Undead Labs had planned all along for State of Decay to be a stepping stone to a zombie apocalypse MMORPG, and it seems to be getting closer. The developer today announced it's hired Patrick Wyatt, a veteran of Blizzard, a co-founder of Guild Wars dev ArenaNet, and a founding member of Tera publisher En Masse. What he's working on, and what Undead Labs' recent multi-game deal with Microsoft means, is a secret, but, well, look, he's hinting pretty hard that it's an MMO.

"The studio is contractually obligated not to talk about ... anything interesting right now. So you'll just have to read between the lines instead," Wyatt said in blog post. The big tease concluded his post saying, "I can't talk anything about what I'm working on here at Undead Labs ... yet. ... But ... I specialize in developing really big multiplayer games. So I guess maybe I'll be working on something like that, at least as soon as I get one of the cool lab coats everyone around here has."

Wyatt's lengthy career (oh, so old!) started at Blizzard back when it was Silicon & Synapse, working on The Lost Vikings and ultimately becoming vice president of research & development. As luck would have it, he met Undead Labs founder Jeff Strain there, and they co-founded ArenaNet together with Mike O'Brien. To cut a long resume short, he likes online games.

"Today, I'm very happy to announce that Patrick has joined Undead Labs, and will be working shoulder-to-shoulder with Team Zed as we dive into the development of... well, what's next, and beyond," Jeff Strain said in a post of his own.

Strain nad previously idly mused that a State of Decay sequel would be on Xbox One. The recent multi-year agreement with Microsoft Studios, signed after then, covers several titles, so only they know what hypothetical or teased game may be next.