7 Days to Die

This was my Dad's favourite game. Unfortunately we lost him just before Xmas from cancer. Was still playing at age 74.
I bought this for him way back around alpha 10/11 to play some MP with myself and some friends, and while we burned out he kept going with almost 3k hours.
So it's a thumbs up from me if only due to the memory of walking past his PC to see how his base was coming along etc. He knew more about the game than I did.
So thanks for the memories. Cheers

With its more recent updates, 7 Days to Die feels like a game that’s still unsure of what it wants its core experience to be. While the developers continue to rework major systems in the name of balance and accessibility, the end result is a gameplay loop that, at least for me, has become far less enjoyable than it used to be. Many of the latest updates focus heavily on restructuring progression and perks, pushing players into a more guided, almost checklist driven experience. Early and mid game progression now feels slower and more restrictive, with fewer meaningful choices and less room to experiment with different playstyles. Instead of naturally discovering tools, weapons, and crafting paths through exploration and risk taking, progression feels increasingly artificial and gamified. The quest system and trader focus exemplify this problem. Recent changes encourage a loop of accepting jobs, clearing prefabs, returning to traders, and repeating the process. While functional, this loop quickly becomes repetitive and starts to overshadow survival, base building, and emergent gameplay. Scavenging and exploration once the heart of the experience now feel secondary to running errands for NPCs. Combat and horde nights have also been affected by ongoing balance passes. Zombie behavior and pathing changes often feel less organic and more like puzzle solving against predictable AI rules. Base design has shifted from creative fortification to exploiting systems, and when those systems are inevitably changed again in a future update, entire playstyles are invalidated.
While the developers’ commitment to updates is commendable, the constant reworks make it hard to invest long term. Each major update feels less like refinement and more like a reset, and it’s increasingly difficult to tell whether feedback is shaping a clearer vision or just prompting another overhaul. In its current state, 7 Days to Die isn’t a bad game but it is one I no longer enjoy playing. The modern gameplay loop feels repetitive, overly structured, and at odds with the sandbox survival experience that originally drew me in. For new players, the current design may feel streamlined and accessible. For returning players like myself, it feels like the soul of the game has been slowly sanded down with every update.

I've played this game on and off for nearly a decade. I'll burn out on it (mainly because I throw myself into it and spend so much time in it) but after I buy a new game, spend a few weeks playing it, I always come back to this with a new idea I want to try or start a new game with a new version and see what all has changed. The premise of the game is nearly perfect (build yourself up, arm yourself with better weapons than just close range items, build a better way to protect yourself every 7 days and kill zombies). The game is never quite the same each time you start a new game, and you can think of new/better ways to kill more zombies...for example, the last blood moon I managed to kill 352 zombies and pick up 54 dropped backpacks of multiple colors....this time during the blood moon I got overran, so thinking of changes to my setup. Oh, and btw I am 60 years old, but a kid at heart.

Fun game, absolutely not worth $45. Devs are out of their minds. Recommend on sale for anything less than $20. Asking for more on a game that's underbaked and dated since before full release is pure greed.
EDIT:
For additional context, I purchased this game originally in October 2014. I have 420 hours in total over the course of 12 years. I am saying for 12 years of development that I have witnessed and been a part of it is not worth more than $20. I have seen slow drip feeding and rollback of content, broken promises, and half baked ideas during this time. I still vividly remember streams where fun pimps talked about spending months on development of tree forts and tree bases only for them to not be in the game at all with over a year of development being scrapped. The lack of diversity in the environment and zombies still as well. Also recommending and giving a negative review are two different things. I recommend the game, It's fun. However it is in my opinion not worth the price listed.

i recommend playing alpha 16.4, new versions changed the game too much

Its sad when a single dude can make a mod thats still on version 1.4 thats 1000000 times better than every single update that fun pimps can give this game..... the only reason you should buy this game is to play DARKNESS FALLS mod. The actual dev team doesnt know how to make a realistic survival game sorry not sorry.

Fun game but Fun Pimps are absolutely tweaking. 45 dollars is way to much, would recommend not to buy until a sale is up. I bought this game for 15$. 45 is way to much Fun Pimps.