7 Days to Die takes place after an unknown war has destroyed most of the world outside a small area in Arizona. In the game you have one main objective--to survive. Players are tasked with finding shelter, food and water. While the main goal is to provide your character with the most basic means of survival, you also have to scavenge for supplies to make weapons to protect yourself.
Over the next few days, you will try to survive as long as you can while fighting off the undead. As time goes on, the zombies get tougher and way more aggressive, making it harder to get the basic necessities to survive.
7 Days to Die is voxel-based allowing for the ability to craft and manipulate objects--much like the mechanics of games like Minecraft. The game features a day and night cycle that balances the difficulty of the zombies and how they act toward you. During the day, zombies are slow and easy to avoid, while at night they seem to get a little more umpf in their step making them hungrier. This mechanic means that you will spend most of your time at night hiding away in your shelter trying to not make noise and attract the attention of the undead. However, no matter if you stick to this method, zombies still find you and try to bust down the door for a late night snack.
Outside of crafting and surviving, there isn't much more to the gameplay in 7 Days to Die. While the overall premise for the game was solid, the final presentation just doesn't quite work out the way it should.
You spend most of the game fending off zombies and wild animals with a cumbersome and annoying combat system. All of the weapons in the game require so many resources to craft that it is almost impossible to get a gun or decent weapon to help you survive. The ability to find the right resources across the vast map is more a chance of luck than skill making the game incredibly frustrating. In the end, you must decide if its worth hours of time to try and craft one weapon or just use your bare hands instead. Obviously, I decided to use my bare hands most of the time and save myself the headache of continuously trying to find the resources for crafting weapons. The weather also impacts your survival requiring you to seek out shelter if you don't have the right clothing for the situation. Yet again, while a smart idea, the mechanic soon becomes annoying because of how quickly the weather can change making you feel like you are constantly equipping and reequipping items.
If single player mode gets a little too "lonely" for your own liking, gamers can join others through the multiplayer world option. However, depending on the server settings, other human interaction can either help or hinder your progress. Think survivors on The Walking Dead, not everyone wants to be your friend and help you succeed, but some would rather take what you have for their own selfish needs and leave you to die.
In the end, 7 Days to Die had some solid concepts that just didn't come together as they should for an enjoyable game experience. The glitches in 7 Days to Die are immense--you literally encounter one every few minutes during gameplay--rather it be things getting stuck in objects or resources you gathered not showing up in your inventory. 7 Days to Die just had too many flaws to be a good game, but has a vast amount of potential to be better, with a few fixes through simple updates. To learn more, visit the official 7 Days to Die website.
Score: 3.5 out of 10
Reviewed for PS4