7 Days to Die
Daylight in 7 Days to Die goes to scavenging and building, while the in-game clock counts down to the next horde. The world is made of blocks that can be dug out, stacked and broken, and the player moves through ruined towns and open wilderness.
The Fun Pimps place it somewhere between a shooter, a survival-horror game, a tower-defense title and an RPG. Looting and crafting supply the defenses; attributes and perks, unlocked through leveling, decide how well the character copes when those defenses are tested.
Top 3 Reasons to Play
- Terrain is destructible and shapeable, and structures collapse once enough of their supports take damage. Base design turns into an engineering problem, and the same rules apply to zombies that dig or break through blocks to reach it.
- Sandbox options let a group rewrite the rules instead of accepting a preset challenge. Roughly 150 settings in eight categories cover zombie health and speed (set separately for day, night and Blood Moon), XP gain rates, trader hours and how often hordes arrive. Setups can be saved and shared as a code, and a few novelty options such as tiny zombies, big heads and low gravity exist for sessions that are not meant to be serious.
- On PC, changes load from a Mods folder, and the community ranges from small XML tweaks known as modlets to overhauls like Darkness Falls. Consoles do not get that option.
Story and Lore
The setting is Navezgane County, a fictional stretch of the American Southwest left in ruins and overrun by the infected. Nothing in the game explains how the old world ended: there is no narrator, campaign or scripted ending.
A 100-meter band of heavy radiation encircles the edge of the Navezgane map, and the Wasteland biome is given over to fallout and radiation storms. The currency is the Duke, a casino token from Duke's Casino, and every trader deals in it.
Gameplay and Mechanics
Survival and crafting
Looted gear comes in six quality ranges and can be upgraded with item mods, and crafting covers more than 500 recipes. Food comes from scavenging and gardening, as well as hunting more than a dozen animal species, and status effects add upkeep: the game tracks nearly 50 buffs and ailments.
A land claim block protects the building area. By default it covers a 41 × 41 block zone in which only the owner and allies can place or destroy blocks.
Biomes and hazards
Five biomes divide the map. Characters start in the Pine Forest, which has no environmental hazard. The other four each do:
- Smoke drifts through the Burnt Forest and leads to suffocation; Black Lung Serum or Smoke Gear counters it.
- Blowing sand does the same job in the Desert, where Sunstroke Tonic or Desert Gear helps.
- Freezing air in the Snow biome is handled with Scorcher Stew or Snow Gear.
- Fallout in the Wasteland brings radiation, and the answer is Fallout Flush or Radiation Gear.
Progression and Game Stage
Experience goes into five attributes: Perception, Strength, Fortitude, Agility and Intellect. Each goes up to level 10, and the perks tied to an attribute unlock at set attribute levels. Perk books found in the world grant permanent perks of their own, and finishing a series of them awards a bonus perk.
Enemy strength follows a hidden Game Stage value built from player level and days survived, minus a penalty for each death. Entering any biome except the Pine Forest raises it as well. In a group, the highest member's Game Stage counts in full and the others add diminishing shares.
Blood Moon
- By default the horde arrives on day 7 and every seventh day after (14, 21 and so on). The interval can be changed, or Blood Moons switched off.
- A warning starts at 08:00, when the day counter turns red. The horde itself lasts from 22:00 until 04:00.
- Horde zombies know where every player is, including quiet ones behind walls or underground.
- Size depends on Game Stage and the number of nearby players, and a cap limits how many can be alive at once.
Quests, vehicles and multiplayer
Traders hand out quests such as Clear Zombies, Fetch, Buried Supplies and Restore Power. Rewards (experience, currency and a choice of one item from five) grow with the quest tier. There are six tiers; each finished quest adds points equal to its tier, and moving up requires ten times the current tier in points, counted across all traders.
Getting around is possible by bicycle, minibike, motorcycle, 4x4 or gyrocopter. Co-op players can build a shared settlement, while PvP servers allow raids on other players' bases; both modes work online or over a LAN.
Characters and Factions
Five traders make up the friendly side of the world. Rekt sells food and seeds from the Pine Forest, Jen deals in medical supplies from the Burnt Forest, Bob supplies tools and vehicle parts in the Desert, Hugh stocks weapons and ammunition in the Snow, and Joel sells armor in the Wasteland. Each is tied to a single biome.
A trader's compound is a protected area: zombies cannot enter, and blocks cannot be placed or destroyed inside. The shop is open from 04:05 to 21:50, after which players are sent out, and its stock refreshes every three days.
The undead fill out the rest of the cast, and the developers count nearly 60 zombie archetypes. Feral variants carry more health and hit harder, while radiated ones glow green, absorb far more punishment and heal themselves. A handful of special infected change how a fight plays out:
- Screamers call in a horde once they spot the player.
- Demolition Zombies do heavy damage to blocks and explode when the C4 strapped to their chest goes off.
- Cops spit acid, and a Cop left alive at low health detonates.
- Some types are tied to a biome: Ranchers in the Desert spit insect swarms, Chucks in the Snow throw boulders, and Mutated Zombies in the Wasteland spray radioactive acid.
Editions
The game is sold as a single standard edition on every platform. You can only buy addons, which require base game.