Best 7 Days to Die Mods: Try These While Waiting for Alpha 2

It’s hard to believe that 7 Days to Die has been around for nearly 8 years. It’s even harder to believe that it’s somehow still in the Alpha stage after nearly 8 years.

If somehow you haven’t heard of it, 7 days to die is yet another survival game. The hook here is you must survive increasingly difficult zombie hordes that appear, you guessed it, every 7 days.

The game features all the usual elements of a survival game, based building, survival meters, etc, and throws in several different varieties of zombies.

Despite its endless Alpha phase, 7 Days to Die has seen a lot of popularity. Deservedly so!

The game even survived the shuttering of its publisher, Telltale games. Although this is probably one of the reasons the game is STILL in alpha. It is currently in alpha 19, with alpha 20 hopefully just around the corner. 

However, it can feel like there are long waiting times between updates, and said updates don’t always address everything the fanbase wants them to.

This means 7 Days to Die has developed a very healthy modding community that supports the game in between alpha phases.

We’ve compiled the best 7 Days to Die mods to be found so you can perfect your gaming experience whilst we wait for Alpha 20.

Before You Start

Modding 7 Days to Die isn’t too complex in theory. All you need to do is create a “Mods” folder in the game directory and extract your mods to it. However, since 7 Days to Die is still in early access, there are some things you need to be careful of when installing mods.

The game is currently in  Alpha 19 with Alpha 20 coming soon. Unfortunately, not all 7DTD mods are compatible with each Alpha version.  Older 7 Days to Die mods may not work on newer versions and vice versa.

The community is pretty good at keeping mods up to date, especially the most popular ones. But just be warned if you update to A20 as soon as it releases you may find some of your favorite mods either don’t work, only work partially, or have become buggy. 

When installing mods have a look at when the file was last updated to make sure you’re not installing anything too outdated.

To help you out these are all 7 Days to Die Alpha 18 mods and 7 Days to Die Alpha 19 mods.

Where to Get 7 Days to Die Mods

Lots of sites just presume that you know where to find 7 Days to Die mods or will just provide links to 7D2D mods (like I’ve done below). But this is just a shortlist of the literally hundreds of 7daystodiemods available.

So where can you find even more 7 Days to Die mods?

Well, you need to be careful when you look for mods. Anyone old enough to remember the GTA V crazy planes controversy is aware that mods can contain malware.

The three main options when downloading 7 days to die mods are; Nexusmods, 7daystodiemods, and the official 7daystodie forum.

Nexusmods

Nexusmods is my personal favorite. If you’ve downloaded mods for other games you’re probably familiar with it. It has a sizable collection of Seven Days to Die mods and curates them into different categories.

You can even search by how popular 7 days to die mod is which is great. This makes it way easier to find the best 7 days to die mods.

7daystodiemods

7daystodiemods is also a good place to find mods. It’s not as easy to use and doesn’t have quite as many options as Nexusmods.

The site UI also isn’t as easy to navigate. However, it does a much better job of making it clear which mods work on which versions of the game. The site has a tab for both A18 mods and 7 Days to Die Alpha 19 mods, which is great.

On Nexus, you have to read individual 7dtd mod descriptions to work out if the 7dtd mod will work. These are often wordy and confusing. Half the time you just have to look at the last time the mod was updated to know if it still works or not.

7daystodie forum

Finally, we have the official forum. This is probably the worst way to find 7 Days to Die mods. All you can do is scroll through posts until you find a 7dtd mod you like the look of.

Best 7 Days to Die Mods

1. Firearms Expansion 4

Some people like to get up close and personal when they’re bashing zombie brains in. Really get in their rotten faces. Some of us, myself included, like to keep our distance.

Unfortunately, there are only around 20 weapons currently available in vanilla 7dtd. And most of them are not very imaginative.

This awesome mod adds 30 extra weapons to the game, from the mundane up to miniguns. Even better, each gun is compatible with weapon modifications already available in the game and existing weapons have been given extra versatility. 

Just note that if you want to use this mod in 7 days to die multiplayer the mod needs to be installed on your 7 Days to Die server as well as locally. 

Max out your firepower here.

2. SMX

So 7 Days to Die is both a horror and a survival game. But some users don’t feel the developers have got the tone quite right yet and that the game’s UI reflects this.

Well the incredibly popular SMX mod has this covered. This mod overhauls 3 major parts of the game’s entire UI.

The most impressive part of the HUD is the new in-game HUD. The aim here was to make the HUD as unobtrusive and simple as possible whilst giving it a darker, more horror-flavored edge.

