The end is here. The mother of all zombie outbreaks has hit, and a handful of scattered survivors are fighting tooth and nail to survive. Humanity is on the brink of extinction, and you’re one of the lucky few to still have a pulse. The time has come for you to make a stand and forcibly take back your world from the hordes of roving undead. Will you find and fortify a base, perform daring raids for valuable stores of food and ammunition and rescue other survivors? Or will you take your chances and go it alone? The choice is yours…

‘Class3’ is the code-name for our ambitious zombie-survival open world game, currently under development at Undead Labs for release on Xbox 360 as an Xbox LIVE Arcade title.

We’ve all sat around with friends, debating the best ways to survive the zombie apocalypse. Well, the time for speculation is over; ‘Class3’ will let you put your personal survival plan to the test, on your own or with a friend over Xbox LIVE.

Here’s what you can expect to see in ‘Class3’:
Zombie Survival
What if society came screeching to a halt? What if all our rules and laws no longer mattered? ‘Class3′ brings these questions to life in a very real way. It’s not just about combat; it’s about doing what you must do to stay alive. Food, water, shelter, and ammo — you’ll need them all. Taking you beyond the initial panic, and beyond the first weeks of the crisis, ‘Class3′ is the embodiment of the “What if?” zombie apocalypse scenario.

Sweet Action
Move through the world like a zombie-slaying badass. Dive through windows, jump on cars, and take it to the living dead with baseball bats. Hop in a truck and mow down some undead pedestrians. Break into the local police station and clear out their arsenal or walk into the local grocery store to stock up on your favorite junk food. The world is your oyster…a shiny oyster that happens to be filled with zombies.

An Evolving World
‘Class3’ is an open sandbox world that develops in real-time, dynamically generating content based on your actions, the choices you make, and the ever-increasing zombie threat. Decide where you’d like to set up a fortified safe haven for you and other survivors you’ve rescued, then form raiding parties to gather resources and create supply chains. Use the materials you’ve gathered to develop your community as you see fit, but be careful — resources will deplete as you pillage areas, and zombies are attracted to noise and activity. Take up the offensive by assaulting hordes before they reach your settlement, or focus on improving your defenses against the massed zombie attacks. Every choice and every action matter in this fully simulated, evolving world.

Undead Labs to Develop Console-based Zombie MMO

November 23, 2009 – Seattle, Washington – When flesh-eating, shambling undead corpses invade Seattle, Undead Labs will probably be the ones responsible. Video game industry veteran Jeff Strain today announced the formation of Undead Labs, a Seattle, Washington-based game development studio that’s on a mission to take online gaming in bold new directions. Undead Labs’ sole focus will be to create the definitive massively multiplayer online zombie game (MMOZ) for console gamers. Nothing screams funny quite like wading into a group of rotting zombies with lawn chair and a box of sharpened #2 pencils, and nothing says fun quite like doing it with your friends, whether online or on your couch. Undead Labs is committed to bringing to life an MMO loaded with action, humor and, of course, a whole lotta zombies, because the world doesn’t need more dragons.

Strain left NCsoft last summer to build a creative studio around the most talented – and zombie loving – developers in the industry, and to pioneer a new development model that will create a new breed of MMO built from the ground-up for console gamers.

“Every time I see a good zombie movie with friends, we spend days debating our strategies for surviving the zombie apocalypse,” said Strain. “The police station, or the supermarket? Garden rake, or staple gun? Bach, or the White Stripes? I’m a game developer, so I’d probably be useless for anything other than ghoul bait, but I’m excited to have the opportunity to build an MMOZ that lets us put those strategies to the test and find out for sure.”

Strain’s experience and expertise as a game developer and business leader helped spawn the game industry’s most successful and influential MMOs. In the mid-nineties while Strain was at Blizzard Entertainment, he was a programmer for StarCraft and Diablo and created the StarCraft campaign editor. In 1999 Strain formed the initial team and kicked off development on the wildly successful MMO World of Warcraft while taking on the roles of team lead and lead programmer on the project.

In April 2000 Strain founded ArenaNet with fellow Blizzard leads Mike O’Brien and Patrick Wyatt. He served as programmer and executive producer for the popular MMO franchise Guild Wars, which has sold more than six million units. Korean MMO publisher NCsoft acquired ArenaNet in 2002, and in 2008 Strain was promoted to president of product development for the company’s Western operations, where he spent a year wearing button-down shirts and dark socks before returning to his development roots with the formation of Undead Labs.

More information about Undead Labs can be found at http://UndeadLabs.com.