When comparing Endless Legend vs 7 Days to Die, the Slant community recommends 7 Days to Die for most people. In the question“What are the best singleplayer games on Steam?” 7 Days to Die is ranked 60th while Endless Legend is ranked 96th. The most important reason people chose 7 Days to Die is:
As the player makes progress in the game by interacting with the environment, killing zombies or building things, they are rewarded with skill points that can be used to unlock new skills such as combat strength, higher stamina or new crafting options. But even though the skill system can seemingly make the game easier, the severity and size of the zombie hordes will keep increasing with the time spent in game and the progress made by the player, keeping them on the edge and making them feel a constant pressure that an attack may come at any time and that they should be prepared.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Choice of faction meaningfully impacts gameplay
Each faction has strengths and weaknesses, but the best part is swapping out traits before the game starts. You have 80 points to spend, and traits are more or less expensive depending on how powerful they are. Each trait gives you something other factions probably won't have, so spend those points wisely. It might win or lose you the game.
Pro Highly customizable
Some specific traits are unique to each faction. Most, however, can be traded for when customizing a faction, with a point-buy limitation to balance it. The world generation options are all knobs to turn one way or another as you like. Very fun option to fiddle with that can make every game a new experience.
Pro Engrossing fantasy setting
If you've played Civ V, you know how much history they put into it. With Endless Legend, there's as much fantasy as Civ's history. Faction quest-lines give you a feel for the people you're leading, and the minor factions are all interesting enough to read the flavor text for.
Pro Beautiful art style
Endless Legend represents a unique art style in the 4x genre, and it stands up graphically even after a few years. The game looks and feels very pretty, and the official art for the game is nothing short of stunning.
Pro Excellent depth
If you like exploring a game's mechanics, this one will give you a lot to chew on. The battle mechanics in particular are a serious improvement compared to Civ V's take on war, with units able to stack together into armies instead of spreading out over one tile each.
Pro Region-based territory system shakes up the expansion game
The map is divided into pre-generated regions. Settling a region claims all of it (even if it's not explored). That city can't have districts outside its region, and only one city can be settled per region. This curtails city-spamming and aggressive city placement, and creates interesting decisions about resource access.
Pro Amazing soundtrack
The music for the game is very well composed and is great to listen to. Not to mention, it's also free.
Pro Approachable without sacrificing depth
It's pretty easy to learn and get into as turn based strategy but still complex enough to give those looking for depth their fix.
Pro Interesting races, leaders and character design
Pro Combat system is more skill based than RNG based
Pro Nearly all of the races are viable
Pro DLC is great and isn't a ripoff
Unlike other games that have pieces of the game completely removed to be used as a bargaining chip for DLC, the game feels complete without DLC. Although the offered DLC is fun and adds many more aspects to the game, such as espionage and control of the seasons. You don't feel like you're missing out by not buying the DLC, however, it is recommended if you want to grasp the true experience.
Pro Art is masterful
Pro Good diplomacy system
Pro Feeling of power
When you arrive in the late-game, you, along with other empires have become very powerful and will be able to amass many resources in a much shorter amount of time. Although this doesn't give you an advantage over anyone else, it is still pleasurable to have a feeling of such power.
Pro Everything is described in the lore
From how Dust (the in-game currency) can buyout construction to the biological functions that provide an advantage (or even disadvantage), the game is careful to fully explain gameplay mechanics with lore aspects, leaving few to no plotholes.
Pro Autosaves every turn
Although the game is prone to errors, some that crash the game albeit rarely, the game autosaves at the beginning of every turn, so that should the game crash, a recent instance of the game may be loaded and strategies replicated, or entirely new strategies to be used if one wishes.
Pro Constant sense of vulnerability, which keeps the player alert and on edge the whole time
As the player makes progress in the game by interacting with the environment, killing zombies or building things, they are rewarded with skill points that can be used to unlock new skills such as combat strength, higher stamina or new crafting options.
But even though the skill system can seemingly make the game easier, the severity and size of the zombie hordes will keep increasing with the time spent in game and the progress made by the player, keeping them on the edge and making them feel a constant pressure that an attack may come at any time and that they should be prepared.
Pro Robust crafting system that allows the players imagination to run wild with possibilities
Create everything from a chainsaw to various guns to defenses for your fort - the crafting system lists what you can make with the materials you currently have in the player's inventory.
Pro What you build is not only for creativity, but also for gameplay purposes
In 7DTD players don't build their homes only as bases or places to sleep in, or build cool looking things just for the fun of it and to test their skills.
Every 7 days, a large horde of zombies will attack the player wherever he or she is, trying to destroy them and what stands in the way of the player and the horde. This is why the player needs to think about how to build traps that will help them kill a lot of zombies and how to make a strong enough house that will not be destroyed easily.
