You're a long time undead. 7 Days To Die was shuffling along in early access for 11 years, until version 1.0 finally burst through the windows. In that time, many other survival games have sprouted, blossomed, and gently faded away. I first visited the burnt-out ruins of this zombie-infested world a decade ago and I returned to it this week to find a tree-puncher that, despite bearing the pockmarks of early access, retains much of what made it enjoyable back when the survival genre was still wearing its baby onesie. Instead of a review, I figured I'd scribble together a mini starter guide for new (or returning) players. Partly because the game is a proper time sink and it was taking me so long to get through everything. But mostly because I wanted to use that numberful headline. So, here you go: 7 dos and 7 don'ts in 7 Days To (7) Die.
]]>I don't know what the longest-running early access game in history has been (perhaps Project Zomboid?) but I know that zombie survival game 7 Days To Die is definitely up there. We first reported its appearance back in the dark ages of 2013. For context, that was the year Grand Theft Auto V came out. Whoa! Okay, calm down, sorry, I didn't mean to panic you. Yes, the arrow of time is inviolable. We are all marching steadily towards our graves, I know. But at least now 7 Days To Die has finally released its fully baked version 1.0.
]]>Ten years ago, we were drowning in early access survival games about chopping trees and crafting camp fires. Rust pit monstrous players against one another, DayZ had us dashing around for beans and bleach, while The Forest creeped us the hell out in a dark jungle. There was even a week-long celebration here at RPS called survival week to get the genre out of our systems. A lot of those games have since graduated to a full 1.0 release, but one survivalist shambled on. 7 Days To Die is a solid sandbox craft 'em up with zombie hordes, and it never left the comfort of its early access log cabin surrounded by spikes and land mines. But a (tentative) release date is finally on the horizon, according to the developers. And it's quite soon.
]]>Hot (weeks) off the back of Sons Of The Forest and the Resident Evil 4 remake coming out, we're celebrating your bestest best, most favourite survival games this month. Your votes have been counted and tallied, and your accompanying words of praise and affection matched accordingly. But which game has survived to make it to the top of the pile? Come and find out as we count down your 25 favourite survival games of all time.
]]>I’ve mentioned before that I’m into survival games with a goal past staying alive, because if surviving is the only goal, what’s the point in living at all (he says, with a firm glare at the Tory party)? Grounded has its main quest and Minecraft has the Ender Dragon, for example, which gives you something to work towards past simply keeping your heart beating. 7 Days to Die is the biggest counterpoint to that, with its routine weekly horde attacks delivering moreish gameplay that keeps me playing way past my bedtime.
]]>There's never been a better time to get into survival games on PC, as the recent revival of the genre means Steam is now awash in some truly great games, both in early access and in full release. There are more arriving every year, too, which is why we've done the hard work for you and ranked the very best survival games to dive into today. Fair warning - there are some early access games on this list, which mean they might be a little janky early on. Give them the time they deserve, though, and you'll find they often blossom into some truly great games over subsequent updates. We've only included the very best and most complete-feeling survival games on this list, though, so you can rest assured that every game here will leave you hungry for more. It's by no means exhaustive, but it should give you a nice selection of wolf-taming, base-building, carrot-picking action to choose from.
]]>I was homeless when I discovered Minecraft -- not homeless in the street-sleeping sense, thankfully. Only in the sofa-surfing sense. I had a bed, even. The creaking cabin bed of two friends who took pity on me and let me crash for a few months in their house, while I sullied my fingertips with sambuca in a dank Yorkshire nightclub for part-time pound coins. My chin-scratching uni days had just ended, but I stubbornly refused to go back to my family house in Northern Ireland. I could do this, I reasoned, I just needed time.
Then my friend showed me how to punch a tree, and I found a new home.
]]>The Humble Monthly continues to impress - today's $12 subscription bundle deal is massive souls-inspired Metroidvania Hollow Knight, murder-sim Hitman and zombie survival sandbox 7 Days To Die. While the third of those doesn't quite fit, the first two are among the best in their genres, though Hitman is arguably a genre unto itself.
That's not even mentioning the other handful of games to be unveiled at the end of the month. Plus, the upcoming Hitman 2 (due November 13th) will integrate with the original game, letting you take on old missions with new gear. Below, some trailers for the current trio of games, and some thoughts on each.
]]>Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games. But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol' breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.
Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.
