7 Days To Die – Alpha 21 update roadmap, release date speculation and features

The Alpha 20 build has been around for a few months, so it makes sense that fans are very much anticipating the Alpha 21 build of the sandbox survival game. The good news is that The Fun Pimps developers are keeping the community happy. They recently released the patch notes for what’s new in the Alpha 21 build of 7 Days to Die.

7 Days to Die Alpha 21 patch notes and release date

According to The Fun Pimps, it’s the Alpha 21 patch done when it’s done. However, that doesn’t stop fans from speculating about it. Given that the game typically receives one major update per year, fans are anticipating Alpha 21 to arrive in mid to late 2023. The good thing is that the developers have at least shared the patch notes for us to find out what Alpha 21 will really include.

What’s new in 7 Days to Die, Alpha 21?

These are the official notes from the 7 Days to Die, Alpha 21 developer diary:

• New sights
• New decorations
  • Cars, trucks, tractors
  • Furniture and many many new items
• Additional advanced world generation options
  • Biome Percentage Slider (Included in Alpha 20.6)
• Learn by reading the system
  • 23 new skills to control the crafting system
  • Added 23 new magazines to loot
  • Perks no longer unlock recipes or control crafting at all
  • The only schematics that still unlock recipes are mod attachments.
  • Crafting skill is increased by finding and reading magazines
  • Skill increases unlock recipes at certain points and increase the quality of crafting quality items
  • Each tech level has a separate area in the skill spectrum so you have to work your way through primitive tech and then iron tech and then steel tech and being able to craft a blue stone ax no longer means that you can also automatically craft a Blue Iron Axe.
  • Some skills have 100 levels, others less, depending on how many recipes and quality levels are unlocked.
  • A new skill page has been added to the player interface that shows your progress
  • Skill Magazines can be found, purchased, and/or obtained as quest rewards. The magazine’s theme corresponds to where you would expect it to be in the world.
  • Perks have a small impact on the likelihood of finding similar magazines and parts for those recipes. Try shotguns and you will find more shotgun magazines and shotgun parts appearing in the world. It’s not a significant bonus, but it does prevent the player from being ripped off.
  • Maxing out a skill decreases that slight chance bonus granted by perks to find the appropriate magazine for that skill. The magazine will still appear randomly in loot, but will no longer have a boost. The probability boost for finding matching pieces remains.
• Interactive environmental hazards
  • Flaming broken gas lines block the way. Elsewhere is a valve to shut off the gas flow.
  • Alpha 21 Interactive Fire Hazard Demo
• doors
  • double doors
  • Partially damaged doors with large holes can be shot/melee through to damage enemies on the other side
• water simulation
  • All new water coding – water is no longer a block, but a water voxel
  • Water voxels flow into adjacent voxels, which are tagged to allow for this.
  • Water can be on the same square as a block
  • Water does not flow or fall continuously like a river or a waterfall
  • Improved player movement in water

Related: When is the 7 Days to Die console update coming?

• armor
  • New iron armor
  • New commando military armor
  • More details to come.
• Drinking water rebalance
  • Murky water is only water found in loot
  • Empty Glass Bottles have been removed from the game to match all other containers in the game
  • A dew collection workstation has been added
  • Players can drink directly from water sources empty-handed by pressing “e”.
  • Pot is now required to boil cloudy water
  • Glue crafting has been taken into account
• spears
  • Spear damage increased
  • A spear attack is a thrust instead of a throw
  • Removed throwing attack for spears
• Chunk reset option
  • Default is disabled
  • Options for days up to 70 days
  • The chunk will revert to its pre-generated state if no player has entered the chunk after the selected number of days.
  • An active LCB or bedroll prevents a chunk from resetting.

• Merchant Changes
  • New Trader Connections
  • Vendor inventories have been rebalanced with the new crafting progression
  • Removal of Secret Stash
  • Further specialization of traders and what they carry
• current changes
  • Wires only visible when holding wire cutting tool

• Player HUD changes
  • Added danger indicator to show the danger level of biomes and POIs
  • The crafting recipe tracker can be toggled to show up on the HUD to help players gather materials needed for crafting
• Perk Rebalancing
  • Sexual T-Rex removed. Stamina improvement is now integrated into the separate perks for each relevant weapon
  • Each attribute gains its own version of Flurry as an additional benefit for the melee weapons within that attribute
  • Grease Monkey now increases the amount of health repair kits restore to vehicles. (A repair kit no longer restores a vehicle to its maximum health)
• vehicle modifications
  • Repair Kits restore a set amount of health, and each level of Grease Monkey adds 10% of the vehicle’s total health to the amount restored.
  • Increased vehicle damage to blocks, terrain, and units by various amounts.
  • Increased vehicle damage from collisions by various amounts
  • Improved collision calculations for vehicle blocks
  • Greatly increased damage dealt and taken from block collisions.
  • Increased Bike, Gyro, and 4×4 health
  • Vehicle spark effects on larger self-damage hits
  • Vehicle blood spatter effects on high damage collisions with entities

Related: Where to find antibiotics in 7 Days to Die

Roadmap to Gold and Beyond

• bandits
• armor
• Weather
• Factions & History
• Steam workshop support

There is no doubt that The Fun Pimps developers have ambitious plans for 7 Days to Die, not just with the Alpha 21 update but in general. Let’s hope that the update will come as soon as possible.

For more information on 7 Days to Die, see How to get and use Lockpicks in 7 Days to Die in the Pro Game Guides here.