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This review wouldn't exist if it weren’t for the sheer idiocy of The Fun Pimps’ recent decisions.

7DTD used to be an amazing game. A true survival sandbox. Now? It’s a hollow, dumbed-down RPG mess full of brain-dead mechanics, idiotic design choices, and trash updates.


1. One Trash Update Per Year.
For a game averaging 40k players on Steam, getting ONE update a YEAR is laughable. And when the update finally drops? It’s usually garbage.
It honestly feels like the dev team spends 12 months doing nothing but building new POIs. That’s it. Are you serious?

2. Weapons Still Feel Like Cardboard.
How the hell is combat still this bad after a decade in development? Weapons have zero impact, sound effects are terrible, and the hitboxes are a complete joke.
And scoped weapons? You STILL see the crosshair while aiming down sights—and you can’t even turn it off. Who signed off on this nonsense? The bow has had broken arrow physics for years. YEARS. It's embarrassing at this point.

3. The Skill Tree Is a Joke.
Some skills are useless trash, others are stupidly overpowered. And now, with update 2.0, stealth is completely pointless. Why? Because some genius at Fun Pimps thought it would be smart to spawn zombies out of thin air (oops, “vent shafts”) regardless of what you do.
So even if you stealth-clear an entire POI, a random idiotic trigger will still go off and summon enemies to destroy you. What’s the point of stealth skills, silencers, bows, crossbows? Total clown design.

4. The Book System is Peak Stupidity.
Want to level up a skill? You’d think you could just use it and get better at it, right? Nope.
You have to read a bunch of randomly scattered, idiotic books.
And to even find specific books, you need to level unrelated skills. What kind of dumbass logic is that?
Why can’t I just level the damn skill directly like a normal human being?

5. Survival Mechanics Were Replaced with Smoothie Quests.
This is supposed to be a survival game. Instead, you’ve removed every single survival mechanic and replaced them with idiotic gimmicks.
Now, to survive in biomes, you craft smoothies and get “biome badges.” And once you get a badge? You can run around the freezing cold NAKED and not take any damage. Are you kidding me?
There used to be actual challenge—you had to find proper clothes to survive the cold or desert. Why scrap that?
How about improving it instead? For example, require a gas mask and craftable filters for the wasteland. That’s survival sandbox design. Not this smoothie-spamming nonsense. Same goes for loot. Why lock loot progression behind some arbitrary, forced “biome access” system? Harder biomes already had better loot naturally.
Also: you drink a water jar and the jar just disappears? What kind of dumb mechanic is that? This isn’t Minecraft Alpha 1.0.

6. A Thousand Little Pieces of Trash Design.
You’ll notice the stupidity everywhere:

Biome borders look like garbage.
Why did you remove dynamic weather transitions?
Why does snow instantly vanish when I step one meter out of a biome?
Why can’t I see a storm in the next biome?
Why do bees attack me from tree stumps, but I get no honey?
Why do I take storm damage but zombies and animals don’t give a damn?
Why i can't reload while sitting in inventory?
Why should I wear some stupid gloves to be a good miner?
Everywhere you look: nonsense, idiocy, inconsistency.

7. Fire Your UI Designer. Or Actually Hire One.
Your UI looks like it was made by a drunk intern in 2003. It’s a complete mess—no clarity, no modern standards, no usability. It’s just as garbage as your other outdated systems.

8. Dev Blog Nonsense — Bragging About Reinventing the Wheel
In their dev blogs, the Fun Pimps proudly announce stuff like:
“Wow! We developed a new system that can detect whether the player is indoors!”
Congrats, geniuses. You’ve officially reinvented the wheel. That’s the kind of thing a 5th-grade programming student figures out while learning Unity.
You act like you're building cutting-edge AI, but you’re just catching up to mechanics that other survival games had ten years ago.
It’s both hilarious and depressing to watch you brag about such basic, baby-level tech while your core systems are still broken or completely braindead.

Fun Pimps — you used to make a great game.
Now it feels like you’ve completely lost the plot.
I came here for a creative zombie survival sandbox. Instead, I get a brain-dead grind-fest full of trash mechanics and dumb design decisions.

Hire a real game designer. Fire whoever thought this update direction made sense.

Why are we stuck with yearly updates that destroy core systems and replace them with idiotic ideas that nobody asked for?

Right now, this doesn’t feel like a game made by a studio.
It feels like one burned-out modder clumsily pushing updates once a year. And sadly, that’s about the level of quality we’re getting.

It is abundantly clear; whoever has been in charge of the development management needs to go. They are not interested in this genre of game.

7Days has had as much development time as Rust, and the difference is night and day.

