I don’t know what the longest-running early access game in history is (Project Zomboid, perhaps?), but I do know that zombie survival game 7 Days To Die is definitely up there. We first reported that it came out in the dark ages of 2013. For context, that was the year Grand Theft Auto V came out. Whoa! Okay, calm down, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Yes, the arrow of time is untouchable. We’re all marching steadily toward our graves, I know. But at least now 7 Days To Die has finally released its fully-baked 1.0 version.
Version 1.0 is out today and brings “more improvements, polish, quality of life improvements, new content, new features, and new game systems than ever before,” developers The Fun Pimps say. Those people must be exhausted.
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Their summary also understates this a bit. The full patch notes are great. World generation has been beefed up, made faster, and theoretically more interesting worlds have been created. There are a bunch of new “points of interest” that will now appear, including new theaters, high schools, and hotels. There are new zombie varieties (although I think this is mostly cosmetic, like a new nurse zombie type and a “bowling alley” zombie). There are new animal and vehicle models, the lighting has been overhauled, a “new and improved Dismemberment Blood System” will make things bloody in some new ways, and there are now various “challenges” that act as tutorials for new players (replacing an old mission system). There's a bunch more stuff I can't get you into, or it'll add another decade to the clock.
Despite all this, the developers say they're not done working on the game. A roadmap for future updates includes a weather system, an overhaul of merchants, new bandits, and hints of a story mode. They say all of this will take them until the end of 2025.
I last played the horde-busting starvation sim a decade ago, after it first burst onto the scene. Back then, I enjoyed the lone log cabin defenses and the simple nighttime defenses of my new home (then getting completely destroyed by a much larger horde). I'll dive back in to let you know how it holds up after all this time. It's possible that a decade of lighthearted survival games has dulled my appreciation for the genre. But I do enjoy digging holes for zombies to fall into. Check back next week for my more detailed thoughts.