7 Days to die – Zombie-killing build-’em-up that’s begging for more time

What do the words “zombie apocalypse” mean to you? Images of a dishevelled Andrew Lincoln, scavenging through bins and stripping the old world bare? Despite surface similarities to well-established series, however – including DLC that lets you play as Michonne, Lee and other The Walking Dead characters – the premise of Minecraft-like builder 7 Days To Die feels a little, well, off.

You play as a survivor emerging bleary-eyed into a ruined and hostile world. Yet rather than sleeping on that conveniently empty mattress, or scrapping cars down to their parts, you’re expected to revert to the stone age and build your entire wardrobe from scratch – from primitive stone axes to grass shirts and shoes. It doesn’t quite gel with the zombie fantasy – though more traditional scavenging does eventually make an appearance.

The “Minecraft-like” tag tells you almost everything you need to know. This is another procedurally generated explore-’em-up in which you punch trees, hack at rocks and fashion structures out of old twigs. It’s incredibly feature-rich, as these games go. It boasts split-screen and online multiplayer, plus random worlds filled with loot, wildlife and ravenous undead, along with buildable vehicles, treasure hunts and more crafting recipes than the contents of Ron Swanson’s bookshelf. There’s a hell of a lot to do, and if you’re looking for something meaty after rinsing Minecraft, 7 Days has you covered. Up to a point.

The Week From Hell

While it beats most when it comes to value, this Fun Pimps project has none of the polish, charm or magic of Mojang’s hit. There’s no detectable art direction, no beauty and little believability to the world generation, while there are plenty of technical foibles, such as poor draw distance and sounds that don’t loop properly.

If you’re used to the graceful user interface of Minecraft, brace yourself. You’ve little choice but to wade through fiddly menus to use or craft items, which you need to do often due to creations having the durability of a pound-shop remote control car. The ability to tailor difficulty, reducing the number of zombies or making death less of a hassle, is hugely appreciated, but the cycle of exploring, building, dying and retrieving your possessions just isn’t enough to sustain a game.

Character progression is dangled in front of your face, but 7 Days’ worlds hardly invite exploration – not least because the draw distance often doesn’t quite stretch to the horizon.

There’s enough satisfaction to that cycle of scavenging, making and remaking to draw some people in, but know that you’re getting an unfinished game – it remains in Early Access on PC – and a sloppy one at that. It’s a case of quantity over quality, then. But wow, what quantity

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