When comparing 7 Days to Die vs Vanishing Realms, the Slant community recommends 7 Days to Die for most people. In the question“What are the best adventure games on Steam?” 7 Days to Die is ranked 24th while Vanishing Realms is ranked 30th. 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 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.
Pro Highly immersive and polished VR gameplay
The whole game has been designed from the ground up to be played with motion controls that allow for immersive movements, making it one of the best Vive games currently available. You can swing your hand to swing a sword, raise your arm to block with a shield, move to hide behind a column when having arrows fired at you. Everything feels natural and intuitive.
Benefit being, it allows for the player to instinctively react through movement while playing, which makes for an experience not many have had with a video game to date.
Pro Works great with room scale
While no one will have enough room in order to completely traverse the game in full, once the player is in an area they want to explore, the immediate surroundings are easily navigated by walking or running around. It works quite well and feels natural, which adds to the immersive experience of the game.
Pro Challenging but not hard
I really love this play.
Pro Intuitive inventory system that is fun to use
Storing and using ones inventory is pretty simple to grasp as there is a virtual tool belt like area when you look down. From this items can be placed to be stored for later use, or equipped at that moment for use. This works through the use of the triggers on the controllers and placement of ones hands, while it may be tricky at first, once the player gets accustomed to the 3D spacing of where their actual hands should be, it all comes very naturally and is a great solution on how to handle items and inventory in a VR game.
Pro Graphically a AAA experience
A good way to describe the looks would be, kid friendly with a cartoonish oriented design that has a clear and professional look. It offers a good amount of detail with good lighting effects, shadows as well as clean textures making it one of the best looking VR games. While not based in any sense of realism, they allow for a comforting and inviting experience that can appeal to anyone while still having enough detail and polish in order to present a game that easily fits in with any AAA title to date.
Cons
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.
Con Not finished yet
The game is in early access with only two levels available for play so far. While this does give a good sense of what will be available when finished, there is always the risk that the game will get abandoned or release with many bugs. There is never a guarantee with early access, which means the buyer should beware.
Con The less room in ones house, the more restricting the game can feel
This game requires a certain amount of free space when playing, and has been set up in that there is a way to maneuver in game, even when having little space in ones house. This of course comes with the caveat that the game itself will feel restricted in that movement will not feel natural. There is a work around for this of course called the blink system, where players point to where they want to move in a level, to the teleport there, but this does not feel as natural as actually moving there by walking.