It has been a while since I've played 7 Days to Die. It should be of no shock that they have since continued bringing updates to the game. Things have changed to the point that how I used to play has been completely changed.

Usually, when I play 7 Days to Die, there are certain things I rush to acquire. I usually like to go out to the desert and claim the junk yard, and make it my own base. Along with getting the forge and the mini-bike up and going. Certain changes over the years have created barriers to trying to speed rush to those stages of the game.

The first process was just creating a character. While they had some predefined setups of how they look. You can make your own. I don’t quite recall the level of detail this had back when I was playing it. It did feel a bit more option-rich.

Next up was changing some settings for the game itself. That is when it became quite clear that some big changes were made. There is now a biome progression and storm frequency option. This would play a huge factor in how quickly or not I can advance through the game.

Once finally in the game. I noticed there are a lot more challenges and other things you can get experience from doing. This includes the old basics of placing down a claim block and doing some basic crafting. It now has a lot more challenges, from getting a certain number of kills, doing so many quests from traders, and even mining a certain number of resources before you can get the challenge reward.

There is also now a biome challenge page. You earn a badge that removes the effects of going into the different biomes. Making it possible for you to live in them. Otherwise, your time spent there is so limited that you can’t get much done. Causing quite a slowing of progression since the highest quality of loot is also locked away in the hard biomes of the game.

The other thing slowing down my progression will be needing to unlock enough progression in different kinds of skills from looting magazines. You no longer just need to get enough skill points into a certain skill. You must find the magazines to do so.

Between not being able to last very long in higher bio areas right away for better loot. Along with getting a reduced amount of magazine drops, even when I find critical places to find them, since I'm now in quite low loot areas. This really slowed down how fast you can progress.

I also could kind of tell from how it looked. Going into a place like the Book Barn was not going to yield a lot of magazines. There seems to have been quite a lot more building types and different points of interest added to the game since I last played a while ago. This added a lot of new feeling, fun to return to 7 Days To Die.

I decided early on to head right towards the Trader and start getting some missions underway. They would lead me to points of interest to run the missions. So, I could at least start getting some loot. Even though the loot was going to be quite low quality.

Since I could not find a decent place to call home. As a lot of the nearby buildings were quite small and more cramped. I ended up just setting up a small base to hold some storage containers. I wanted at least a place to dump loot for the time being. This place was by no means meant to be a spot I stayed long-term. I just needed a place to get some stuff done at night, such as crafting. Along with enough room to store things.

After doing a decent amount of exploring around the forest. Along with running some missions. I had a supply crate to go after. It ended up landing in the snow biome, giving me my first taste of just how different things were going to be playing this time around compared to years ago.

It was no longer about having warm clothing on. Although I'd suspect that might help a little bit. As the second I stepped in there, I had a limited amount of time before I'd start taking one health per tick damage. While I could out-heal that damage. This early on, that is quite an expensive thing to do.

All biomes I'd later enter beyond just the forest would have the same thing. I’d be taking different kinds of damage. On top of that, they can have storms as well. Having to deal with a storm, it was not heavily damaged at first. It was enough to push my ability to manage any situation I'd find myself in into a losing position.

The storm is quite interesting looking when you find yourself trapped in one. I ended up getting killed since I needed to do some kiting outdoors, and that did not go according to plan. While I would have loved to have taken shelter. It had to deal with it raining fire on me instead of a corpse run.

To be able to survive in any of the biomes beyond the forest. You needed to earn the badge for each one. This involved for the burnt forest going into it and surviving for so many minutes. Along with farming mushrooms and sulfur. There was even a certain amount of burnt zombie kills I needed.

While you can craft a smoothie for each area, that is supposed to allow you to survive in these areas longer. By the time you have the ingredients, you will have finished the challenges. As one of them is even making the smoothie itself. Making it a bit pointless.

All biomes outside of the forest also have the same pattern of challenges before the new negative effects they each have get removed. I was hoping they would be a little different, other than the same type of challenge, just a different item being needed.

After a while, I ended up building up my little base beyond what I was hoping to. It became apparent that it was going to take a while before I could even earn the badge for the biome I wanted to be in. Let alone could take out zombies and survive in it.

It seems there were quite a few graphical enhancements over the break I took from the game. They do look decent and make the game feel less aged. As this thing was in early access for a long time.

There are also quite a few small things that I miss from the game. Water is not at all how I want to go about collecting it, from either having to build a device to collect dirty water or having a mod in my helmet so I could drink from a river safely.

The removal of glass jars. Along with being able to craft them is a bit disappointing. I used to like getting to a certain point in my gameplay where I could craft up 500 waters and just not worry about it. Now I'd need to have a few collections set up and hope for some decent rain in the area I'm in.

There at some new zombie types as well. I always ran away from them if given the chance, before I could even get a screenshot of any of them in most cases. They are quite brutal and add more challenge to the game itself.

Final Thoughts

I’d say I'm a bit on the fence regarding the changes made to how you can progress now compared to the way back in the day. It has, at the very least, slowed down the game a lot and makes it feel more challenging. Also makes it feel a lot less like you have a permanent place to live since you need to relocate to keep advancing, unless you want way too long of trips back. You really do need to be close to the higher-tier biomes now to get the best loot.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about 7 Days to Die.