7 Days To Die V3.2.0: Patch Notes, Build IDs and What It Changes For Your Server

The 3.2.0 you are running today is not the 3.2.0 that shipped on August 26

If you took a multi-gigabyte update at the end of August and went looking for patch notes that did not exist, this is why.

The 3.2.0 build was replaced on August 31 without a version bump and without release notes. Steam's own branch data for the dedicated server app (294420) is unambiguous about it:

Three things follow from that table, and each one matters to somebody running a server.

The version number is still 3.2.0, but the binaries are not the ones from release day. The build that opened on latest_experimental on August 19 was 24825789. What was on the default branch from August 31 until V3.3.0 replaced it on October 5 was 24994542, compiled on August 28 and pushed to both public and the pinned v3.2.0 branch on August 31. The Fun Pimps did not publish notes for it, and did not call it 3.2.1. So "I am on 3.2.0" no longer identifies which code you are actually running.

Pinning to v3.2.0 did not protect you. This is the part worth internalising if you pin branches to keep a server stable. The named v3.2.0 branch was repointed to the new build at the same time as public, so a server pinned to the version-named branch took the change too. A pinned branch name is a statement about the version label, not a guarantee of a frozen build.

3.3 then went through public testing and became the stable. The Fun Pimps announced V3.3.0 EXP on September 24, 2026: build 25518420 (b14) went up on September 25, hours after the announcement, the b17 update (25542643) replaced it on September 29, and the b18 update (25661908) on October 1. On October 5 that same 25661908 was promoted to public and the new v3.3.0 branch, so V3.3.0 became what everyone got by default, until V3.4.0 replaced it on October 26. The 3.3 page covers what it changes.

How to see which build you actually have

On a dedicated server, read it out of the Steam manifest rather than trusting the version string in the log:

grep '"buildid"' steamapps/appmanifest_294420.acf

26310339 means V3.4.0 with the b10 update of November 2, 26237934 the b9 hotfix of October 28, 26167630 the V3.4.0 build that went stable on October 26, and 25661908 means V3.3.0. 24994542 means the August 31 build of 3.2.0, and 24825789 the 3.2.0 release-day build that has not been restarted into an update since. Either can be the right answer; the point is knowing which one you are testing against before you report a bug or blame a modlet.

Is V3.3.0 out?

Yes. It was the stable build from October 5, 2026 until V3.4.0 replaced it on October 26. It opened on latest_experimental on September 24 and was promoted after eleven days with the b18 build unchanged (25661908 for the dedicated server, 25661859 for the game client). It replaced V3.2.0, which stays available on the pinned v3.2.0 branch. The 3.3 page has the backpacks, the known issues and what changes for a server.

Is V3.2.0 out?

Yes, and it was the stable build from August 26 until October 5, 2026. It went up on the latest_experimental branch on August 19, 2026 and was promoted to the default public branch on August 26, 2026, replacing V3.1.0, which had been stable since July 27.

This is consistent with what The Fun Pimps said they wanted after 3.0: smaller, more frequent updates instead of long alpha cycles. V3.2.0 is a couple of features plus a fix pass, not a headline release.

The experimental window ran seven days, in line with the roughly five-day promotions on the previous two cycles. The Fun Pimps used the stable announcement to confirm a dedicated team for these smaller releases, separate from the teams building major versions, so 3.3 and beyond should arrive on a similar cadence.

What that cadence produced next was one unannounced rebuild of 3.2.0 rather than a 3.2.1, as the build table above shows, and then V3.3.0, which opened on the experimental branch on September 24, 29 days after 3.2 went stable, and became the stable on October 5.

What comes after 3.2

Asked directly on the release thread whether 3.3 and 3.4 would be QoL and bug fixes only, a TFP developer answered that they "will contain a variety of changes based on what is ready to release". That is deliberately non-committal, but it confirms two more numbered updates on the small-release cadence before the next major milestone, and it matches how 3.1 and 3.2 were assembled: whatever cleared testing, shipped. The bigger swings - bandits above all - remain a V4.0 conversation, and our 2026 roadmap tracks where each of these releases sits in the plan.

