7D2D: The Posse Returns for 1.0
Posted on August 102024 by Aywren
The Posse has been playing 7D2D since we picked it up during a Steam sale back in 2014. While the last couple years have been quiet for us, we got the band back together for the 1.0 release.
I just want to note that this is the game that has my most-played hours by far (1,134 hours) on Steam, and we’ve just added a bunch more to it the past week. No regrets here as we always have a great time!
Big Changes in 1.0
There are a number of big and little changes that have certainly altered the game flow for us old-time players this time around. These include:
- Some skills and crafting recipes are unlocked completely through finding/reading books
- Questing from the trader takes on a very prominent role of progression – even leading to other traders and biomes
- Overhaul of player character appearance – fewer choices but looks much better
- Specialized gear sets that have bonuses and aesthetic looks
- Slower and more meaningful leveling progression
Of course, the world itself has been updated with more dangerous and explorable points of interest. Each of these now have a difficulty rating that you can see when you enter them, giving you an idea of what you’re in for if you attempt to clear it.
Adventures in 1.0
As a group, the Posse was able to clear out a three skull rating police office, which we’ve adopted as home base from day 1. It was somewhat tough to clear, but nowhere near as challenging as the five skull military base we attempted later!
Starting out is always a little rocky until you get a solid food source going. This is especially so since books are the main way of unlocking new crafting recipes, including more advanced foods. Sometimes in the beginning we were living off of rewards provided by the trader quests – and Rekt isn’t the kind of guy you want to be visiting when you don’t need to.
Once you have a few people who can cook well enough, though, you can focus on other areas of progression. And there’s lots to do. Though levels are hard-earned, and you do “lose” experience when you die, you get at least one skill point each time you level up. Like in previous versions of the game, you use this to fill out your skill trees in whatever way you like.
While you’re not locked into skill trees, it is easier to focus in one primarily, while poking around at skills from a couple others along the way. I tend to be a brawler with a machine gun, but this also plays into fortitude skills like farming, surviving the elements, and being overall more survivable.
Yes, I chose the “preacher outfit” mostly because I like the bonuses against killing undead – which is what I mostly do anyhow. I didn’t know it’d also give me a sorta witch hunter look, but that’s cool, too.
My sister, on the other hand, likes to spice things up with looting cool things, so she’s gone the scavenger direction. Her gear looks awesome, too!
Since things are so different in this version of the game, my typical “build a base and then build a battle fort” approach is slightly tweaked this time around. In fact, I didn’t actually go heads-down building until after our second blood moon (which didn’t go so well for us due to my miscalculation in the structural integrity of existing POI walls).
For our third blood moon, I took an entire storage building and converted in into a giant zombie box. This worked quite well in that we could round them up inside and shoot down upon them. Of course, the building took some damage in the process…
But nothing I can’t fix for the next go around!
I’m sure there’s still a bunch of things we haven’t experienced yet – we only have pedal bikes at this point and we’re a long way off from any other vehicles. So even though we’ve played this game for ten years now, there’s plenty to look forward to and explore in this release!