Game difficulty is a bit like trying to bake a cake with a blindfold on; it takes a while to identify, blend, and balance out all the ingredients. Games that are too easy leave players bored and unchallenged, while games that are too hard will make most players quit early.
Related:7 Days To Die: Best Mods That Improve The Game
If you’re a weathered,7 Days To Dieveteran, you’ve likely gone through multiple playthroughs by now. The game has added plenty of content, tweaks, and adjustable settings for a more complete, customizable zombie survival experience. But what if the base, vanilla experience just isn’t cutting it anymore? Here are some mods that can make your next playthrough feel fresh, exciting, and reasonably challenging.
8Halmod Expansion: Reworked, Deadly Encounters
Inspired by Valmar’s Valmod Expansion, authorhalsac created Halmod, a server-side, compatibility focused “modlet” that overhauls the base game through various XML edits. The mod’s most notable features include a reworked class system, tweaked enemy spawning behaviors and health values, less forgiving food and hunger mechanics, and diverse, deadly encounter events.
What kind of encounters you might ask? Well, it depends on the biome you’re in. Wasteland cities, for example, will spawn radiated and mutated zombies, while desert cities will spawn tons of menacing vultures. Oh, and let’s not forget four new, rare, biome-specific animal bosses.
7Darkness Falls: More Zombies, Items, And Tweaks
If you’re looking for a sizable, impactful overhaul that reworks multiple aspects of the game, look no further thanKhaineGB’s Darkness Fallsmod. Absolutely packed with content and changes, you’ll become acquainted with plenty of new additions, such as coil guns, titanium and stainless steel, more inventory and crafting slots, and even tree sap.
But how does this mod crank up the difficulty? To name a few of the challenges you’ll encounter, this mod adds higher spawn densities for cities, new zombies, and an even harder tier of zombies. Oh, and perhaps most terrifying of all,traders are now unprotected.
6Skyrim Style Lockpicking MiniGame: A Familiar Experience
Lock picks are handy, arguably essential tools in a zombie apocalypse. While lock picking is obviously still useful in the base game, it is diluted to a simple countdown upon interacting with a pickable object. This is where mod authors Xyth and Spherell come in.
As the name would imply,Skyrim Style Lockpicking MiniGamecompletely reworks the 7 Days To Die lock picking system. If you’ve ever lock-picked inSkyrimorFallout 4, you’ll be pretty familiar with this system. The caveat, however, is that you’ll never know the lock difficulty; the complexity of each lock is completely randomized.
5Army Of Bandits: Ruffians Galore
In its current state, 7 Days To Die doesn’t offer much in terms of human NPC interaction. Sure there are traders, but they’re sparsely populated around the map, and while useful, they only serve two functions: bartering and quest acquisition.
Related:7 Days To Die: NPC Traders, Ranked
In response to this, and in an effort to introduce more NPC diversity, mod authors ChaseNum, Lo-X, and Ratbertt createdArmy of Bandits. Essentially a spinoff of the EliteZombies mod, you’ll be able to interact with, fight, and loot various human NPCs, such as bandits, thieves, and others. After a hard-fought battle, make sure to use a knife or blade weapon to harvest unique items from the NPC bodies.
4Gas Shortage: Scarcity That Makes Vehicles More Valuable
Despite being a pretty barebones mod,Gas Shortagenonetheless does a great job at what it was designed to do. Ultimately, as mod author Khzmusik makes clear, Gas Shortage has only two goals in mind: to “Make gasoline scarce, and more difficult to craft.”
In other words, your gasoline harvesting options are reduced, exchange rates for gasoline are diminished, and the max stack cap for gasoline is much smaller. In effect, this makes gasoline-dependent travel much harder to manage, and thus, more valuable. Maybe walking isn’t so bad after all?
3The Wasteland: Fallout 4 Inspired Addons
Speaking of Fallout 4, do you like the idea of modding Nuka Cola, power armor, super mutants, and other fallout-related content into your next playthrough? If so, mod author Bdubyah has you covered withThe Wasteland.
Related:Best Weapons In 7 Days To Die
From Sunset Sarsaparilla, bottlecap mines, and Nuka vending machines, to raiders, soldiers, ghouls, and a variety ofFallout-themed weapons, this mod basically has it all. Additionally, there are over 20 altered points of interest to explore, but be careful, they’re usually infested with tough enemies.
2Hardcore Survivalist – Just Die Already: Slower Progression
It wouldn’t be surprising if mod authors FranticDan, Hells_Janitor, Subquake, and Dwallorde took some inspiration from Sisyphus and his eternal struggle of endlessly rolling a boulder up a hill. InHardcore Survivalist - Just Die Already, you’ll be fighting from the beginning.
On top of hordes of zombies, you’ll have to worry about greater food scarcity, an incurable, but thankfully treatable infection, a less forgiving trade economy, and amaster modeif you want an even greater challenge. If you want every small victory and step forward you’ve made feel hard-earned and well-deserved, this is the mod for you.
1Ravenhearst: A Challenging But Thrilling Overhaul
A legendary overhaul within the 7 Days To Die modding scene,Ravenhearstis the passion project of authors Sinder, Yakov, Redbeard, and many other contributors. If you’re looking for “a place where your nightmares grow and fester and the world around you is trying to kill you at every turn,” then you’ve found the right place.
As time goes on, since the mod makes the entire game gamestaged, the difficulty will scale as you level. You can expect difficult and terrifying nights, an inability to use vehicles during blood moons, more pressing and lethal infections, a reworked weapon degradation system, and so much more.
