Review — 7 Days To Die

7 Days To Die

We sit down and review 7 Days To Die. The classic survival/crafting game has been brought out for the current gen systems Here’s our review of 7 Days To Die

Almost three years ago we saw 7 Days To Die pop up for Early Access on Steam and people began to get excited for this new open world that The Fun Pimps Were crafting for us. Fast forward those three years and Telltale Publishing brought the game to life on the PS4 and Xbox One for even more players to enjoy. Now the game has been out for a little bit and we’ve had the chance to dive in and give 7 Days To Die a try to see if it is worth your time or just another title to fall off the map. Here is our review of the PS4 version of the game for you to enjoy.

Story

The third world war has happened and it looks like you survived it even though whatever ended the war left it covered in the walking dead. Somehow you ended up in Navezgane, Arizona after said war and now you are out to do one thing; Survive. You must wander the war-torn world and do just that but for reasons still unknown you have nothing and need to start from the ground up. That and build a shelter that can help you survive those seven days listed in the title.

Hated

When it comes to video games there is a right way to do the “no hand holding” thing and there is a wrong way. 7 Days To Die went down the wrong way as after spending many hours giving the game a fair go I still could not move past the “craft a weapon” mission that you start with. There was no indication on where to find anything and you couldn’t even use the items that you came across in the game’s world that should work. I’m still trying to understand how tree branches and planks of wood don’t count as wood to make a make-shift ax with. Let alone find the “mythical” rock to also craft it in the middle of a desert filled with rocks.

7 Days To Die is about the isolation and the survival needs of that but having absolutely no ques to work off or even basic ability to craft with what you have in front of you makes no sense at all. Even when you can stumble upon a location that is filled with items that could be picked up and used as a weapon or anything, the option was not there. I did however learn that you can carry almost an endless number of flowers and plants that do nothing when the end of the world happens here. Again, a bit of “hand holding” would have been nice to get us rolling and then set us loose on the world.

It also felt like there was no reason to do anything but keep running in 7 Days To Die as the basic combat offered did nothing but lead to your death. That and even when you could find buildings to “hide” in they were quickly destroyed by the zombies just brushing up against it. What good is a solid brick wall in zompocalypse if the zombies could just shamble by them and you were forced to sit there and watch as the horde collected and you just had to wait for death. I’m sure this is not how 7 Days To Die was intended to be played but that is all I could do and find in the game.

Loved

If there is something I have to love here for 7 Days To Die it has to be the ambition of The Fun Pimps even if it did fall flat. I could see the great potential in the game and understand what the developers were going for but I think they all needed more time to perfect. I’m not even upset with the graphics being something state of the art from 2006 but if you dug in and spent many hours dying like I did then you can see what they wanted 7 Days To Die to become but a few poor choices took it down the wrong path.

Overview

I’m sorry to say that you should honestly stay away from 7 Days To Die. That is unless you want to play a Minecraft-like title that punishes you worse than I’ve ever heard Dark Souls ever did. I was hopefully for the game given the publisher and it’s many successes over the years but 7 Days To Die looks and plays like a high school project done the night before it was due. You can see the ambition here but sadly it never panned out due to whatever reasons the developer had to offer up.

I give 7 Days To Die 7 Zombies on the Zombie scale.

7 Days To Die was developed by The Fun Pimps and published by Telltale Publishing for the PS4, Xbox One, Windows, Mac, and Linux on June 28^th, 2016. A PS4 copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.