[2024] version 1? no banditen, no horses or dogs

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3227963183

Bandits are slated for spring/summer of next year. The link above shows the timeline of several other features as well. They are calling this next release 1.0 as the end of their Alpha phase and exit from Steam's Early Access program but the full version won't be complete until the end of 2025.

They did add bandits briefly for A16 but shortly after release disabled them although their code was still available for modders to use. Since then they have redone bandits from scratch and started on AI and character models and creating hooks for them to work with certain POIs. The 3rd person view animations that are coming out for this next update are also related to bandits being able to be implemented. You are correct that the kept getting pushed but they are still definitely in the plan and with the game going 1.0 all of the focus to get the existing game ready for that will be able to shift back to the remaining features they want to add.

They specifically stated that all features, bandits included, that were intended for the finished version of the base game will continue to be free updates.

7 Days Blood Moons is only superficially similar to the old Horde Mode of 7 Days to Die. In actual gameplay practice it is pretty different which will become more and more apparent once Blood Moons actually releases to Early Access and people can start playing it.

I still hope that Horde Mode will return to 7 Days to Die. I don't think it would compete against Illogika's upcoming spin-off game at all.