3.3 started public testing on September 24, 2026 and went stable on October 5. The signal to watch was latest_experimental jumping past the default branch, and it did, with The Fun Pimps announcing it as V3.3.0 EXP the same day. 3.4 followed the same way: The Fun Pimps opened V3.4.0 EXP on latest_experimental on October 23, 2026 (dedicated server build 26144984), with a search bar and filters for the backpack and containers, and promoted it to stable on October 26 (build 26167630), followed by the b9 hotfix on October 28 (build 26237934) and the b10 update on November 2 (build 26310339).

V3.3.0: what it changes for a server

V3.3.0 has its own page now: 7 Days to Die 3.3. In short, it brings the Bigger Backpack system (an 8x6 base inventory of 48 slots, and Small, Medium and Large backpacks that take it to as many as 96), Pack Mule rebalanced to match, and a short fix list. Nothing in serverconfig.xml or the sandbox options moved between 3.2.0 and 3.3.0, so a 3.2 config and SandboxCode carry over. An overhaul server stays on 3.2 until its authors move, and its players pin v3.2.0.

How to get it on PC

Nothing to opt into. V3.4.0 is the default public build since October 26, so Steam updates you on the next launch. If you are still on latest_experimental, you are on V3.4.0 b6, two updates behind the default branch, and Steam no longer lists that branch as public, so switch back to the default public version under Properties > Game Versions & Betas. To stay on 3.2, for a server or an overhaul mod that has not moved, pick v3.2.0 there instead: a client and a server on different versions cannot connect.

Back up the save you care about before the first launch on a new build. That is ordinary practice on any version bump, not a warning specific to this one.

The Fun Pimps did not mention Xbox or PlayStation in the 3.2 or 3.3 stable announcements, so check your platform's store for those two. 3.4 is on consoles: The Fun Pimps wrote that its b9 hotfix of October 28 was deployed "on all platforms", and V3.1.0 had shipped to PC and both consoles on the same day.

The two headline features

Honk to open trader doors

Your vehicle's horn now opens the outer doors at traders, so you can pull up to Rekt without dismounting. Not every door responds to every vehicle, and on-screen text tells you when you are close enough for it to work.

To stop this from opening doors you did not mean to open, a new door variant called oldWoodDoorNoHonk was added for trader interiors. It has replaced the interior oldWoodDoor in Rekt, Hugh and Joel, so inner doors stay shut when you sound the horn outside.

The Combine Station is readable now

The Combine Station UI was reworked so the result and its final stats are visible before you commit to the combine. A plus marker flags items that have already been combined, and combining is now an explicit button press instead of something that happens implicitly while you are arranging items.

This mostly matters because the old flow made it easy to destroy a good roll by accident.

What actually matters if you run a server

The feature list is short. The server-side changes are the reason to read the patch notes at all.

Four of those deserve a caveat rather than a celebration.

Do not skip the fix list, because one entry in it changes how you fight. "Demolition zombies not exploding from client damage" is filed as a bug fix, but what it means in practice is that demolishers now detonate from damage dealt by a client, where previously they did not. On a dedicated server, every player except the host is a client. If your group has been comfortably shooting demolishers because nothing ever went off, that habit is now expensive. This was the change the release thread singled out as the one buried in the wrong section.

The custom POI push is the biggest operational change in the release, and it is worth being precise about what actually changed. Before 3.2, the server already synchronised world and chunk block state, which is why a custom POI could physically appear and be walkable for a client that never installed it, console players on crossplay servers included. What was never transferred was the prefab data itself: imposters, POI identification, key racks, buttons, triggers and custom-POI quest behaviour could all break, because the client had blocks, not a POI. The 3.2 server-to-client metadata package addresses that missing layer. What remains unproven, and the release-thread discussion landed in the same place, is whether it also fixes quests at custom POIs - the Stay Within breakage server owners have reported since 2.5. The patch notes do not claim it does. Treat custom-POI questing as untested until someone demonstrates it on this build.

The screamer change is the one most likely to break a modlet. If any modlet on your server overrides entitygroups.xml, it will still apply its own version of the file and may put the chain-spawn behaviour straight back, or conflict in a messier way. Diff your modlet against the new file before you run this build.

