When comparing Subnautica vs 7 Days to Die, the Slant community recommends Subnautica for most people. In the question“What are the best singleplayer games on Steam?” Subnautica is ranked 2nd while 7 Days to Die is ranked 60th. The most important reason people chose Subnautica is:
The game takes place underwater, and it looks very good especially because of the new candy eye update. Looking up at the sun through the ocean looks pleasant and real. Coral reefs have multiple colors and look real as well. Graphics wise this game looks great and pulls off its theme of an underwater survival quite well.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great theme and looks
The game takes place underwater, and it looks very good especially because of the new candy eye update. Looking up at the sun through the ocean looks pleasant and real. Coral reefs have multiple colors and look real as well. Graphics wise this game looks great and pulls off its theme of an underwater survival quite well.
Pro The sound effects really set up the overall atmosphere
The sound design in Subnautica is amazing. Even though the soundtrack can be bland at times, the sound effects for the ocean noises are incredibly atmospheric and really help to get the player in the mood for exploring a vast, alien ocean.
Pro Interesting creature design
The creature design in Subnautica deserves some major praise. Spotting a new, never seen before creature is extremely rewarding and there's a large variety of alien creatures to look for.
Pro Has a mode for people who just want to explore
Subnautica has four game modes: survival, freedom, hardcore, and creative. The first one pits the player against the elements and forces them to think about food and water through its thirst and hunger mechanics.
The second game mode basically removes every mechanic that is related to surviving, such as the aforementioned hunger and thirst mechanics. It also leaves all the items in your inventory after you die. In other words, it's a game mode for people who want to explore without having to bother with surviving. Which is nice, since Subnautica has a lot of stuff to explore.
The third one, as the name tells us, is more difficult. Not only do you have to worry about health, oxygen, water and hunger, you will have to worry about your life. Since this game mode gives you one chance to live, no respawning. If you die, you'll lose your progress and will have to start over again.
The fourth one will let you build a base of your dreams without worrying about food, oxygen, or thirst. It is the best mode for people who want to build and don't want to gather resources.
Pro No pointless multiplayer
Not every damn thing needs multiplayer, and multiplayer can often ruin an otherwise incredible experience. There's none to be found here, and that intensifies the lonely atmosphere. Also, the creators didn't waste resources on something that would fundamentally undermine the experience so they could focus on making the game the wonderful thing that it is.
Pro Very interesting for both new and long-time players
But it goes faster when you learn the game. Because everything is done manually.
Pro Incredibly satisfying tool-building mechanics
The whole process of creating new tools is mostly done using a sophisticated 3D-printer available from the start of the game. You gather various resources and transform them to create tools that you will need for your survival.
For example, organic matter gets printed into raw carbon, combine carbon with some zinc and you get a battery; combine that battery with some glass and you get a flashlight that helps you see in the dark. It's very straightforward but incredibly satisfying when you build your tools, especially since you are doing all of this while swimming in an ocean filled with predators.
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 Lacks Co-Op
This game was meant to be a survival game (and a bit of horror), most survival games are difficult, may get boring to play alone after time and this game has both. Having a second survivor in the story would mean to rewrite it again, but having a friend in an alien world would be better.
Con No real story
A bit underdeveloped story. Only in notes and some short cgi animations.
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.