Best New Features In 7 Days To Die 1.2 Update

Summary

• Crossplay added for PC and console players.
• New animal models: vulture, rabbit, chicken.
• Tree spawning optimized for better performance.

The 1.2 update for 7 Days To Die has just been pushed live. And whilst this update is actually quite minor in many regards, it does come with one major new feature. For the first time, PC and console players can tackle this zombie survival game together.

The update does add some other cool new stuff to this zombie game, and it also manages to optimize parts of the game that have traditionally been performance hogs. Overall, the 1.2 update shows that The Fun Pimps are likely heading towards a series of updates that are intended to make the game run smoother for all players, including Xbox and PlayStation players.

8 New Animal Models

Vulture, Rabbit, and Chicken

For the last few updates, The Fun Pimps, the developers of 7 Days To Die, have been slowly replacing many of the models in the game. All of the zombie variations and models have now been completely redone, and it seems that it is the turn of the animals now.

In the 1.2 update to 7 Days To Die there are three new animal models. These are the vulture, rabbit, and chicken. If the pattern continues, the next update should see some of the other old animal models such as the coyote and wolf getting some love.

7 New Tree Spawning

More Efficient Loading

At face value, this seems like a pretty minor change to the game. However, it has quite wide implications. Many areas of the game map are dense with trees and other foliage, and this can have a real impact on performance, especially if a player has set the draw distance to maximum.

This new, more efficient method of spawning in trees can result in real-world performance improvements. Of course, much depends on the player’s hardware and the graphic settings they have chosen. However, if these kinds of optimizations continue across future updates, it can only be a good thing.

6 New Block List

Fully Crossplay Enabled

As part of the new crossplay feature (more on this later), there is a new global blocklist available from the main game menu. It will keep a list of the most recent players that have been encountered, and then there is the option to add them to the global ban list.

This is a great new addition to 7 Days To Die, and something that has been needed even before this crossplay update. However, it is not clear yet how this ban list impacts dedicated servers. Overall, this is something every multiplayer game needs, so it is good to see it patched in with the 1.2 update.

5 FSR And Graphics Improvements

Mainly Aimed At Console Players

Console players have some great new graphics options to try out. Firstly, they can choose additional graphical presets; performance, or quality. These speak for themselves, and are important new additions so that console players can maintain performance similar to PC players.

Additionally, all players now have access to AMD’s FSR technology in the game settings. This is good for console players and PC players who are using older, less capable hardware. This means that pretty much anyone with any kind of gaming rig can now play the game smoothly, by lowering settings and using FSR.

4 Better Blood Moon Scaling

More Zombies To Fight

Something that veteran 7 Days To Die players will appreciate in the 1.2 update, is that Blood Moon hordes are going to be more challenging. There are two changes that will lead to this. Firstly, the distance at which players will be added to the Blood Moon enemy algorithm has been increased. Secondly, the scaling of the Blood Moon enemy count has been tweaked to include the game stage.

This is a fantastic change for players who have mastered defensive base building and now find a Blood Moon to be a trivial annoyance, rather than a dangerous challenge.

3 Better Biome Spawners

More Random Spawn Patterns

The way that zombie and animal spawns work in 7 Days To Die, is that each biome has a maximum number of entities it can spawn at any time, regardless of how many players are in the area, or how much activity has taken place.

The 1.2 update tweaks these spawn rules, and has separated out individual biome spawn timers. This should result in firstly, there being more wandering zombies, and, secondly, more randomness in spawns. Overall, this is a big change for multiplayer games, which can seem quite deserted at times if there are many players in the same area.

2 Better Sleeper Behavior

Stealth Might Now Be Useful

Stealth, the red-headed stepchild of skills and talents in 7 Days To Die, may now be useful again. The Fun Pimps have made a couple of changes to sleeper spawns that could well result in players needing to use stealth once again, something they have not had to do for several years now.

The distance that sleepers spawn has been reduced, meaning triggering one sleep won’t necessarily result in every sleeper in a POI waking up. Secondly, the rules for despawning sleepers have been changed, as well as the timer for despawning them.

1 Full Crossplay

PC, PlayStation, and Xbox

Even though 7 Days To Die has been available on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation for some time, players across these platforms could not play together. The 1.2 update is a milestone in this regard, as it finally adds full crossplay to the game.

However, there are a couple of restrictions for crossplay games, likely due to the less capable hardware console owners play with. The maximum number of players in a crossplay game is 8, and the maximum world size is 8192. However, these numbers are quite healthy, an 8192 world is pretty large, and 8 players is plenty.