Getting Started with The Survivalists
Start by picking up every pebble and patch of long grass around your beach alcove and chopping trees for Timber, then craft a Hand Axe from 3 Pebbles and a Flimsy Multitool from 2 Timber and 1 Rope. Build a Campfire so you can cook, then work toward a Small Chest and a Crafting Bench. Place a bed and put a Makeshift Bed Sheet on it before nightfall, because a bed without a sheet does nothing. Once you are stable, befriend monkeys with the item each one asks for and teach them to gather and fight while you push toward rafts, labyrinths, and the galleon escape.
The Survivalists is a survival sandbox game developed and published by Team17, set in the same universe as The Escapists. You wash ashore on a procedurally generated island with nothing but your hands and a vague desire to not die. From there, you gather resources, craft tools, build a base, recruit monkeys, explore neighboring islands, raid labyrinths, and eventually repair a wrecked galleon to escape.
The game released on October 9, 2020 for Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, macOS, and iOS. It supports online co-op for up to four players. A typical first escape takes 15 to 25 hours depending on how much time you spend building and exploring before tackling the four labyrinths.
The Survivalists got three large free updates after launch: animal taming in December 2020, farming in February 2021, and the Expeditions Update in June 2021, which added quests, the Taskmasters, and the trinket system. The paid Frostbite Fortress DLC followed in March 2026 with a frozen biome, its own labyrinth, and potion brewing. These guides cover the base game in full. DLC coverage is limited to what Team17 have published, because the expansion is still largely undocumented.
How the Game Works
You start on a 1-star island, the lowest danger rating, in a small beach alcove. The game gives you a brief tutorial overlay, but the real learning happens through experimentation and dying.
Here is the core loop:
- Gather basic resources (pebbles, long grass, palm leaves) from the ground around you.
- Craft your first tools: a Hand Axe and a Flimsy Multitool.
- Use tools to harvest wood, stone, and plant fibers from trees, rocks, and grass.
- Build crafting stations (crafting bench, campfire) to unlock advanced recipes.
- Cook food to keep your hunger bar full and your health regenerating.
- Recruit monkeys and train them to automate gathering, crafting, and combat.
- Build a raft and sail to neighboring islands for better resources and labyrinth access.
- Clear all four labyrinths to collect the four ship parts needed to repair the galleon.
- Find the galleon, repair it, and escape.
Your First Day
The opening minutes set the tone for everything. Move fast, prioritize food and tools, and build shelter before nightfall.
Step 1: Grab Everything on the Ground
Walk along the beach and pick up every loose item you see. Pebbles, long grass, palm leaves, berries, and coconuts are scattered around your starting alcove. You need pebbles immediately for your first tool. Timber is the one thing you cannot pick up, since it comes from chopping trees and shrubs once you have something to chop with.
Step 2: Craft a Hand Axe
Open your crafting menu and make a Hand Axe (3 Pebbles). This is your first real tool. It lets you chop trees for Timber and cut long grass, and it doubles as your first weapon.
Step 3: Make a Multitool
The Multitool is the most important item in the game. Craft a Flimsy Multitool (2 Timber, 1 Rope) as soon as you can gather the materials. Rope comes straight from Long Grass at 3 per Rope, and it unlocks the moment you craft the Hand Axe. Straw Bundles are a separate recipe costing 4 Long Grass, and they feed Straw Walls and Comfy Padding and never Rope, so do not waste grass on them yet. The multitool lets you use crafting stations, build structures, and handle most advanced tasks. Always carry one.
Step 4: Build a Campfire and Cook Food
Build a Campfire (6 Pebbles) and cook raw food. This is the first station in your Blueprint tab, so you can place one the moment you have the pebbles. A few berries and a coconut will keep you alive, but cooked meals restore far more. A Meat Kebab takes 2 Meat Chunks or 4 Meat Scraps and heals a solid chunk of health alongside the hunger.
Charcoal does not appear passively when a campfire burns out. Craft it at a Campfire using 3 Timber, chop the dead trees in the Badlands and Volcanic biomes, or dig up tree stumps with a Shovel. Stockpile at least 10, because a finished Forge will not craft anything until you light it with 10 Charcoal.
Step 5: Build a Crafting Bench
The Crafting Bench is gated behind two things the game does not spell out. Build a Small Chest first to unlock the bench recipe, then craft the Wooden Rods (3 Timber and 1 Rope each) the bench is actually made of.
Place a Crafting Bench (3 Stone Chunk, 2 Wooden Rod, 3 Rope) near your starting area. Note that Stone Chunks are crafted from 6 Pebbles each and never mined, so a bench is a bigger pebble bill than it looks.
