Korbin5120
Refugee
Obligatory “I've been playing since the early Alphas and have over 4,000 hours on PC.” This game used to be my go-to for open world survival. But after playing through 1.0 and now 2.0, I’m finding it harder to stay engaged. It’s lost the unpredictable, emergent chaos that made it great.
Back in Alpha 16.4 (my favorite version) survival felt real. In earlier alphas heatstroke, hypothermia, wet clothes, zombie smell, stealth, layered clothing, food poisoning, stamina loss from temperature. You had to respond to the world around you and adapt. No two playthroughs ever felt the same.
Now, everything is structured and gated. You don’t need to survive the Burnt Forest, Desert, or Wasteland. You just chug a smoothie, wait out a timer, then get a badge that makes you immune. The most punishing environments in the game are reduced to visual filters and checkboxes. It’s not survival, it’s pacing.
Loot used to be logical. You could tell when you were taking a risk based on the POI, not just the biome. Weapon parts were valuable. You’d combine a few poor-quality parts into something a bit better. It kept looting exciting even mid- to late-game. That’s gone now too.
Even things like clothing customization are a shadow of what they were. Clothing has been eliminated. You can’t dye armor. Many survival systems such as temperature, sickness, water cleanliness have been watered down to the point of irrelevance. Now we have magic potions, collectible badges, and perk books that replace “learn by doing.”
While I LOVE the work but into RWG there’s no real sense of discovery when you know biome order and loot caps in advance. And with loot gated by biome stage, not difficulty or POI type, it feels scripted. Why does a ruined shack in the Wasteland have better loot than a tower in the Forest?
The biome progression system had potential, but I would prefer an approach that would've made survival harder, not easier. Let us earn resilience over time. Add craftable items for temporary protection ala bandanas for smoke, sunscreen for the desert, iodine pills for radiation. Traders could offer wearable gear through hard quests and real rewards for real risk. Let storms actually affect gameplay. A blizzard should slow you down and chill you. A sandstorm should obscure vision and raise temperature. Acid rain in the wasteland would force players into dangerous POIs.
I’m aware the devs are trying to guide new players through the experience, and that’s fine. But in doing so, they’ve stripped away what made 7D7D different. The game once was unpredictable, customizable, and brutal. You could build your story, not follow a set trader quest progression path.
Right now, it feels like the game is trying to push us all through the same track. From Forest to Burnt to Desert to Snow to Wasteland. Every biome feels like a content gate instead of a sandbox to survive and explore. I used to build long-term bases, explore, and return with what I’d learned. Now I feel like I’m just passing through.
This isn’t hate. Incredible work has been done on this game and I love the improvements to the world, the POIs. Pipe weapons added early game options and I would love to see MORE variety of weapons added.
I care enough to write this because 7 Days to Die meant something to me. It was one of the few survival games that got it right. It gave us freedom, challenge, unpredictability. It didn’t handhold. It didn’t railroad.
Now, it feels like the game is trying to tell its story instead of letting me create mine
And that's what made this game unforgettable.
Back in Alpha 16.4 (my favorite version) survival felt real. In earlier alphas heatstroke, hypothermia, wet clothes, zombie smell, stealth, layered clothing, food poisoning, stamina loss from temperature. You had to respond to the world around you and adapt. No two playthroughs ever felt the same.
Now, everything is structured and gated. You don’t need to survive the Burnt Forest, Desert, or Wasteland. You just chug a smoothie, wait out a timer, then get a badge that makes you immune. The most punishing environments in the game are reduced to visual filters and checkboxes. It’s not survival, it’s pacing.
Loot used to be logical. You could tell when you were taking a risk based on the POI, not just the biome. Weapon parts were valuable. You’d combine a few poor-quality parts into something a bit better. It kept looting exciting even mid- to late-game. That’s gone now too.
Even things like clothing customization are a shadow of what they were. Clothing has been eliminated. You can’t dye armor. Many survival systems such as temperature, sickness, water cleanliness have been watered down to the point of irrelevance. Now we have magic potions, collectible badges, and perk books that replace “learn by doing.”
While I LOVE the work but into RWG there’s no real sense of discovery when you know biome order and loot caps in advance. And with loot gated by biome stage, not difficulty or POI type, it feels scripted. Why does a ruined shack in the Wasteland have better loot than a tower in the Forest?
The biome progression system had potential, but I would prefer an approach that would've made survival harder, not easier. Let us earn resilience over time. Add craftable items for temporary protection ala bandanas for smoke, sunscreen for the desert, iodine pills for radiation. Traders could offer wearable gear through hard quests and real rewards for real risk. Let storms actually affect gameplay. A blizzard should slow you down and chill you. A sandstorm should obscure vision and raise temperature. Acid rain in the wasteland would force players into dangerous POIs.
I’m aware the devs are trying to guide new players through the experience, and that’s fine. But in doing so, they’ve stripped away what made 7D7D different. The game once was unpredictable, customizable, and brutal. You could build your story, not follow a set trader quest progression path.
Right now, it feels like the game is trying to push us all through the same track. From Forest to Burnt to Desert to Snow to Wasteland. Every biome feels like a content gate instead of a sandbox to survive and explore. I used to build long-term bases, explore, and return with what I’d learned. Now I feel like I’m just passing through.
This isn’t hate. Incredible work has been done on this game and I love the improvements to the world, the POIs. Pipe weapons added early game options and I would love to see MORE variety of weapons added.
I care enough to write this because 7 Days to Die meant something to me. It was one of the few survival games that got it right. It gave us freedom, challenge, unpredictability. It didn’t handhold. It didn’t railroad.
Now, it feels like the game is trying to tell its story instead of letting me create mine
And that's what made this game unforgettable.
