The Fun Pimps, the developers of the game 7 Days to Die, are currently working on their next significant update to the game, Alpha 17. From available information that has been put out by the developers, it can be seen that some significant changes should be coming once the Alpha 17 update is released. Thus, I am going to summarize the features which have so far been confirmed for Alpha 17.

They will be adding various new blocks and textures, including new wallpaper blocks, blocks with trim edges, pallets, boxes, and bathtubs. These things will help add an additional touch to making POIs in the game.

Speaking of which, there will also be new POIs that will be added to the game. The Fun Pimps decided that they would be both diverge from existing residential buildings and expand on the dungeon crawling style of buildings, by creating a new line of dungeon crawl houses. These houses are somewhat larger than most of the existing houses in the game, they feature multiple layers and parts that you’ll need to move through in order to find what lies in them (sort of like a smaller version of the skyscrapers). They will also feature hints in them about their past human inhabitants, such as the house of the motivational speaker with a dark secret in his basement.

The Navezgane map will have some changes made in it. The residential houses in Diersville will be replaced with the new dungeon style houses. And odds are, they’ll probably make some additional changes when they move further along with Alpha 17.

The vehicle system in 7 Days to Die will have a major advancement in this update. They’ve established a new system for vehicles, which not only should make them work better with the terrain (and should fix the bug where minibikes would sometimes fall through the ground), but has helped them move forward in creating new vehicle types. They have moved forward with creating a bicycle and a motorcycle. And according the developer Joel Huenink, they are working on also adding drivable cars, boats, and helicopters.

They have added new motion capture elements to update the movements of the character, and plan on eventually adding a feature to allow for you to be able to view your character in third person. There are plans to for updating weapons and combat. This would include adding power moves for melee combat, and adding a new weapons system that would allow for weapon modifications. Likewise, they plan at some point to add a system for adding modifications to vehicles.

The developers have also been moving forward with developing AI human survivors. While it’s not yet certain how much this may be advanced in Alpha 17, they have released some details and concept art on it. This includes adding survivors, updating the traders, and adding two rival factions of AI survivors. These groups would be the White River group and the Duke’s group, and the player would eventually have the option to join one of those groups.

Other changes to the game will include updating the game engine and biomes to Unity 2017, updating the designs of some the animals, potentially adding climbable vines, and adding sleeper zombie vultures.

This would sum up what is currently known about the upcoming changes for the Alpha 17 update.