7 Days to Die
Telltale Games, The Fun Pimps
PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Mac
Reviewed by Brian M. Sammons
It’s Minecraft with zombies.
Yes, I know Minecraft already has zombies and zombie-like monsters in it, but this is different. This is serious.
And the graphics are better. No, not much better, but they are better. Mostly.
At its core, 7 Days to Die is a Minecraft clone with a stronger emphasis on survival than just crafting and building things. Yes, you do that here, too. In fact, that’s the majority of the game. Each new game is randomly generated, so you never know where you’re going to start off and what will you have around you. You also start off naked, so you punch some trees to get wood, punch some rocks to get stone, and punch some grass (yes, really) to get “plant fibers.” You then take all that and make a crude stone axe that allows you to punch trees, rocks, and grass even better. Then you punch some more grass to make some rough clothes. Then you punch a few more trees and rocks, and raid some nests on the ground (yep, they couldn’t even be bothered to put them in trees in this game) for feathers, and then you make a bow and some arrows. Then you have to fortify, board up, and bobby trap your house like it’s Home Alone, because while your game starts off in the daytime, the clock is always running. You’ll see the occasional zombie wandering around while the sun is up, but once night falls, you can prepare for the horde to find you. So in essence you spend all day gathering resources and building things, and all night fighting waves of zombies, and if you survive the night, you get the joy of doing it all over again.
Look, I’m being a little bit snarky, but only a little bit. That is all there is to this game. The combat is on the clunky side, the graphics are not quite 8 bit-looking (I’d be surprised if they were 16-bit), and the gameplay gets repetitive, fast. There is some fun to be had here, especially if you are a Minecraft fan, but 7 Days to Die is nowhere near a deep as that runaway blockbuster of a building game, so even fans of that will probably get bored of this one fast. You can get it brand new for around half the price of another game, but honestly I don’t know if it’s even worth that. So sadly, I cannot recommend this anemic experience. Pass on it.
