The developers haven’t really put a whole lot of effort into giving 7 Days To Die a storyline but what’s here does a fine enough job of painting a picture of the world the game takes place in. As such, there’s not a lot to propel players along a path like other games but we’d argue there’s really no point in doing so. Still, a small personal storyline of the survivor you play as couldn’t have hurt to introduce players to the mechanics. But what’s here is here and it is what it is. The developers have apparently hinted that they may include a story mode in the future but for now, this is all we’ve got. A setting and a concept.
The locales you’ll mindlessly plod through are plain and drab, feeling empty. Which is confusing because for a game where so little is going on the performance is dreadfully poor. To make matters even worse, the world is covered in a way that obscures distant views.
The soundtrack, on the other hand, is pretty passable. Fans of the zombie genre will instantly recognize the attempts to create a somber atmosphere ala The Last of Us or even the edgier more rock inspired elements of John Murphy’s 28 Weeks Later original score. And it works. It’s a world devoid of all hope and aspirations and it’s a soundtrack that similarly invokes such a feel. It’s just a dying shame that beyond this middling, derivate soundtrack is an even worse looking game.
When you’re not fighting off zombies you’ll have to keep an eye and micro manage yourself too. Your stamina bar depletes but you’ll also need to keep yourself free of disease and illness. This is the crux of where the challenge of 7 Days To Die comes from for me, and the game is rather hard on the player if you mess it up. Think ahead, though, and bring all the right equipment and supplies with you, and you’ll be able to survive longer than most. Players who enjoyed managing their items and ammunition in games like the original Resident Evil and Silent Hill will enjoy and be able to easily grasp these concepts from the bat. Other less experience gamers may have to adjust their method of play.
I’ve heard the notion of the game being called “Minecraft with Zombies”, and honestly such an assessment isn’t too outrageous. During the day I found myself bashing every item in the world just to get resources, so I could build things, and then create greater resources. It’s open, it’s kind of monotonous but the appeal of its freedom, building and exploration is what pulls people in. Sound familiar?
It’s during combat that we also encountered the most of the game’s many glitches and errors. Sometimes we didn’t even know if we were actually hurting a zombie or if we were harvesting pieces from it as there’s no visual cues to indicate how damaged they are or how we were doing. Sometimes zombies would continue to stare at us with a vacant gaze, twitching, as if we had to do something to finish them off. Turns out the game just forgot to realise they were dead. These were just the tip of the iceberg for the glitches we encountered – including but not limited to flying animals (we’re sure it wasn’t intentional) and stuck enemies.
There are some multiplayer options on offer here and they’re probably the best part about 7 Days To Die. Either online or splitscreen, you and another player can join a map and work together to build up a base and eventually defend yourselves from an incoming zombie horde. While the mechanics are still rather unpolished, this experience of playing with and making fun of the game with a friend is enjoyable like doing the same with a bad movie like Catwoman is enjoyable. It’s almost so bad it’s good. You can also jump online into matches with other people, but we rarely had an instance where somebody wanted to help, instead killing us and taking all our belongings instead.
Should Telltale have released a game in such a poor state? Probably not. And it’s questionable why they would allow something of such a low quality tarnish their otherwise strong pedigree. But it’s hard to recommend 7 Days To Die to anybody unless you’ve got somebody to bring along with you and laugh along with it. After all, they do say that misery loves company.
The PS4 version was primarily tested for the purpose of this review.
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think yr reviews r good normally & understand its someones opinion but this is extremely unfair imo. game is still in alpha!
Not on console it is not, it is being sold with no such disclaimer and in retail stores.