After the long wait, 7 Days to Die Alpha 16 is finally on the horizon. In the previous weeks, the game’s developers, the Fun Pimps, had wrapped up the development of new features and moved into the final bug testing to ready the game to be released into experimental stage.

On June 7^th, they moved into testing with their stream team. This has allowed fans of the game to see aspects of the new content in Alpha 16 and the new game play dynamic. On June 10th, at around 4:30 pm, the experimental for Alpha 16 was released. Now that the release is out, players will be able to opt into playing Alpha 16 experimental, by opening steam, right clicking on the 7 Days to Die title, clicking view properties, opening the beta tab, and selecting latest experimental build. After a few weeks of working with the experiment build, they then plan on releasing the full stable update. At which point Alpha 16 will have fully arrived.

According to the Fun Pimps, Alpha 16 is the largest single content update that the game has had. You can read the full list of new features and changes in the Alpha 16 release notes. Here I will highlight some of the biggest features.

A New World Environment

Alpha 16 has changed the random world generation system. The RWG town have changed from standard square towns to more organically shaped downs, with greater building variation, with commercial, industrial, upper and lower residential districts. Some poi’s which used to only be in the Navezgane map are now in random gen. In addition, over 30 new poi buildings have been added; including 3 restaurants, 6 new house types, 4 new trailer lots, a daycare center, a private school, a laundromat, a hair salon, 2 fire stations, 2 post offices, 2 courthouses, 2 old business strips, a pawn shop, and 4 types of skyscrapers (the skyscrapers are like mini-dungeons for game play).

The distant terrain view aspect has been expanded to allow players to see poi’s in the distance.

To me, these changes will make the towns much cooler and help give me a lot more inspiration to build.

New Zombie Dynamics

New zombie types have been added to the game. The buildings in the game are now filled with sleeper zombies; zombies which sit down in an inactive state until the player gets near them. This makes scavenging from buildings somewhat more difficult. The new feral zombie version is created when a zombie consumes live meat. It is twice as strong and can run at all times. The new radiated zombie version has the ability to heal itself. After experimenting with UMA created zombies in Alpha 15, they have decided to replace them with regularly designed versions. There are also new game option features to control the size of the zombie hoards you get on the 7^th night.

Electricity

An electricity system has been added. This includes generators, solar banks, and battery banks to power electrical items; switches, trip wires, pressure plates, and motion sensors to trigger the flow of electricity; power relays to extend electrical flow; more lights; several traps, including electric fences, a spinning blade trap, dart launcher trap, and auto defense turrets, which fire bullets at enemy targets in its field of view. These items require certain perks to be able to make them, and require materials which are scavenged, manufactured, and/ or bought from traders.

Animals

They have redone the designs for some animals, such as the bear and zombie bear. They have replaced the giant zombie bee, with the zombie vulture. They have also added wolves, dire wolves, and rattle snakes.

Paint

They have added a paint system, which allows players to paint the surfaces of blocks using a paintbrush tool and paint. Different paint options are unlocked by several new books that can be found scavenging in the game.

Experience, Progression, and Skills

The ways in which players progress through the game has been changed in various ways. Crafting skills are now advanced through skill perks instead of crafting items. Killing zombies provides less experience than before, but several other types of activity now provide more experience or provide experience which previously didn’t, such as harvesting and farming. You can now make leather without the leather tanning perk. The knife guy, miner69er, and bad mechanic perks are needed to increase harvest amounts. You can also now page through skill levels to see what the requirements for higher level skill perks are.

Blocks and Items

Block placing now has different rotation options and a copy block rotation option in order to make it easier to place blocks. Several new block types, including arches, rounded blocks, stair corners, jail doors, and bullet proof glass. There are new items such as the compound bow and Molotov cocktail. Land Claim blocks now have a range of 41.

With these thing said, Alpha 16 looks like it will provide plenty of new interesting stuff and challenges, and it moving the game along toward its full development.