Total success. I love the look of the new HUD. It manages to not be overbearing whilst still keeping all the info you might need on screen.  It also includes a new menu style. This mimics the new HUDs art style. It’s a cool change but not as much of a game-changer. 

The final part of the mod is the general UI overhaul. The modder has tried to mimic the new Hud style while keeping actual changes to how you use the UI minimal. 

The new Hud looks great and the creator has added in a couple of optional gameplay tweaks to boot which help the new UI fit in. You gain a 5th crafting slot, a 3rd forge slot, and bigger backpacks. Should you want them.

The SMX mod is great if you’re growing bored of the vanilla design and want something a bit creepier. 

Get it here. 

3. Bdub’s Vehicles

The maps generated for 7 Days to Die can get pretty big and full of zombies. With a new blood moon coming every 7 days you’ll find that you want to limit the amount of time you spend hoofing it around the map.

The vanilla game features a limited number of vehicles. 2 cars, 1 bicycle, 2 motorbikes, and a copter. This is a little limited. If you spend a lot of hours in-game you’ll soon grow bored of using the vehicle day-in-day-out. 

Well BDUB has you covered. This mod adds over 20 exciting new vehicles to the game. Some are a little mundane, like normal cars but we also get hotrods and Humvees. Even better, these vehicles have been designed to not ruin the game’s balance. 

These aren’t “cheat vehicles”. They all have their limitations. They are designed to go alongside, not replace the vanilla vehicles.

Get behind the wheel here.

4. The Wasteland

It’s probably a fair assumption that if you’re a 7 Days to Die fan you probably like a little bit of Fallout too.

This mod is incredibly impressive and can only be described as a labor of love. It packs the game full of features and callbacks to the Fallout games.

First up, the boring old zombies are swapped out with Mutants, Raiders, and Soldiers.

Next, the modder has brought in a whole host of melee and ranged weapons from the main Fallout games. These range from the loy 10mm pistol up to a plasma rifle and Fatman. They’ve even imported weapon mods from Fallout 4. Even the most popular legendary weapons are here.

Finally, the mod features the prized Power Armor, with a selection of paint jobs.

All in all, it’s a late-game, impressive mod that breathes new life into the game, especially for Fallout fans waiting for Fallout 5.

This is one of my favorite 7 Days 2 Die mods.

Find it here

5. Darkness Falls

This mod originally started as one man’s attempt to fix a few things that bugged him about 7 Days to Die. Over time the mod has grown into this behemoth. 

The mod is three things. 

Firstly much of the mod is aimed at making the game harder. The early game, in particular, is extended and many recipes are now locked behind higher-level skills.

The creator also seems to have taken inspiration from Dying Light. Ferals now appear at night and nighttime, in general, is much harder. 

Secondly, he’s tried to fix things that bug him as an experienced gamer. There are a ton of gameplay tweaks here. These are mostly aimed at making tasks less of a chore to do.

Thirdly he’s just added in things that he wants. Some new weapons are cool and he’s also added back in features from earlier Alpha versions that he misses.

If you’re an experienced player looking for more, try it out here.

6. Zombie Loot Drop Increase

One of the most common player gripes with the game is the zombies themselves. The chances of getting something from a downed zombie is a measly 2%.

This means that more often than not, taking them down is a complete waste of time and resources. And I think we can all agree running away from zombies all the time because it’s just not worth killing them gets boring pretty fast.

This is a nice simple mod that changes all that. Loot drop rates can be altered to -10%, 15%, 20%, 25%. On top of this, the despawn timer on loot bags is extended to 15 minutes.

Awesome! Just be warned that all the extra loot laying around, especially during hordes can take a toll on performance, especially on potato rigs.

Make sure you loot everything in sight to avoid this performance dip.

Loot it here.

7. Custom Zombies Mod

One of the biggest complaints some people have about zombie games is that they’re boring. That zombies make uninteresting enemies.

I disagree. I never tire of popping shambling zombie heads. But what do I know?

This little beauty adds over 30 new Zombies to the game. Most of these zombies are pretty cool. They’re not just reskins of existing zombies but introduce entirely new buffs/ debuffs to the game. 

This mod is great if you want to up the difficulty of the game or just want to unleash some carnage on your server. 

Try it out here.

8. Age of Oblivion

This is a huge overhaul mod to the base game. It started life as an overhaul of the Farmlife mod which had become out of date. 

As such the mod massively improves farming in the game. The mod balances farming and give you a lot more food and crop options. It also adds over 30 new vehicles, new workstations, recruitable zombies, enhanced pets, new quests, challenges, and tons more.

