Since its major acquisitions, Xbox has mentioned how studios within its ecosystem would be able to collaborate on projects and generally help each other out. We've already seen this before with some games in the past, and it seems the developer behind State of Decay 3 has also had some assistance crafting the next entry in its zombie-themed survival series.
As highlighted on Xbox Wire, Undead Labs is "collaborating" with the Gears of War developer The Coalition and Avowed creator Obsidian. It's been working with Obsidian on the game's "shared world feature" which will enable "more flexible online co-op" (the teams previously collaborated on Grounded with "shared save technology") and it's called on the expertise of The Coalition to "help harness the power" of Unreal Engine 5.
Undead Labs has also had some assistance from co-development partners Blind Squirrel Entertainment and Wushu Studios, which bring even more experience in this field to the project. So, State of Decay 3 really is a team effort! This follows a report earlier this year in May that Avowed's team was also getting support from The Coalition.
As for the release date of this third game, we don't actually have a date yet, but when it does arrive it will be a "day one" release on Xbox Game Pass. You can see the new trailer in our previous coverage here on Pure Xbox: