So, while the Posse is fidgeting and waiting for Stormblood to drop, 7D2D released Alpha 16 last weekend… just in time to give us a little taste of it before FFXIV whisks us away. This update upped the stakes and increased the difficulty of the game, which was something we could tell instantly (even though we play on lower settings).
I say this as a positive thing. A16 keeps you on your toes, even if you’ve been playing the game for years, like we have. Sleeper zombies are a new thing — they lay there until you get close and just wake up out of nowhere. You can put them down if you sneak up on them before they wake, but man, do these things make exploring new locations a startle-fest.
Also, new wildlife, such as wolves and buzzards are in. Wolves (and dire wolves) are almost everywhere, and attack much the same as the zombie dogs used to. At first, I thought this would be annoying, but then, when I realized you could harvest them for meat, fat and hide, they’ve become more of a good thing. Instead of running after pigs and deer, you can let dinner come to you!
It looks like the old roaming zombie hoards are back. I missed hearing the frightening sounds of running zombies at night. And these hordes are pretty sizable, giving a good challenge no matter the time of day.
Despite all these things, we were able to reinforce a starting location in time for the first blood moon. The 7 day hordes are now adjustable in size — we left ours at 8 zombies (per person, I believe), but you can make them bigger. With five of us playing, we had quite a lot of zombies rushing our base.
We found a few bugs (zombies and wolves running in circles but hardly doing damage, short weapon range, falling through the world, way too many screamers), and a few changes… but overall, we had a good time with the new build. I’m looking forward to exploring the new painting tools and making our base look faaaabulous!
But, first… who’s going to clean this all up??
Is 7D2D a persistent world game, sandboxy? I miss playing zombie games but also don’t want anything too incredibly formulaic, and one that can last a while =)
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It’s a survival sandbox game, but one of the better ones I’ve played. You can play solo, you can host a game for friends to join via Steam (that’s what we do), or you can join player-hosted servers from the in-game server list. While there is PvP in the game, server hosts can choose to turn it off, so you’ll often find PvE games on the server list, too.
You eventually do figure out a good pattern for what you need to do to survive the first 7 days (we’ve started this game over and over and over and over for years, every time they drop a big patch). It has a random gen map option, and I’ve never played any two games that were alike due to that. It’s always been fun, always been different, and the changes the devs make have always made the game feel fresh.
You can change your settings when creating a map and have a lot of control over how the game feels. Difficulty ramps up ever 7 days as the hordes get bigger with more dangerous types of zombies. There are MANY types of zombies, and each is a little different. You start to learn the sound of “Oh, crap, Lumberjacker” vs. “Oh, that’s just a nurse” and “Dang screamers!”
Given all that, development is VERY slow. It’s still in Alpha, and we’ve been playing it since A6, which dropped maybe 3 years back (?). I’d really liken their “alpha” to “beta,” though, because while there are funky things and bugs, the game is pretty solid overall.
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