The auto turret change is real and players noticed immediately. It is in the patch notes and it was confirmed by players on the release thread within hours, one of whom pointed out they had been putting a plank under wall turrets purely for looks and now have to do it for real. There is a secondary, unconfirmed report that placement still appears to be permitted and the turret then falls and breaks, with a pink outline as the "cannot place" indicator. If you build with wall turrets, test on a throwaway base first.

Other changes

• Cooking pot, cooking grill and anvil requirement logic fixed, so a held one no longer influences cook time
• Campfires can morph terrain like other blocks again
• Junk loot and general trader inventory can supply cotton when Crop Yield is set to none, which unblocks a progression dead end on low-yield rulesets
• Timid animals detect threats better
• New buff icons for the chicken stress events introduced in 3.1
• Some Chinese localization clarified

Fixes

• Being unable to craft lower-tier items after unlocking them
• Demolition zombies not exploding from client damage
• Rabbits running too slow
• Permadeath not granting Base Skill Points on death
• Loot Max Tier clamping user mods
• Entities causing blocks to collapse during chunk resets
• The "Failed to search EOS servers" popup

If you run mods, check these before updating

1. entitygroups.xml - the screamer scout groups changed. Any modlet overriding this file needs a diff.
2. Prefab properties - if you author or ship POIs, AllowTopSoilDecorations is gone and AllowDecorations replaces part of what it did.
3. Trader interior doors - oldWoodDoorNoHonk replaced oldWoodDoor inside Rekt, Hugh and Joel. A modlet that edits those trader prefabs may now be editing a door that is no longer there.
4. Turret-based base designs - wall mounting is gone, so any prefab or blueprint that mounts auto turrets on walls needs reworking.

Overhaul mods are never on a new stable immediately. Darkness Falls, Undead Legacy, Ravenhearst and the rest pin a specific game build and recertify after a stable lands, so expect a lag of days to weeks now that 3.4 is the default. Our one-click modpacks stay on the stable line for that reason.

Reported but not confirmed

These came from players on release day. None of them are TFP statements and we have not reproduced any of them. They are here because if you are hitting one of them, it helps to know you are not alone, and because they are the sort of thing an experimental branch exists to surface.

• Quest progression settings on a dedicated server reported broken for at least two patches, and not addressed in 3.2
• Clothing disappearing from an existing character, icon and all, with no option to equip newly found clothing. The same player reported a fresh save behaved normally, which points at a save-migration issue rather than a general one
• Items lost through the world after a crash (a drone and a truck) with no way to recover or re-acquire them
• Crossplay still not working, reported several days before the 3.2 build
• A screamer loop on 3.2.0, reported at the end of August by a player who had screamers arriving in a continuous chain while working on a base. Worth flagging precisely because 3.2 is the release that removed screamers calling more screamers: heat-driven screamer spawning is untouched, so a hot base can still draw them one after another, and that is not the behaviour the patch notes removed. If you see this, the useful detail to capture is whether a screamer is spawning another screamer or whether your heat map is simply saturated
• Pathing oddities on 3.2, reported without a reliable reproduction

One report from the same thread did get a staff answer: for player-placed vending machines dumping their inventory after changing the trader-restock sandbox setting, TFP's Dollie replied that the issue "should have been fixed already" and asked anyone still hitting it to file a bug report with reproduction steps. If that one bites you on 3.2, a report is explicitly wanted.

If you can reproduce any of these, they are worth reporting now that 3.2 is the build everyone is on.

A note on the honk feature

Opening trader gates from a vehicle has existed as a community mod for a long time, and the reaction on release day was a mix of "about time" and irritation that a modder's idea shipped as a vanilla feature. That is a community sentiment, not something we can adjudicate, but it does answer a practical question: if you were running a remote-gate modlet, you can probably drop it on 3.2, and you should check it for conflicts rather than leaving it stacked on top of the vanilla implementation.

Frequently asked questions

Is 7 Days to Die 3.2 out?