Pro Randomly generated open worlds makes for a ton of replayability, as each playthrough is never the same
Recently added in the Alpha 9 release, randomly generated worlds allow the player a new play experience every time they open up the game. This means every server will have a different dynamic based on their layout of the world.
Pro Great replayability
No matter how many times you start a new game (random gen) you will never get the same experience. The crafting is the same, enemies are the same, game mechanics are the same but the gameplay is not. If you add the mods available for this game then you will have a whole new experience with added/altered crafting, different enemies, more quests etc...
Pro Single, co-op, and multiplayer gameplay modes give plenty of choice as to how one would like to tackle the game
Three different play modes including solo, with friends, or competitively over the internet gives a lot of choice as to how someone would like to play the game. Be it with friends or solo, the options are there.
Pro Unique combination of voxel and polygon models, which makes for pretty fun physics
The game is a mix between a voxel world and full polygon models for buildings, making for a versatile survival based world that brings exploration and creation to the zombie survival genre.
Structural integrity is a real thing in 7 Days To Die. That means there cannot be unsupported floating blocks. The player can set up traps to take out hordes of zombies with a falling building.
Weapons will break and crumble but can also be forged to be awesome, and the player must cook and maintain supplies.
Pro Creative mode gives the player a section to just trial things out in, for fun
The game allows players to make custom maps without zombies attacking to set up scenarios or make player made game types.
Pro Thoughtful and communicative developers allows for a stable community that keeps growing
Even though this is not directly related with the gameplay, it's still important especially for indie and early-access games. The developers behind 7DTD have always been communicative and have heard what the community had to say time and time again, releasing patches with bug fixes and new features in a timely manner.
Pro Fully moddable
(WIP) The game should eventually be fully moddable.
Pro Low system requirements means just about anyone should be able to run the game
Everything is smooth and perfectly executed. Runs great on any machine, low requirements. This way anyone can run the game without worry of needing an expensive machine.
Cons
Con Multiplayer is glitchy and sometimes unplayable
Playing with friends can be difficult. Desyncing means you have to reload the game (it autosaves every turn so that's good). For a time it would desync after ever turn, so you had to play the game 1 turn at a time.
Con Very few multiplayer games
The most games you'll play of Endless Legend will be by yourself or with friends; it's highly unlikely you'll find an open lobby at all times. The overall online life of the game is low. When and If you find rooms, they are mostly private games and no one can join without an invite. Overall the community as a whole is small.
Con Steep learning curve
Even for a 4X game, Endless Legend consists of lots and lots of deep systems that can make approaching it difficult. Though it's worth noting that there are mods that remove or tone down the complexity of the game making it more accessible.
Con Confusing tutorial
This is a game that takes experience to learn rather than reading or learning in a similar fashion. Although the tutorial has you doing things, it does not explain the various ways you can do things, nor ensure you actually understand what it is you're actually doing. It is better to have someone you know explain the game to you.
Con Weak technology interaction
When researching a powerful technology, the game does not give any feedback to your growth in power other than statistics. For example, Dust Alchemy is a very good mid-game tech that drastically increases your currency gained per turn, but all you get from it is a higher number on your screen. The same can be said for virtually all technologies. The tech tree is simply very bland to progress through.
Con Race concepts are difficult to latch onto/have specific roads to victory
It does not make use of standard fantasy races such as elves and dwarves but creates an entirely new set. On the one hand, this is great since they are fresh ideas, but on the other, it comes off feeling alien and difficult to connect to. Additionally, each race has more or less one path to victory which makes you feel pigeon-holed.
Con Out of touch Dev team
The developers constantly rework the game, breaking things that worked well while ignoring problems and community feedback.
Con Really laggy even on high end PCs
Can only get 20 fps on high settings, even on an PC with GTX 960 and Intel i5-4690k.
Con Currently in Early Access
While the game is currently selling for $24.99, it isn't actually finished yet, so there will be bugs. Be sure to adjust your expectations accordingly before making the investment.
Con Crafting system is constantly getting dumbed down
Even though 7D2D is supposed to be a hard survival game (and most of the time it is), the crafting system is getting constantly dumbed down with new releases.
For example, previously you had sticks, planks, and logs. Sticks could not be used to build huge wood log walls or frames. While now there's no more different kinds of wood and you simply punch a bush to get some wood.
Con People who dislike Minecraft will dislike this game
If you like Minecraft, you might like this game, a lot actually. But if you HATE Minecraft, you'll quickly realize this game is basically Minecraft with better graphics. It just downright sucks.
Con Randomly generated open worlds has no generation options
Randomly gen has no option to customize how it is generated (like in minecraft for example) and could make it quite problematic if you want to have a good map, as there is no way to know how good or bad the map will be. Random gen also make unrealistic hills and road that almost go up/down vertically with vehicle spawning in such way they seems to be floating.