Zombie Apocalypse every 7 Days!

This is one of those games that has been in Alpha for a very long time but is still being developed and is always getting better. Yes, there is the occasional new release that breaks something like the time when the rain was acid and caused death within minutes of touching your skin but generally problems like that get resolved quickly and the game becomes playable again.

The setting is that of a post-apocalyptic landscape in North America where much of the population have become zombies who’s only aim in undeath is to consume live human flesh. The zombies are relatively docile during the day but run at night, although these settings can be changed to make the game harder or easier. Standard settings though, they are slow in the day and fast at night. To save on server resources though, the zombies are populated around player activity. They spawn dormant and are woken by noise or heavy activity on the ‘Heat Map’. If you crouch, you can sneak up on dormant zombies and kill them with an arrow to the head. If you over extend however, they can easily all wake up and surround you.

The Heat Map is the activity caused by play industry such as the Cooking Fire, Forge, Work Bench, Cement Mixer, Chemistry Bench, Generator etc. The more heat you are producing the more undead visitors you will get.

You can play on the standard pre-generated map Navesgane which has all the biomes and mapped out regional areas or you can play on a randomly generated map that could have lots of cities, or none at all. If choosing a random map, it’s best to research some good seed names so you at least have a trader.

The maps are divided into ‘biomes’ with each one having its own characteristics which includes the climate, the zombie encounters and the resources that are most prevalent. The ‘green’ zone tends to be the easiest area because the temperature is generally survivable without too much clothing protection. The desert biome gets very hot but has an abundance of oil shale, something you will need a lot of later in the game. The snow biome is, rather obviously, bloomin’ cold and has mountain lions and big lumberjack men roaming. Some people prefer basing up in the snow, where they expect to get less visitors.

The main thing that differentiates 7 Days from most crafting survival games is the ability to break down absolutely everything and build anywhere. You can dig down underground to bedrock and you can create any structure you like with the adaptive building blocks. The problem is the zombies will break it in a bid to get to you, particularly on Blood Moon night! Ordinarily, if you can break line of sight with a zombie, they will stop chasing you but on Blood moon, they know where you are and will come for you. My advice, don’t be at your base when that happens. By that I mean, if you have a base where you keep all your supplies, you don’t want it trashed. If you have a defensive base, then use it to reap lots of XP as you cut down the continuous waves of undead abominations.

This game is really hard, just against the environment but it can also be PvP and in that case you then have to fortify your base from Zombies and hide the entrance from curious players, keen to steal your stuff and murder you if they get the chance. Being able to build anywhere though you can get quite creative with where you make your base. My favourite so far was a base entrance under a lake, it made me feel like a Bond villain!

When you first start there are missions to do which teach the basics of the game; these are well worth completing as the final one tasks you with finding a trader, which it handily marks on your map. The trader will then give you more missions and reward you with useful items and cash, in the form of Duke tokens, which you can then use… at the trader. You can also sell items that are of no use to you.

If you’re playing this with friends then team up because you’ll get shared XP for Zombie kills and you can share the effort on the skill tree. As you level and are given skill points you’ll need to unlock skills to improve your survivability and learn how to craft things that will help you improve that further. For me, the key at the start is to get the recipe for the Forge and Work Bench so I can set about making Bicycles my team. This might seem a strange goal but being on a bike means I can outrun a zombie, even at night, and start scouting the map. Don’t try this on Blood moon! As a team you can also share your missions that you get from the trader so that you both do it and get the rewards.

There is so much going on in this game and it is very replayable. Personally, I prefer PvE but a run out in PvP can be entertaining, provided you are not too attached to your base. Indeed, there is so much I could say about this game but you are better off trying it for yourself. If you like survival crafting games then I would be surprised if you have not tried this already but if you have not, then give it a go. Oh and also the zombie dogs sound like a Tie Fighter when you kill them, something I love and I hope the Devs never change!

Originally published on 8 February 2021.