7 Days to Die kills new players fast. The combination of hunger, thirst, zombie hordes, and a crafting system with hundreds of recipes overwhelms most people in their first few hours. After watching dozens of new players struggle through the same mistakes, this guide covers exactly what you need to know to survive your first blood moon and build from there. No fluff, just the information that keeps you alive.
Your First 60 Minutes
Spawn in, open your inventory, and look at the four starter quests in your quest log. These quests walk you through basic crafting and reward skill points. Complete them immediately.
Minute 1-10: Punch a tree (hold left click on any tree) until you have 20 Wood. Pick up 15 Small Stones from the ground. Open crafting menu (Tab) and make a Stone Axe. This is your primary tool for the first two days.
Minute 10-30: Use the Stone Axe to chop trees (faster than punching) and mine surface boulders. Collect 50 Wood, 50 Small Stones, and 20 Plant Fibers (punch grass). Craft a Wooden Bow and 30 Stone Arrows. You now have a ranged weapon.
Minute 30-60: Find the nearest building and loot it. Open every container: cupboards, filing cabinets, trash cans, cardboard boxes. You're looking for food, a Cooking Pot, and any weapons or tools. Canned food doesn't require cooking and keeps you alive for the first few days.
Place your Bedroll inside a safe room (second floor, away from windows). This is your respawn point if you die. Without a bedroll, death sends you to a random location and you lose your backpack contents.
Core Systems You Need to Understand
Hunger and Thirst
Both meters drain constantly. Hunger drops about 0.4 per minute while walking, faster when running or fighting. Thirst drains at roughly the same rate. Hitting zero on either meter causes health drain at 1 HP per second.
Quick food sources: Canned food (looted), Boiled Eggs (find bird nests on rooftops), Grilled Meat (kill animals, cook at campfire). Don't eat Rotting Flesh. Ever. The dysentery will kill you faster than zombies.
Clean Water requires boiling Murky Water at a Campfire with a Cooking Pot. Drinking Murky Water directly gives you dysentery (50% of the time), which drains both food and water meters at 2x speed. Always boil it first.
Stamina
Every action costs stamina: swinging weapons, sprinting, jumping, mining. When stamina hits zero, you can't attack or run. This gets new players killed more than anything else. Don't sprint unless you need to. Walking costs zero stamina and you'll need that full bar when zombies show up.
Coffee and stamina food buffs (Bacon and Eggs, Steak and Potato Meal) become essential in mid-game. The Sexual Tyrannosaurus perk (Strength tree) reduces stamina cost of melee attacks by up to 60%.
10 Mistakes That Kill New Players
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Staying on ground level at night. Zombies sprint after 22:00. Get to a rooftop or second floor before dark.
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Not placing a Bedroll. Dying without one means respawning far from your gear.
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Fighting more than 3 zombies at once. Back up, use terrain, pick them off with arrows. Melee against groups is suicide before Day 14.
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Ignoring the Forge. Build it by Day 4. Iron tools are 3x more effective than stone. Without a Forge, you'll fall behind the game's difficulty curve permanently.
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Spreading skill points across all 5 trees. Focus one primary tree. A Perception 8 character with a rifle outperforms a character with 4 points in everything.
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Building a wood base for horde night. Wood blocks have 600 HP. A single feral zombie chews through wood in 8 seconds. Use Cobblestone (1,500 HP) at minimum.
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Forgetting to repair. After every horde night, repair your walls and traps immediately. Starting the next week with damaged defenses means you're already behind.
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Carrying too much. Encumbrance slows your movement speed. Drop items in a chest before horde night. You need full mobility.
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Ignoring the Trader. Trader quests give massive experience, Dukes (currency), and loot. Complete at least 2 quests per week.
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Not preparing for Day 7. The first blood moon catches unprepared players off guard. By Day 5, you should have a defensible position picked out and partially fortified.
Picking Your First Build
Don't overthink this on your first playthrough. Strength is the most forgiving starting tree because melee weapons don't need ammo, the damage is straightforward, and Pack Mule solves inventory problems early.
Put your first 10 points into Strength, grab Skull Crusher (sledgehammer perk) and Pack Mule. This gives you a powerful melee character that can carry everything you loot. On subsequent playthroughs, try Perception (ranged) or Intellect (turrets) once you understand the game's systems better.
Our Best 7 Days to Die Builds page has complete skill allocations for all five attribute trees if you want a specific roadmap.
Horde Night Survival Basics
Blood moons happen every 7 days starting Day 7. The sky turns red, zombies know exactly where you are, and they sprint regardless of time of day. You can't hide from this.
Minimum requirements for Day 7:
- A building with Cobblestone or better walls on the ground floor
- A second-floor position to shoot from
- 100+ arrows or 50+ bullets
- Wood Spikes around the building perimeter (craft with 6 Wood each)
- A repair tool (Stone or Iron) to fix walls between waves
The horde arrives at 22:00 and ends at 04:00. That's 6 in-game hours of constant zombie pressure. Waves come in bursts: 30 seconds of heavy spawns followed by 15 seconds of lighter activity. Use those breaks to reload and repair damaged blocks.
After your first horde night, assess what broke. Which walls took the most damage? Where did zombies get through? Fix those weak points and upgrade them to stronger materials before Day 14. Each horde night teaches you something about base design if you pay attention.
What to Do After Day 7
Once you've survived your first blood moon, the game opens up. You understand the basic loop now: loot, build, survive, improve.
Day 8-14 checklist:
- Build or upgrade to Cobblestone walls everywhere
- Start iron production at your Forge (smelt 500+ iron)
- Reach Trader Tier 2 quests
- Explore a second biome (Desert or Snow for better loot)
- Reach Character Level 15+
The 7 Days to Die Walkthrough covers the complete progression from Day 1 through Day 49+ with specific crafting targets and base upgrade timelines. For weapon recommendations at each phase, check the 7 Days to Die Tier List.