To be honest the mod is so huge I just can’t list everything here. It’s one of the most substantial 7days to die mods out there. 

Check out the mod page for yourself here.

9. Sorcery Mod

This is another overhaul mod. But this time, we’re adding magic to the game. 

Of course, adding powerful magic to a survival game sounds like a good way to wreck the balance and therefore much of the fun.

The base game is left completely untouched. So you can pretty much play like normal and ignore all the magical shenanigans if you like. If you do decide to delve into the magical side however you’ll find this mod is balanced towards the vanilla gameplay. 

You’ll have to train and gather resources to become a powerful mage. This is an impressive mod that includes new crafting options, skill trees, enemies, weapons mods, and loot. To name just a few. 

This is a great option if you want to make the game a little less “realistic” and a little more fun. 

Get It Here

10. HDHQ Overhaul

To say 7 Days to Die isn’t a pretty game is a bit of an understatement. At times it can be flat-out ugly. You would think then that there would be a lot of choices than when it comes to graphics-focused 7 days mods.

Wrong! It’s surprisingly difficult finding any 7 Days to Die mods that overhaul the game. 

In reality, HDHQ overhaul is probably your only option. It includes 2K and 4K texture packs which go a long way to beautifying the game. It also attempts to fix some of the game’s substandard lighting effects, overhaul the biomes, and add some reskins to items and weapons. 

Like any graphics mod, this all comes with a hit to performance. So if you’re looking to run this thing make sure your rig is way above the game’s usual minimum requirements. 

Unfortunately, there’s a catch here. The mod hasn’t been updated in over a year which means it has limited functionality with A19. It will still work, just not all the features. And when A20 rolls around we’ll probably be looking at even less functionality.

When it comes to seven Days to Die mods that improve graphics we’ll probably have to wait until the game comes out of beta. Hopefully, then the modders will be able to keep up. 

Get the mod here

11. Custom Perks- Prestige Skills

A common complaint in regards to 7 days to die is after a few hours you reach a plateau. Eventually, you either end up dumping skill points into skills you never use or just stop bothering altogether. This mod aims to solve that problem.

Custom Perks adds 50 new perks with either 5 or 10 levels each.  Each perk has diminishing returns to try and maintain balance. So the more points you put in, the less you get out. 

The creator states that this mod is aimed at players playing on higher difficulties as the added skills might make you OP otherwise. The perks are powerful enough to help you out without feeling like cheats. 

Get more skills here.

12. Bragado’s Zombie Fiesta

Like I said earlier, there are surprisingly few 7 Days to Die mods aimed at graphics, which is a bummer.

The Zombie fiesta mod is focused on making the titular zombies look better. In this game, you’re going to kill A LOT of zombies, and you’re going to be killing the same ones over and over again. 

One of the biggest limitations of any zombie game is there are often loads of zombies but a very limited amount of skins. This mod adds 56 news Zombies skins, each with a feral and radiant variant. 

On top of this, each zombie has 5-6 variations and 5 random walk types. That’s a huge amount of variety that should stop the zombie killing from going stale quite so fast. There’s also a lot more gore on show here, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Get more zombies here

Best 7 Days to Die Base Building Mod

13. Prefab Mod

One of my favorite parts of any survival game is building my base. It’s so important to 7 Days to Die I’ve even given it its section.

Starting with just a tiny room with a basic crafting station and building up and up until you have a sweet, twenty-room, tricked-out fortress. (Then a zombie horde comes along and knocks the whole thing down)

Or you spend hours building a base. Only to realize it’s an ugly, basic-looking mess of right angles. I’m no architect. 

This is where the Prefab mod comes in. Prefabs are ready-made, awesome buildings you can just plonk down and move right into. This mod adds over 80 mods, with more coming. They range from simple apartment blocks to Hospitals and Asylums. They’re cool!

Some of these Prefabs are pretty huge and won’t fit into a normal map. Because of this,  you’ll need to use the included custom map if you want to check out all these buildings.

This is one of the better 7 Days to Die mods aimed at improving the base building.

Try it out here

Conclusion

It’s not always easy being a 7 Days to Die fan. The game has so much potential. It could easily be one of the best survival games out there. But it often feels like the game is stuck in development hell. And there is no clear date on when the game will finally come out of Alpha.

For the latest updates, you should sign up for the 7d2d forums. Thankfully the game has an amazing, dedicated modding community.  They’re out there fixing problems we have with the game and even adding functionality.

Whether you’re looking to change the difficulty of the games, make it look nicer, or just want more to do, these amazing people have you covered. And it won’t cost you a penny.

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