Yes. It was the default from August 26 to October 5, 2026, when V3.3.0 replaced it; 3.2 stays available on the pinned v3.2.0 branch.

What is the current stable version of 7 Days to Die?

V3.4.0, stable since October 26, 2026. It replaced V3.3.0 (October 5), which replaced V3.2.0, the default branch from August 26, and before it V3.1.0 "Henpocalypse" from July 27. See the full V3.1.0 notes for what that release changed.

When did V3.2.0 go stable?

August 26, 2026, seven days after it opened on latest_experimental.

I downloaded a big update with no patch notes. What was it?

The 3.2.0 build itself was replaced on August 31, 2026, with no version bump and no release notes. The default branch and the pinned v3.2.0 branch both moved to build 24994542, compiled on August 28. There is no 3.2.1: the version number stayed at 3.2.0 while the code underneath it changed, which is exactly why searching for patch notes turns up nothing. The build table above has the dates, and a one-line command to check which build you are on.

Is 3.3 out yet, or in experimental?

Out, as the stable build since October 5, 2026. It was experimental from September 24 and was promoted with the b18 build unchanged, so it is the default and Steam updates you on the next launch. Your server and your players must be on the same version to connect. What is in it and its known issues.

Does pinning my server to the v3.2.0 branch freeze the build?

No, and August proved it. The named v3.2.0 branch was repointed to the new August 28 build on the same day as the default branch, so a server pinned to the version name took the change anyway. Branch pinning fixes the label, not the binaries. If you need a genuinely frozen build, keep your own copy of the server files and deploy that, rather than relying on the branch name to hold still.

What will be in 3.3 and 3.4?

Both are out. 3.3: the Bigger Backpack system with an 8x6 base inventory, simpler respawn logic and a short fix list (details on the 3.3 page). 3.4 opened as V3.4.0 EXP on October 23, 2026 and went stable on October 26: a search bar and category filters for the backpack and containers, traders that recover a lost drone, and fixes. Asked on the 3.2 release thread whether these would be QoL and fixes only, a TFP developer said they "will contain a variety of changes based on what is ready to release" - so the small-release cadence continues, with scope decided by what clears testing. The larger features, bandits included, belong to the V4.0 discussion.

Should I move my server to 3.3?

Yes, unless it runs an overhaul that has not moved. Players' Steam clients update to 3.4 by default and cannot join a 3.2 server, so a vanilla server belongs on 3.4, and no new world is needed. The 3.3 page has the details.

Is 3.2 on Xbox or PlayStation?

The 3.2 stable announcement covered the Steam release and did not mention console, and neither did the 3.3 one, so check your platform's store for those. 3.4 is on PlayStation and Xbox: The Fun Pimps wrote that its b9 hotfix of October 28 was deployed "on all platforms". V3.1.0 had gone to PC, PlayStation and Xbox on the same day.

Do I need to start a new world for 3.2?

Nothing in the notes forces a new world. Back up before the first launch on the new build anyway, as with any version bump.

Will my mods work on 3.2?

Check before you rely on it. Overhaul mods pin a game build and recertify after a stable lands rather than during the experimental week, so expect a lag of days to weeks. Small modlets often carry over, but any modlet touching entitygroups.xml is specifically at risk this patch.

Did demolishers change in 3.2?

Effectively yes, though it is filed as a fix rather than a change. Demolition zombies now explode from damage dealt by a client, which they previously did not. On a dedicated server everyone except the host is a client, so a group that had gotten used to shooting demolishers safely needs to unlearn that.

Does 3.2 fix the screamer horde problem?

It removes screamers calling more screamers, which is the runaway part. Screamers still spawn from heat as normal.

Related

• V3.1.0 Henpocalypse - the stable before 3.2, and what 3.2 replaced
• V3.0 Dead Hot Summer - the major release the 3.x line is built on, including the 150-option sandbox layer
• V4.0 - the next major update, no date, and where bandits actually stand
• SandboxCode generator - build and encode your ruleset in the browser
• How to install modlets - and how to check one against a new build
• 7 Days to Die Roadmap 2026 - where 3.2 sits in the wider plan
• Official 7 Days to Die news on Steam - the studio's own release announcements