Step 6: Build a Bed and a Bed Sheet
Craft a Flimsy Bed from 1 Comfy Padding, place it, then craft a Makeshift Bed Sheet from 3 Palm Leaf and use it on the bed. The bed does nothing until it has a sheet, which is the single most common reason a new player cannot sleep.
Placing a bed sets your home wherever it stands. There are no roofs or ceilings in this game, so you do not need to enclose it, though walls are worth adding for raid protection. If you die without a bed, you respawn at the original island spawn location.
Survival Mechanics
Hunger
Your hunger bar depletes over time. When it empties, your health starts dropping. Eating raw berries and coconuts works in emergencies, but cooked food restores significantly more.
| Food Type | Restores | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Raw Berries | 5 hunger, 5 health | Emergency snack. Better used as a crafting ingredient. |
| Coconut | 5 hunger, 5 health | Identical to berries. Break open by hitting it. Found under palm trees. |
| Foul Meal | 50 hunger, 1 health | Unpleasant but edible. You mainly want it for befriending monkeys. |
| Fruit Smoothie | 50 hunger, 20 health | 2 Berries, 2 Coconuts, 1 Palm Leaf at a Campfire. |
| Meat Kebab | 20 hunger, 50 health | 2 Meat Chunks or 4 Meat Scraps at a Campfire. A healing item first. |
| Sizzling Steak | 100 hunger, 100 health | 4 Steaks, 4 Berries, 1 Makeshift Bowl at a Campfire. |
| Slow Cooked Stew | Full, plus buffs | 6 Bat Wing, 2 Steak, 2 Makeshift Bowl at a Campfire. Raises max health and max stamina by 100 each. |
Health and Stamina
Eating food heals you, and sleeping in a bed restores health too. Stamina drains from two things only, sprinting and charged power attacks. Normal swings and dodge rolls cost nothing, so roll as often as you like. Stamina regenerates on its own when you stop sprinting.
Dodge-rolling with the correct timing grants invincibility frames. This is the core defensive mechanic in combat. Learn the timing on low-threat enemies before fighting anything dangerous.
Day and Night Cycle
Visibility drops at night. Enemies become harder to spot and some biomes spawn additional threats after dark. Torches provide light, and a campfire near your base creates a safe glow. Early on, stay near your base at night and use daytime for exploration.
Resource Gathering
Every crafting recipe chains back to a handful of base materials. Knowing where to find them keeps you from wasting time.
| Resource | Source | Used For |
|---|---|---|
| Pebbles | Beach, ground, mining rocks | Hand Axe, Campfire, Stone Chunks |
| Timber | Chop trees and shrubs | Nearly everything. Your primary building material. |
| Stone Chunks | Craft from 6 Pebbles by hand | Crafting Bench, Forge, walls |
| Long Grass | Tall grass patches | Rope at 3 per Rope, Straw Bundles at 4 |
| Rope | Craft from 3 Long Grass | Tools, structures, weapons |
| Palm Leaf | Palm trees | Bed Sheets, Comfy Padding, most cooked food |
| Mud | Dig with a Shovel in Swamp or Meadows | Forge, stone walls, floor tiles |
| Berries | Berry bushes | Food, Smoothies, crafting |
| Meat | Kill animals | Cooked food (Kebabs, Steaks) |
| Petals | Flowers | Foul Meals, Elixirs, farming |
Two of these trip people up. Rocks drop Pebbles, not Stone Chunks. Stone Chunk is a hand recipe costing 6 Pebbles, so the Forge at 16 Stone Chunks is really a 96-pebble build. And Mud needs a Shovel, so you cannot start a Forge until you have made one.
Crafting Stations
Your crafting expands as you build new stations. Each station unlocks its own recipe pool.
| Station | Recipe | What It Unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| Campfire | 6 Pebbles | Cooked food, Charcoal (3 Timber each), Elixirs. Available from the start |
| Crafting Bench | 3 Stone Chunk, 2 Wooden Rod, 3 Rope | Basic tools, weapons, structural pieces. Build a Small Chest first |
| Repair Bench | 6 Stone Chunk, 4 Wooden Slat, 6 Rope | Restores worn tools and weapons to full durability. Unlocks right after the Crafting Bench |
| Forge | 8 Mud, 16 Stone Chunks | Metal and gold ingots, tools, weapons, glass. Light it with 10 Charcoal first |
| Cooking Pot | 12 Pebbles, 1 Bucket | The pastry tree. Requires the Forge first |
Build the Repair Bench the moment it appears. Most players write it off as a late-game station for legendary weapons, and it is not. It restores any worn tool or weapon to full durability for almost nothing, and a Flimsy Multitool costs 1 Rope to repair. Skipping it means throwing away tools you could have kept for the whole run.