Badges are ridiculous.
Removing survival mechanics like food/water, water collection, wetness, cold, etc.
Changing from a "use skill to develop skill" to a "find books to improve skill" system.
Consistently breaking working things, to replace them with half-baked concepts, to then try to patch in solutions for fixes and changes that were never needed.
Complete refusal to just work on the core fundamentals of what the game is (Sandbox, *SURVIVAL*)

It's all indicative of awful decision making, and if there's ANYONE left at Fun Pimps who actually gives a ♥♥♥♥ about trying to make this game fun after over a DECADE of stagnation, they need to stand up right now and take the lead away from whoever is making these ridiculous decisions.

A list of removed features over the years:
- Food having odor that attracts zombies
- Hot/Cold Weather System
- Adjustable Body Sliders for Character Creation
- Gore Blocks
- Individual Clothing Items (eg, T-Shirts, Jeans, Beanie, Boots instead of "Padded Outfit")
- Refillable Jars of Water
- 5 Upgrade Matieral Types
- Specific Gun Parts (eg, AK-47 Receiver instead of "Weapon Parts"
- Crafting quality over 6
- Behemoth, Cowboy, Football Player, Cheerleader, and more zombie types
- Log Spikes that deal damage
- XP from crafting (which is strange for an open world survival craft game)
- Combining Items to improve their quality
- Learn By Doing (aka "Skyrim Leveling")
- Individual Vehicle Parts
- Tilled Soil
- Fertilizer
- Hoes
- and so much more

So this is more of a love/hate review. I love playing this game, been playing for around 10 years now. Latest 2.0 update has made the game look absolutely beautiful in comparison to when it first came out. I love how they have made the buildings into puzzles that you can try to figure out by following the path or you could just be a savage and break every wall or door down. New vehicles and vehicle mods have made the game easier to explore and scout.

Negatives of this game with later updates......The devs seem to spend more time combating the players and taking good things of the game out. Jars removed do to its "to easy to get water", dew collectors that look like rain collectors that dont collect rain, to lets make it to where you cant openly explore the map, you have to follow the path of biomes we tell you. Elements to the game no longer matter, you cant get cold in the winter, cant get hot in the desert(taken another survival aspect out of a survival game). They keep going the path they are going they will wind up like Ark where they are pushing crappy DLC to try to stay afloat and destroy a amazing game. I recommend playing/buying this game, but dont pay full price wait for it to be on sale, they dont deserve to paid the full price.

I have been playing since alpha 16 and the problem with 7 Days To Die is that the game devs keep making changes to the game that punish you for playing a certain ways. They have also removed several game mechanics that people really loved over the years. They then keep insisting that they "support many different playstyles". Stop pissing on me an insisting it's just raining guys.

Stop dumbing down this game for new players. It doesn’t even remotely resemble the game it used to be.

The Tragedy of 7 Days to Die – A Survival Game That Lost Its Soul
There was a time when 7 Days to Die stood as a titan in the survival sandbox genre. It was messy, clunky, and deeply flawed—but it was also immersive, innovative, and genuinely rewarding. I’ve played over 2,000 hours, all of them in earlier Alpha builds, because back then, the game felt alive. Player agency mattered. Creativity mattered. You could build, survive, and adapt in ways that felt organic and earned. Today, 7 Days to Die is a hollowed-out shell of what it could’ve been. The systems are shallow, the gameplay loop is padded, and the development has drifted from player-first to profit-first. With years of broken promises, stripped features, and a development cycle that resembles a toxic hamster wheel, I can no longer recommend this game in good faith.

The Death of Realism and Immersion
Many survival systems have been either gutted or replaced with shallow mechanics. Take water, for instance. This is a survival game, yet you can no longer collect water from lakes or rivers. Instead, you’re stuck hunting for prefilled jars in loot containers or buying them from traders. Cooking has suffered a similar fate—what used to be a meaningful process of progression has become a checklist of arbitrary unlocks. And farming? Once you could till the ground with a hoe and plant where you wanted. Now you’re forced to craft standardized farm plots, destroying immersion and visual creativity. Fertilizer crafting—once a rewarding loop tied to farming—was also removed.

The heat mechanic is another forgotten gem. At one time, your fire, light, and noise attracted zombies. Your actions had consequences. Now, zombies just appear in waves, disconnected from your presence or impact on the world. Smell and scent mechanics, like raw meat attracting the horde, are also gone, removing another layer of tension and planning.

Then there's the once-promising building system. Concrete construction used to require rebar frames, wet cement, and time to cure. You could plan ahead, laying rebar as your base foundation days before fortifying. The rebar system was flexible and satisfying—especially when combined with the now-defunct direct upgrade path, which let you reinforce your base piece by piece. Today, building feels modular and disposable. There's little depth, just prefab blocks that resemble construction without any of the process or strategy.