]]>Framed for murder, now they prowl the badlands, an outlaw hunting outlaws, a bounty hunter, a renegade, it's only the weekly Steam charts! These are the ten games which sold best on Steam last week.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
This is one of those survival games that gnawed away at the top seller list in Steam for ages. For a long time, I couldn’t understand it. I watched the videos and scoffed at the raggedy character models, the basic textures, the lumpy landscapes. Another Minecraft clone. Then I was conscripted to actually write about the thing. I soon ended up knee deep in zombies, swinging a bat at their heads, running low on ammo, before eventually escaping from my homely cabin (now in ruins) down the snowy roads. What do you know, I thought, it’s good.
]]>I am wandering down an empty road in a snowy, forested landscape and rustling through every pile of rubbish I see discarded in the gutter. Behind me, in the distance, I can still hear the groans. When I started playing 7 Days To Die, I was sceptical. The crudeness of the graphics and the presentation in the trailer suggest some kind of rough hewn Minecraft clone, a bargain bucket DayZ. But one (in-game) week into this blocky zombie apocalypse and I am thoroughly enjoying myself, finding the game still has lots to offer. Years of videogames should have taught me by now that visual quality means nothing when it comes to how the thing actually plays. As the old saying goes: “You should never judge a procedurally-generated doomsday scenario with extensive crafting mechanics by its cover.”
]]>In early 2012, a mod for Arma II called DayZ was released. Two-and-a-half years later, its odd mixture of multiplayer, horror, and a need for players to keep themselves fed and watered, has given rise to the survival genre.
Let's celebrate that genre.
]]>7 Days to Die is what could be simply described as a cross-breeding of Minecraft and DayZ. Combining the harsh pseudo-reality of the latter with the voxel based destruction and exploration of the former, their success made its existence inevitable. Powering onto Early Access after well over doubling its target on Kickstarter, it's obvious from a few moments of play that it's still in the earliest stages of development. There's messy bugs, crappy animation and confused mechanics aplenty - but also potential and, based on the regular patching from creators "The Fun Pimps," a willingness to adapt, develop and listen. Have a read of where I stand after a few hours.
]]>The Steam Greenlight machine keeps right on churning, and I have to say: it's getting a little more efficient. Initially, batches of new games were wheezing out in sickly trickles, but now we're getting 15-game shotgun bursts every couple weeks. There's still plenty of room for improvement of course, and it remains to be seen whether or not Valve can keep pushing this pace, but it's good to at least see some baby steps in the right direction. With that said, let's dive into this week's selection. Standouts include Syndicate spiritual successor Satellite Reign, the ever-popular (and hilarious) Viscera Cleanup Detail, open-world zombie sandbox 7 Days To Die, extremely ambitious god game Maia, and quiet, thoughtful ghost romp The Novelist.
]]>Jim has mentioned before that he's mightily impressed by the sheer scope of this giant zombie 'open world, voxel-based, sandbox game blending the best elements of FPS, Survival Horror, Tower Defense and Role Playing Games', though it's probably that scope that has pushed it onto Kickstarter. 7 Days To Die is such a massive game - in the new video they have made they discuss how each material in the game has a different structural integrity. All food and items in the game have a purity level... The detail is astounding. It even has something called a 'Stealth and Distraction System'. Have a look after the jump to see just how much stuff they are planning to jam into this crimsonhead shambler.
]]>It's hard not to be impressed by the grisly ambition of 7 Days To Die. It's a voxel-based, open-world take on the ol' zombie survive 'em up, and they're trying to do almost everything you can think of within that space. That list people make regarding "would it be cool if..." for zombie games? That's this game. Granted it's still at an early stage, so it's hard to see how much those rough edges are going to be smoothed off, but go take a look, this could be significant.
]]>Minecraft with zombies is, well, Minecraft, but it's also pretty much what 7 Days To Die could be described as. It's a take on the zombie survival theme that also attempts to deliver a world that is as malleable as Minecraft's blocky elysium. You can dig, destroy, build, barricade, and all that good stuff, as well as doing the shotgun business against the hideous undead. It's Minecraft and DayZ being entwined after some horrible accident in the laboratory of zombie genre-blending. The developers sum it up, as so many games seem to have been summed up lately, by saying: "is an open world, voxel-based, sandbox game blending the best elements of FPS, Survival Horror, RPG and Tower Defense style games."
Don't take my baseless hum of cynicism as a reason not to take a look at the trailer, however, because 7 Days To Die looks genuinely impressive, and I can't see this not making a huge impact when it arrives.
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