Waking in a post-apocalyptic landscape wearing nothing but your skivvies, you must craft, build and scavenge your way to survival. Slow moving by day, the restless undead become running terrors after sundown…and they’re hungry. How long can YOU survive?
Zombie Survival Gameplay
The Fun Pimps’ 7 Days to Die (7DTD) is an early access open-world survival, crafting, base building game set in the aftermath of a nuclear war. From crafting primitive tools and weapons, to scavenging motorbike parts, to planning defences for a base. Players must use wits and creativity to conquer the environment, zombies and other players.
The undead creep, crawl, lurch and lumber everywhere, but are most concentrated in cities. During daylight hours the slow moving zombies main danger lies in their numbers and stealth. When the sun goes down, however, their hunger for human flesh rages and their stumbling becomes a sprint. 7DTD isn’t just a nifty title, it’s also a reference to a key game mechanic. For 6 days and nights the player has time to scavenge and craft while building and fortifying their base in preparation for the seventh night. Every seventh night an increasingly difficult horde of zombies will attack.
Whether playing solo offline, online co-op or PvP, players can choose to play on the campaign-like Navezgane Arizona map provided by The Fun Pimps, or on a randomly generated world with mountains, valleys, roads, cities, towns, lakes, caves and wilderness locations. With over 300 locations, the possibilities are endless.
In addition to the survival elements of hunger and thirst, players must keep an eye on the environment. While there are plenty of comfortable woodlands and plains, players must be wary of overheating in sweltering deserts and burnt forests or freezing to death in the frigid snowy tundra. Environmental hazards can be managed with shelter, campfires, clothing and armour.
Crafting in a Crisis
7 Days to Die has a combination of backpack and workbench crafting. Primitive tools, such as stone axes and picks, as well as bows and clubs, can be crafted on the go from your inventory. Whilst more advanced tools may require a forge for smelting iron and steel or a workbench to craft ammo and armour. The Fun Pimps are proud to say there are nearly 400 crafting recipes in game.
Building a Base
Beginners are usually going to build their first bases out of wood, but don’t think it stops there. 7DTD has a myriad of materials to beef up a base into an impenetrable fortress. From wood and scrap iron to concrete and steel, players can customise their base as they see fit. Dig a moat, fill it with spikes and craft a drawbridge at a workbench; or how about dig a tunnel to bedrock and hollow out a home. Or why not build on top of the Pass n Gas petrol station. How you survive is entirely up to you and your imagination.
Skills, Perks & Updates
In addition to crafting, building and survival, 7 Days to Die has more to offer. A skill and perk system allows the player to level up and pick skills for crafting (concrete mixing, steel smithing, etc..), ammo production, weapon specific perks and more. You can also randomly find treasure maps leading to rare items or more skill points. Farming allows the player to grow their own food and hunting provides food and leather. A large variety of buildings reward exploration.
While it is in Early Access, 7 Days to Die receives regular updates from The Fun Pimps, who put out patch notes and Q&A sessions, as well as information on upcoming updates on their Dev Blog. Currently in Alpha 15.2 as of this writing, future updates include the addition of a behemoth mutated zombie, updates to Point of Interest visibility, addition of a socket system, block rotation GUI, painting GUI and a fur system. This is an incomplete list of planned updates and the Dev Blog should be checked out for a more complete idea of what is to come.
7 Days to Die: The Survival Horde Crafting Game is available for purchase through its official web page, on Steam for PC and Mac, and in stores for Xbox One and PS4.