Goreblocks, Gun Parts, and Guns That Meant Something
At one point, 7 Days to Die actually simulated corpses turning into gore blocks. They’d pile up during battles, creating makeshift bridges for zombies to path across spike pits and block doorways. It was messy, chaotic, and glorious. But it felt real. That system was removed in favor of brightly colored cartoonish backpacks that vanish after looting (often before looting), robbing the world of physical consequence and visual feedback.

Weapon crafting has also taken a hit. Gone are the days of finding gun parts—barrels, stocks, receivers—and carefully assembling them into a usable firearm. Now, guns are a single item, found complete or not at all. It’s generic and kills the excitement of building your arsenal piece by piece. The old system made you feel like a scavenger; now you’re just another loot goblin grinding for higher tiers.

Even gun quality has been flattened. The original 600-tier quality system meant your tools and weapons gradually improved over time. Every slight bump in quality felt earned. Now it’s all about finding a Tier 5 to replace your Tier 4. There’s no attachment or personal investment in your gear—it’s just trash or treasure.

A Decade of Broken Promises
Then there’s the bandits. For over ten years, the developers have promised NPC factions, AI enemies, and a dynamic world. At this point, “bandits coming soon” is basically an inside joke among the community. Instead, we’ve been given texture overhauls, UI tweaks, and an endless parade of "reworks" that break mod compatibility and add little value.

In their recent "Town Hall," the developers implied that criticism from the community is part of why development has stalled. That’s not just deflective—it’s insulting. This game has been carried on the backs of its players and modders for years, while the official roadmap gets narrower and less ambitious with every update. Modders have even created a barebones but working NPC system years ago.

From Sandbox to Scripted Corridor
One of the most painful losses is the soul of exploration. In earlier versions, points of interest (POIs) were raw and untamed. There was no “correct” way to enter a building—you kicked in the door, climbed through a hole, or smashed a wall. Zombies were scattered organically, sometimes clustered around corpses or wandering outside. Now? Nearly every POI feels like a forced “dungeon crawl.” You're funneled down a designer-approved route, ambushed by zombies placed in closets or behind false walls, triggered by invisible cues that wake them up regardless of stealth. There’s always a final room packed with loot, reducing every POI to the same formula: enter, follow the path, fight the jump-scare zombies, grab the chest. It also makes the Sneak and Assassin paths completely useless for POI exploration

That sense of unpredictability—the joy of finding a lone gun safe in a suburban house and feeling like you hit the jackpot—is gone. Everything now feels gamified and over-designed.

Dumbing Down Skill and Progression Systems
Skill books were once part of a deep progression system—read five, ten, even twenty of the same type to master a craft. It took effort, time, and exploration. Now you read a single book and unlock the full perk. It’s sterile and uninspired.

More tragically, the game abandoned “learn by doing,” one of its most iconic features. You used to get better at crafting, running, looting, and fighting simply by doing those things. Now, your growth is locked behind XP bars and perk menus. Instead of becoming a survivor through play, you’re just another RPG stat sheet with grindy prerequisites.

And where is wellness? That was one of the most immersive and rewarding systems in the game. Making better food improved your health and stamina caps, encouraging you to farm, cook, and scavenge with purpose. It gave weight to your diet and playstyle. Now it’s just... gone.

Even the World Isn’t What It Used to Be
The environment has suffered, too. Clay patches—once something you hunted for in the wild—are gone, replaced by homogenous terrain. Boulders used to yield tons of resources and looked like actual rocks; now they’re sterile props. We had multiple forest types, plains biomes, and dynamic weather that included snow in temperate zones. The world felt like a place. Now it feels like an asset showcase.

Zombies themselves have become less... zombie-like. They used to shamble straight toward you, dumb and relentless. Now they navigate like parkour champions, pathing around traps, digging through solid stone, and homing in on your exact location at all times. They don't fall into pits as easily, rarely stumble over terrain, and often feel more like precision-guided missiles than shambling horrors. Their behavior during Horde Night is especially ridiculous—zombies instantly know where you are, even if you're stealthed underground, and their “intelligence” undermines the very idea of a zombie apocalypse.

Modders Did It Better
Let’s be clear: the modding community has carried this game for years. Darkness Falls, War of the Walkers, Undead Legacy—these mods added back much of what the Fun Pimps removed. They restored challenge, depth, and replayability. In many cases, they added features fans begged the devs for, only to be ignored. Without mods, 7 Days to Die would have burned out long ago.

Instead of building on that community strength, the developers have seemingly done everything in their power to make modding harder. The list goes on but I'm afraid I' out of space!

This game suffers from the "bethesda treatment" despite not being a bethesda game.

Said treatment being... the modding community does a much better job making this game feel great, than their own devs with patches. If it weren't for the modding community, the game by itself would be... mediocre or "alright". Like a 6 or 7 at best. Mods make it a 8 or 9.

These guys hit me with a copystrike on Twitch for using a mod that all developers knew about for over 4 years.

Don't support these clowns.