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8 years of Early Access and 7 Days to Die shows no signs of slowing down on the major upgrades, with Alpha 20 Experimental out now on Steam. It's opt-in, so you need to select it from the Beta menu for the game on Steam, and once it's stable enough it will be out for everyone.

This version is another huge change for the game with lots of new character / enemy models that look and perform better, along with some massive world-building upgrades to the whole experience.

Just some of what's new and improved includes:

  • A brand-new version of Random Gen World creation with new cities, city tiles and a part system spawner. You will be blown away by it!
  • Over 200 new POI’s and updates to many of the older POI’s. Over 550 Explorable locations total
  • Navezgane has many city improvements, terrain improvements and new rural and wilderness communities
  • Nearly 25 new HD characters with a couple with improved shaders
  • 6 New weapons and 13 HD remakes with the addition of new primitive pipe weapons
  • Overhauled shape menu with hundreds of new shapes organized and buildable from a simple frame with in-game, creative and level design support
  • Block Placement Improvements
  • We have added a Robotic Drone Companion to carry your extra gear, heal you and more
  • Dynamic Imposter System renders accurate changes to POI’s and player bases at far distances
  • Rendering improvements with 100s of new PBR models
  • Quest Improvements including new restore power night Quests
  • AI Enemy Improvements including city spawning, ducking, obstacle attacks, head tracking and burst attacks.

Seems this update has managed to pull back a lot of players too, with it hitting a recent peak count of over 40,000 players at a time, which is the highest it has been for quite a few months.

You can pick it up on Humble Store and Steam. Full Alpha 20 Experimental release notes here.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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17 comments
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Ehvis Dec 7, 2021
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Start a new world after almost a year of not playing. Dropped into the almost on the doorstep of a trader. Lucky! Killed the first zombie, but after that another one came running around the building with bright yellow eyes. Nearly died and ended up with 10 HP and a broken leg. Had to spend the rest of the day finding resources for a splint without attracting any Zs which resulted into almost starving to death. This game can be vicious. I love it!
ixnari Dec 7, 2021
I'm excited to play the 1.0 release, but considering this game is still in alpha after all these years, I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever get to play it.
scaine Dec 7, 2021
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Quoting: ixnariI'm excited to play the 1.0 release, but considering this game is still in alpha after all these years, I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever get to play it.

Every alpha since A14 has been a 1.0 release for me. So A20 is like 1.6. It's an amazing game that they just keep adding more to.
g000h Dec 7, 2021
I've played for a number of hours now, and it is quite different to the previous Alpha 19.

The immediate thing to come to my attention was the world generation. The street layout and additional decorative elements really make it feel different. For instance the bridges across the roads, the storm drains lining the edges of the roads. As I made my way to find the trader, I got quite close to the centre of the town, and spotted a zombie cop, and the new spider zombie. Not something that would be wandering around in the green biome on day 1 in previous alphas.

There seem to be many more wandering zombies. There are a vast number of new buildings to explore. Even the regular buildings, such as Rekt's trading post has completely changed and looks nothing like Rekt's place in Alpha 19.

There seem to be numerous balance changes. I haven't been reading the Dev notes, especially. But from my knowledge of Alpha 19, I can see that items in the Trader's are costing more. It seems like I can't sell the salvage for as much financial gain.

The building blocks - It's quite different to build now. The growing and seeds usage has changed. Seems like a number of ways to "take advantage of the game" have now been nerfed. Difficulty seems to be a bit harder for the same settings as Alpha 19 (which I feel is a good thing).

With all the nice extras, there is a bit of a performance hit though. I did turn down some of my settings to get framerate similar to Alpha 19 framerate. I also went into the start menu, and activated Vulkan (rather than OpenGL) and that seems to now be working okay (and a little faster I feel than OpenGL).
scaine Dec 7, 2021
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Quoting: EMO GANGSTERI love the game and I own it but why is this still in Alpha it came out in 2013

It's not in Alpha, by any stretch. They just stuck with the terminology for some reason. Still, 8 years of continual updates - incredible commitment. I know quite a few dev outfits that would have put out A16 four years ago and drawn a line under it. Indeed, thanks to the legal fiasco that occurred when Tell Tale went under, it's still A16 you'll get on the Xbox and PS4.
slaapliedje Dec 7, 2021
Every time I play this, I run into a show stopping bug. Last time it was whenever I'd get near the Trader's door, it'd teleport me away...

Do find it amusing that it's an Alpha / Early Access, yet it's on the Playstation Store...
SadL Dec 7, 2021
Quoting: slaapliedjeEvery time I play this, I run into a show stopping bug. Last time it was whenever I'd get near the Trader's door, it'd teleport me away...

Do find it amusing that it's an Alpha / Early Access, yet it's on the Playstation Store...
You mean you were getting teleported away even after 6:05? Are you sure the trader was open?
Ehvis Dec 7, 2021
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Quoting: SadL
Quoting: slaapliedjeEvery time I play this, I run into a show stopping bug. Last time it was whenever I'd get near the Trader's door, it'd teleport me away...

Do find it amusing that it's an Alpha / Early Access, yet it's on the Playstation Store...
You mean you were getting teleported away even after 6:05? Are you sure the trader was open?

It would be nice if they shrunk the teleport box a bit so it would only teleport yourself away if you got inside or on top of any of invulnerable blocks. Now it also does it when you just clip the corner when running around it.
Solitary Dec 8, 2021
Quoting: Ehvis
Quoting: SadL
Quoting: slaapliedjeEvery time I play this, I run into a show stopping bug. Last time it was whenever I'd get near the Trader's door, it'd teleport me away...

Do find it amusing that it's an Alpha / Early Access, yet it's on the Playstation Store...
You mean you were getting teleported away even after 6:05? Are you sure the trader was open?

It would be nice if they shrunk the teleport box a bit so it would only teleport yourself away if you got inside or on top of any of invulnerable blocks. Now it also does it when you just clip the corner when running around it.

It always did that. Shrinking it is probably not an option, because if you are able to come too close to it, you might exploit for some protection, because the trader walls are indestructible. If anything, some more clear indication would be probably better solution... let's say, some sort of (red?) flood lights around the compound to indicate where the border is. I can imagine some better iteration will come, but probably isn't on the top of the list currently. Mods might provide some nicer solution.
TheRiddick Dec 8, 2021
Game still runs on OpenGL under Linux doesn't it?
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