7 Days To Die Alpha 21: 10 years of zombie apocalypse

A game that’s been on Steam’s Early Access list for ten years and still isn’t finished? Many computer gamers would write it off as hopeless. Not so the many fans of the Texas-based indie studio’s zombie-survival-building game 7 Days to Die The Fun Pimps. Even if you bought it a decade ago, you still get a new version of the game almost every year for free with lots of new content, improved graphics, additional game options and a better random world generator. Some even hope that the developers will never finish.

The motto of the Fun Pimps is: “It’s done, when it’s done” – and this time the waiting time was particularly long at a year and a half, but next Monday, June 12, 2023, they will be releasing the Alpha 21. At first it’s only available as Experimental version, which the c’t zockt team can try out live on YouTube next Friday from 8 p.m. and present the latest iteration of the zombie game as part of the Streamer Weekend.

Core renovated

With the Alpha 21, hardly a cog of the extensive game remained untouched. Graphically, new shaders, improved filters like processor-friendly Ambient Occlusion (items that the player doesn’t see aren’t rendered either) and hundreds of individually designed items ensure a better look: the workbench shows more details, the concrete mixer rotates when you use it, and the furnace strikes sparks. The already numerous buildings and places worth seeing (points of interest, POIs) were increased by another 100 new ones, at least as many received a complete makeover, including such extensive buildings as the hospital and the “Shamways” canned meat factory. The dealer areas were also completely remodeled.

Many of the new POIs expand the range of destinations for trader tasks. A particularly demanding type called “Infestation” (contamination) is added to the orders, in which the player has to reckon with a particularly large number of dangerous zombies above the opponents that are otherwise adapted to the skill level. The Fun Pimps have also increased the level of difficulty in other ways: water has been greatly reduced so that survival is a challenge again. There are no more empty water glasses that can be filled, and drinks are rarely found. Instead, you can drink dirty water directly from rivers and lakes by hand and collect moisture with the new dew collectors.

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Vehicles like the Motorbike or Pickup Truck deal more damage in collisions – zombies can now be run over without them getting back up and earn points for doing so – but the vehicles themselves also take a lot of damage and a repair kit only restores 10 percent of the vehicle again. The quality you produce when crafting tools, weapons and other items no longer depends on the perks, but on the player’s knowledge, which he can improve by reading the new magazines that can be found everywhere. Interesting for team players: The knowledge can be transferred to other players if they are allies. The developers have also improved some of the multiplayer mode and the servers.

Beginner friendly

Even with previous alpha versions, 7 Days to Die helped new players survive properly with tutorial tasks, an interactive tip bar, and descriptions for almost every item. The Alpha 21 now also shows a kind of danger level in the form of small skulls, orange report the danger of the biome, red that of the POI you have just entered. Since Alpha 20, new players have only spawned in the forest biome, which is the most harmless. If you want to gain experience points and find good tools and weapons, you have to venture into other areas of the map like the Snow biome or – most dangerous but most rewarding – the Wasteland.

In addition to the extensive changes, there are numerous detailed improvements, new functions and bug fixes, the list of changes includes around 700 entries. Many improvements relate to the random world generator (better roads, more rural, distributed POIs), optimizations in terms of speed, memory and network utilization, and many game details. Hitboxes have been adjusted so that you can now shoot through holes in doors and arrows don’t get stuck in the air as often. macOS users will be pleased that Easy-Anti Cheat should no longer crash the game.

7 Days To Die is for around 23 euros on Steam Available as native 64-bit versions for Linux/SteamOS, macOS (10.13) and Windows. A four-core processor, 12 GB of RAM and a graphics card with at least 4 GB of video memory are recommended. The c’t-zockt team is testing the Alpha 21 of 7 Days to Die live from around 8 p.m. on the c’t-zockt YouTube channel and see how well you survive with dirty water and whether you die of acute diarrhea – apart from zombie attacks.

(rap)