Build your crafting stations close together. Monkeys trained to craft will walk between stations and storage chests, so shorter distances mean faster automation.
Recruiting Your First Monkey
Monkeys are the defining mechanic of The Survivalists. They handle everything from chopping trees to defending your base.
You get your first monkey wandering the starting island. After that they come from cages, mostly in vaults, plus labyrinths and Orcling camps. The starting island has exactly one wild monkey and no more, so build a raft or crack a vault instead of combing the beach for a second.
Walk up to a wild monkey and it shows you the item it wants in exchange for friendship. Early monkeys usually ask for a Foul Meal, which you craft at a Campfire:
- 3 Petals
- 3 Long Grass
- 1 Timber
Some ask for something else, such as a Bucket or a Glass Bowl, so check the request before you cook. Hand over the right item and the monkey joins your group. Monkeys you free from cages cost nothing at all. Train each one for a specific task using the Mimic System, covered in depth in the Monkey Training and Automation guide.
The item was called the Monkey Meal at launch and used a different recipe. Look for Foul Meal in your Campfire recipes.
For your first session, recruit at least two monkeys. Teach one to harvest and hand the other a weapon, which is all it takes to put a monkey into combat mode. Even a monkey with a Wooden Club makes a difference when an Orcling patrol wanders into your camp.
Building Your First Base
Location matters. The starting alcove is decent for your first few hours because it has natural walls on two or three sides. Once you have a raft, consider relocating to a coastal spot where water covers one flank, limiting the directions raids can come from.
A functional early base needs:
- Walls around your crafting area (straw or wooden)
- Storage chests near your crafting bench for organized materials
- A campfire inside or just outside your walls for cooking
- A bed with a Makeshift Bed Sheet on it for setting your home point
- Spike traps outside the walls, which you unlock through the building menu
There are no roofs or ceilings in this game, so do not go looking for one. Do not build your base deep in the island interior where enemies wander freely. Stick to the coast until you have armed monkeys and decent weapons.
Raids run on the Blood Moon cycle, which comes around every five in-game days, roughly an hour of real time. The moon turns red at night and the raid arrives the next day, so you always get a full night of warning. Since the 2021 Farming Update raiders spawn wherever you are standing and never at your bed, so walling in the bed specifically buys you nothing. The Blood Moon also restores every resource and respawns every enemy in the world, and that is how the island stays farmable.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I do first in The Survivalists?
Walk the beach and pick up every loose pebble, patch of long grass, palm leaf, berry, and coconut in your starting alcove, then craft a Hand Axe from 3 Pebbles. That first tool lets you chop trees for Timber and cut long grass, and it doubles as your first weapon.
How do you make a multitool in The Survivalists?
Craft a Flimsy Multitool from 2 Timber and 1 Rope. Rope comes straight from Long Grass at 3 per Rope, not from Straw Bundles, which are a separate recipe. The multitool lets you use crafting stations, build structures, and handle most advanced tasks, so always carry one.
How do you tame a monkey in The Survivalists?
Each stray monkey asks for a specific item, and it shows you which one when you walk up. Early monkeys usually want a Foul Meal, crafted at a Campfire from 3 Petals, 3 Long Grass, and 1 Timber, but others ask for a Bucket, a Glass Bowl, or something pricier. Monkeys you free from cages join for nothing.
Why can I not sleep in my bed?
A bed does nothing until it has a bed sheet on it. Craft a Makeshift Bed Sheet from 3 Palm Leaf and use it on the bed. This is the most common reason a new player cannot sleep, and the game does not explain it.
How do you get Charcoal in The Survivalists?
Charcoal does not appear on its own when a campfire burns out. Craft it at a Campfire using 3 Timber, chop the dead trees in the Badlands and Volcanic biomes, or dig up tree stumps with a Shovel. Stockpile at least 10, because a finished Forge will not craft anything until you light it with 10 Charcoal.
What to Read Next
These guides cover every major system:
- Monkey Training and Automation. The full mimic system, task specialization, combat training, farming automation, and advanced strategies.
- Islands, Biomes, and Labyrinths. All five islands (plus the Frozen DLC biome), vault mechanics, labyrinth walkthroughs, Taskmasters, and the galleon escape.
- Crafting and Combat. Weapon tiers, tool progression, food recipes, forge usage, trinkets, elemental weapons, combat techniques, and raid defense.
- Farming and Alchemy. Crop cultivation, orchards, monkey farming automation, the Alchemy Bench, and the Frostbite Fortress DLC.
- Achievement Guide. All 42 Steam achievements with unlock conditions, global completion rates, and recommended completion strategies.
- Tips and Tricks. Short mechanics the guides cover in passing, from bed sheets to raid spawns.