Microsoft and Undead Labs originally released State of Decay 2 back in 2018 for the Xbox One and on Windows 10 systems for PC. The game suffered from the same kind of [current year] antics we’ve seen in just about every other AAA title. Now Microsoft wants to extend the potential market reach with a release of State of Decay 2 on Steam.

The game is scheduled to release at some point in early 2020. No release date has been set yet but the game’s Steam store page is currently live.

State of Decay 2’s hook is that it’s an open-world zombie survival game. It’s not just about surviving, though, you also have to gather food, maintain supplies, keep your survivors from succumbing to disease, and trying to grow your base. Each set of the starting characters also have their own stories to follow, but sadly there are no straight, white males to play at the start of the game.

You can, however, recruit new NPCs to your stable of survivors and play them, and some of those survivors do happen to be straight, white males.

It’s not all bad, though. The game has a rather inviting combat system that relies more on melee combat than projectile-based combat. However, there are guns, explosives and other heavy weapons present, but there’s a serious thrill with taking on some zombies and battering in their heads with a baseball bat.

To their credit, Undead Labs did a fairly solid job in making the melee combat feel satisfying.

The big marketing gimmick for the Steam version of State of Decay 2 is that the game will allow you to cross-play with Windows 10 users and Xbox One owners.

We’ll see if they charge $60 for the 2018 re-release on Steam or if the price will drop. Expect more news about the Steam release as we enter into 2020.

(Thanks for the news tip Guardian EvaUnit02)