Recent reviews by Ekzim

I can't honestly recommend this game at the new price point for the 1.0 stable release of over $40 USD. I've owned 7D2D since 2017 and currently played 50 hours in the last two weeks trying out the latest changes leading up to 1.0 and some time in 1.0 stable. In total, I'm rocking 916 hours played.

7 Days used to be a lot more fun than what it is now. For some reason TFP decided to make changes over the years and I can understand trying out different mechanics to develop a good feel, but what used to be and what exists now...it's just mediocre.

1. The switch to magazines for random skill-ups has definitely made this more of a grind that what it needs to be. If you're playing multiplayer, please see #4.

2. Progression slowed down a lot. You can be level 60-70 and have 50+ hours in, and yet...no gyrocopter!

3. The armor sets are a cool concept, but poorly executed with what they do for the set bonuses. For instance, I prefer bows but if you want to be a sneaky assassin with a bow, well, sorry, you're pigeon-holed into using knife/pistol for the build; however, just drop the gloves for the preacher gloves and now you can roll around with a flat 60% increase to all zombie kills and use whatever weapons you want!

4. I feel that multiplayer if you don't plan ahead with your friends...can be a major hindrance. Oh you all want to use the same armor starting out? Good luck. Crafting the sets early game is a pain in the arse. Oh you didn't talk about who is going to learn how to craft armor? Oh well, all 7 people have been reading the Armor Up books, so now as a team, you're behind. You should have one dedicated crafter for armor sets. Multiply this by the large amount of magazines in game linked to all the crafting skills and well, it's a logistical nightmare. Most of the people I know who like this game just want to fire up the game, murder zombies, and quit. They don't want to plan out in this much detail of who is doing what.

5. 7D2D used to have more of a sandbox feel to it but now it's more of a rinse and repeat mechanic with go to trader x, do x quests at tier x, get your dukes and experience, rinse and repeat. Now, you're at Tier 6 and being sent to clear POIs that take way too damn long to clear for the reward (dukes/xp) than if you had done multiple Tier 4 or 5 quests in a much faster timeframe. It's not efficient and that's the reward for getting to tier 6? It really needs adjusted.

6. Food/Farming. Not a fan of the farming changes over time. Now, if you want to get a farm going, you better have the farmer armor set pieces going to help you maintain seeds. I miss the days where the crops just stayed and you harvested them and then they'd grow more. That was when farming didn't need to be micromanaged to get good harvesting returns.

7. Water. I miss just taking glass jars to a water source or cans with snow and tossing them into the campfire with a cooking pot to make clean water. Now? Oh, make a dew collector first and then wait x amount of time to get 3 murky waters (dew collector is capped at 3, or 6 if you get the tarp). I'll be hosting a larger multiplayer playthrough soon and I'm already cringing at how we're all going to attempting to manage water with the dew collectors early game. Prior to the dew collectors, it was already encouraged to sink some points into iron gut just for the reduced water/food consumption.

8. My wife played a brawler (steel knuckles) in Raider armor this time around. It was pretty impressive; however, I feel as a full heavy armor build against zombies, the high occurrence of critical injury, bleeding, and abrasions is ridiculous. No one should be subjected to a playstyle that then becomes highly dependent on carrying half to a full row of buff/medical items just to take on the bulkier radiated zombies. Yes, she had all the relevant skills to accompany this build and is level 60-ish at the time of this writing in 1.0. Also, the amount of infection occurrence this go around is also ridiculous.

TL:DR - Game is a lot grindier than it used to be. The gameplay loop isn't worth doing long-term and with the sandbox feel gone, there isn't much of a reason to keep on playing. You'll hit tier 6 and get disappointed. You still won't have the end-game vehicle (gyrocopter). If the game goes on sale and you can score it for 50% off or something, then sure, $20...it's worth that much but I just don't know anymore after seeing the different mechanics over time and the nerfs that have turned a good game into too much of a grind fest that sucks the joy out of your soul.