How to collect Plant Fibers in 7 Days to Die, and what to use them for

Within the open-world survival-crafter 7 Days to Die, players are tasked with surviving the zombie apocalypse. By building structures and defenses, leveling up tech, and standing watch at night, players can survive in the land of Navezgane.

As is the case with all survival crafters, players will need to grab simple resources at first, until they can upgrade their equipment enough to tackle advanced resources. The first resource the game will have you gather is Plant Fiber — thankfully, it’s in abundance.

Plant Fiber is gathered simply by punching grass, and it’s almost everywhere outdoors on both Navezgane and generated maps. Punching grass (via left-click when nothing is equipped) will give players two new plant fibers, and destroy the grass item in the ground. Plant fibers are considered to be one of the building blocks of early game crafting, and for good reason.

Crafting within 7 Days to Die takes place both within the inventory and in structures. Plant Fibers are typically used as binding for equipment, fastening sticks and stones together into something greater than the sum of their parts. The first thing players will craft with plant fibers, to appease the tutorial, is a bedroll. Then, a stone axe with plant fibers acting as a binding; plant fibers will operate similarly when it’s time to build the first bow.

While players can use other tools to gather Plant Fibers, such as with the aforementioned stone axe, this will not increase the quantity of plant fiber harvested, and the speed is already a nominal factor with an effective object HP of 1. However, players will naturally progress past needing plant fiber as more modern solutions can eventually be crafted, such as glue, or forging. While plant fibers can act as a quick means to develop clothing, the lack of armor and hyper/hypo protection from the elements with fiber-based clothing means it’s an early game material at most.