7 Days To Die is a well-thought-out, open-world zombie survival game, that includes base-building and tower defense gameplay. It can be challenging, and has a fairly steep learning curve. However, experienced players may find the game getting stale after a few playthroughs, and mods can help with this.

Whether playing solo or in co-op mode on a private server with friends, a few sensible mods can make the game more fun, as well as improve the quality of life for players. Simple mods can add extra backpack space or something similarly minor. More comprehensive mods might transform the game entirely. Whether players are looking to simplify a 7D2D playthrough, or want a significantly increased challenge, there is likely a mod that will suit their needs.

Best Server-Side Mods For A 7 Days To Die Private Server
Best Server-Side Mods For A 7 Days To Die Private Server

There are a few nifty server-side mods perfect for any private 7 Days To Die server. Here's what mods are worth trying out to improve gameplay.

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Updated on August 30th, 2024, by Mac Wheeler: 7 Days To Die has gone gold since this list was first published, and it made sense to revisit it and check that all of the current mods listed still work under V1.0 of the game. It is also a good chance to add any great new mods which have come out since this article's publication that can extend and improve the gameplay.

11 7D2D Mod Launcher

The Best Way To Manage 7D2D Mods

Mod Launcher For 7 Days To Die

The first entry on this list is not a mod for 7 Days To Die per se. It is a utility for installing mods for the game easily. This is a desktop application the player needs to download and install. Once done, the application can be used to install a huge range of 7D2D mods with a single click.

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The 7D2D Mod Launcher creates a clone of the original game install, and does not modify the original files. The launcher copies the game files to a new directory, downloads the required mods, and applies them to this fresh copy of the game. Once done, a play button appears. It is perfect for trying all the total conversion and quality of life mods on this list.

10 Dryzler's Sort Everything Into Chests

Easily Store And Sort Loot

Dryzler's Sort Everything Into Chests Mod For 7 Days To Die

What an outstandingly useful quality-of-life mod this is for 7 Days To Die players. Anyone who has played well into the late-game will know that the sheer volume of loot that needs to be sorted and stored after spending time out exploring and running missions becomes unmanageable at times. This mod solves the problem entirely.

All that a player has to do is stand within 50 meters of their storage chests and press Left Alt + Numpad 0 together, and this mod will automatically move all the loot from the player's inventory to its relevant storage chests. This only works when the player has their backpack inventory window open. The only downside of this mod is that it won’t work on private servers that have EAC enabled.

9 That Should Be Lootable

Makes More Containers Lootable

That Should be Lootable Mod For 7 Days To Die

New players to 7 Days To Die must often scratch their heads over why some containers are lootable, while others, even though they look like they should be, are not. The That Should be Lootable mod aims to address the issue of non-lootable containers by making everything that should be logically lootable into a lootable container.

For example, stacks of boxes that are generally just part of the environment are now lootable, as are many of the containers that spawn inside trader compounds. What really makes this mod stand out from similar mods though is that it uses the standard 7 Days To Die loot pool for these new lootable containers.

8 Horn Opens Doors

Why Does This Need A Mod?

Horn Opens Doors Mod For 7 Days To Die

Sometimes a mod author makes such a tiny yet game-changing tweak to a game that it is hard to see why the developers didn’t include the change in the base game. This is one such mod. Players who want to enter their base in a vehicle usually have to jump off, open the gates, get back in their vehicle, drive into the base, get off, and close the gates. Doing this time and time again becomes tedious.

This mod adds functionality to almost all gates and doors in the game that a player can construct. With two quick blasts of the vehicle’s horn, the door or gate will open, and the player can drive through. So simple, and so badly needed. This is a must-have mod for anyone who has a large base and wants to drive their vehicle inside without the frustration of doing it the normal way.

7 Reset Trader's Quests

Useful Quality Of Life Mod

Reset Trader's Quests Mod For 7 Days To Die

This is a fantastic little mod for 7 Days To Die. It adds a small, yet incredibly useful, quality of life change. All this mod does is add a refresh option for trader quests. The new option is added to the trader conversation options, and works for all traders across the open-world map.

In update 21 of 7DTD, the level, loot, and skill progression systems were changed significantly, making them much slower. The end result was that trader missions became much more important, especially in the early game. However, a trader only offers five missions per day, and once a player has completed them all, they have to wait until the next morning for the list to refresh. This mod solves this problem.

6 Sort Trader's Quests by Distance

Saving A Long Walk

Sort Trader's Quests by Distance Mod For 7 Days To Die

This mod for 7 Days To Die can be considered a companion mod to the previous entry. It is by the same author, and once again modifies the trader conversation tree. It sorts the list of available missions by the distance the player needs to travel to the quest objective.

In the early game, when a player does not have access to a vehicle, it can take quite some time to run across the game map to reach a quest objective. This mod ensures that players don’t accidentally take quests that are so far away, they are not worth doing.

5 Better Vanilla

Quality Of Life Mod Package

Better Vanilla Mod For 7 Days To Die

As quality of life mods for 7 Days To Die go, this is the big one. As the name suggests, it aims to fix many of the complaints that players have about the vanilla game, by making some intelligent changes. This mod wraps many QoL changes into a single package.

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Some of the more useful changes are increased player inventory, extra slots in the crafting queue, extra processing slots in the forge, and larger inventory stacks. However, it contains far more than can be listed here. All of these QoL mods can be configured through a new in-game menu.

4 Wild West

Old West Total Conversion Mod

Wild West Mod For 7 Days To Die
  • Mod Author: arramus
  • Download Link: Wild West

Wild West is the first total conversion mod for 7 Days To Die on this list. As the name suggests, it switches the base game to a more Wild West theme. It increases the saturation of Old West POIs, and adds quite a few new buildings to pad these towns out.

Many of the zombie models have been updated to fit this new setting, adding gear such as adding cowboy hats and Old West weapon models. Much of the scenery has been replaced. For example, wrecked cars and trucks are replaced with wagons and carts. Player weapons have also been changed to fit the theme, and the UI has been modified to suit the overall aesthetic.

3 District Zero

Sci-Fi Total Conversion Mod

District Zero Mod For 7 Days To Die

District Zero is a 7 Days To Die total conversion mod with a bit of a twist. Zombies have been reinforced with mechanical allies in the form of androids, cyborgs, mechs, and droids. Traders have also been replaced with mechanical counterparts.

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However, it is the gameplay changes that really make this mod shine. The entire skill tree has been reworked, and new skills and perks have been added to fit with the cyberpunk theme. Completely new sets of sci-fi vehicles, weapons, and armor have been added as well. Players looking to spice up 7DTD gameplay might like to try this mod out.

2 Ravenhearst

Challenging Total Conversion Mod

Ravenhearst Mod For 7 Days To Die

Players who are looking for the ultimate challenge when playing 7 Days To Die need to try this mod. The entire premise is to tweak the vanilla game in ways that increase the difficulty. This means everything from how many zombies spawn and how tough they are, to making player progression much more difficult.

The mod also changes some of the general gameplay mechanics, such as carrying weight, backpack slots, food, and medicine. Skills and perks have been reworked, to make progression more logical. The complexity of crafting has also been increased, meaning players will struggle to mass produce ammo, for example. This mod makes the game hard for solo players, but great fun for a small co-op group working together.