for Neon Giant.

In our chat, the team humbly acknowledged the comparisons to Deus Ex and Cyberpunk 2077, but while elements are an ode to both of those titles, this is very much their own living, breathing sandbox where destruction, reactive AI crowds powered by Unreal Engine 5, and uncompromising player choice take center stage.

If you’re hungry for a mature and deeply interactive first-person RPG that respects your intelligence, lets you break its sequences and deal with the consequences, put No Law firmly on your radar.

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