The Survivalists Reviews
Team17 have done it again with another endearingly designed, vastly comprehensive fun experience. The Survivalists is one of the best crafting games that I have played and one of my favourite games of the year.
The Survivalists keeps everything simple and easy to follow but has some very rich and deep systems that keep the game from becoming stale. From playing solo or with friends, there really is so much to enjoy with this game and I found it really relaxing and a fantastic change of pace from all the big action AAA games around right now that I really hope this game does not slip under the radar as once again TEAM 17 have come up with a beautiful and rewarding game that is best when shared with friends but also as a full on solo experience should you choose.
The Survivalists is a fun survival sandbox which can be played both as an arcade adventure, hunting for every treasure and secret hidden around the island, and with a more casual approach by trying to just build some kind of boat and leave. Plenty of situations to face, a huge amount of structures, artifacts and recipes to unlock and experiment with. Each run will be an unique adventure. Monkey training is the icing on the cake. Pretty, fast and responsive, it will keep you in front of the screen for a long time. The game also features a multiplayer mode that unfortunately I couldn't try.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Survivalists is a great sandbox game that will have you exploring for hours, whether you’re playing by yourself or with friends. With its engaging and colourful pixelated environment, it’s easy to while away the hours roaming the game’s beaches or sailing the seas. If you don’t mind a non-linear gaming experience and you’re not afraid to explore the world in your own time, this game will be a joy to play.
Team17 has become one of my favorite publishers because they always seem to deliver quality games and The Survivalists is no exception. It’s a great little survival game that you can enjoy with friends online or alone with your army of monkeys as I did.
Overall, The Survivalists offers potentially limitless gameplay due to the uniqueness of the island biomes, the exploration, and the incorporation of multiplayer functionality. A few aspects, such as the constant hunger, the tedious and repetitive tasks, and a lack of local co-op or cross-platform play may irk more casual players who are looking to escape chores in the real world, though. Still, there is much fun to be had here, and besides, who doesn’t want a legion of monkeys serving them?
As I have noted a few times before, in general survival games haven’t tended to be a favorite of mine in the past...
Monkeys, man's best friends! This motto can be applied very well to The Survivalists. Without the hairy companion, you are very quickly lost at the title. The game offers a solid sandbox survival adventure with strengths and weaknesses. The crafting aspect is the highlight of the title. Many different items need to be built by the stranded person to make island life bearable. Also the constant hunger is not as bad as it sounds at the beginning. Since the food can't rot, you can build a big camp. On the negative side, it should be mentioned that crafting often gets in the way of itself. If you want to create several objects at the same time, you can do this in a detour. Also, if you have several monkeys, it can get confusing if you want to teach a certain monkey something. All in all The Survivalists remains a beautifully designed survival game with an enormous learning curve. The different biomes are nice to look at and a long-term motivation is definitely given by the different generated worlds.
Review in German | Read full review
The Survivalists is a survival game that's surprisingly accessible and fun.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Survivalists is a good survival game with the essence of The Escapists. The exploration and coop works so well, but the crafting system is awkward.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The new title from infamous Team17 is an standard survival game that manages to entertain, even though it cannot add anything new to the genre.
Review in Persian | Read full review
The Survivalists is not one of the most original games of all time, but it manages to deliver everything that it proposes to the player, with a great creation system (although it is more truncated than it should be), a neat pixel art look and secrets every time more curious for the more dedicated, offering an extra dose of fun to play alone or with other people.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The Survivalists is a great change-up to the core formula of this series, and it’s got some fun moments to it as you try to escape.
The Survivalists has its merits. The adventure has good ideas and manages to provide good moments (especially in multiplayer), but veteran players will soon realize that there is a lack of content after a few hours, and the absence of a more robust challenge unfortunately can also result in a tranquility that dangerously borders on monotony. The base built here is solid, and I hope that the developers keep the promises established by the roadmap and deliver new content in the future.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The Survivalists is a calm and serene survival game and monkey butler training broken up by spurts of risky combat and dungeon crawling with your trained monkey attack squad. If it wasn't for a few awkward design decisions it'd be fantastic, but it's still a good survival game that you can tackle with friends online.
The Survivalists is just an OK game that you will probably enjoy for a few weeks and then put away and never play again. It's a shame because it has the foundations of something excellent, but it's all just too simple and tedious. If the mechanics were better, the crafting was easier, there were more things to build, more types of mobs, and some clear objective like escaping the island or fighting a series of mini-bosses, we wouldn't be talking about a little throw-away game, here; we'd be talking about a true hidden gem.
Interesting and charming in its own way, The Survivalists will keep you entertained in short bursts as you try to complete the main objective and craft items to stay alive. Unfortunately, the AI system of your monkey companions is quite cumbersome and clunky. You'll often find yourself more annoyed than delighted due to all the monkeying around.
In an industry that has shifted from being “kid-friendly” to “adult-focused,” it’s imperative to remember that some games simply won’t work for the more aged gamers (30 is aged, right?). That’s not to say The Survivalists won’t resonate with adults — if this is your cup of banana smoothie, by all means — but it seems to be trying to speak with a younger audience. If you’re lamenting that school has started and you can’t devote as many hours to Minecraft with friends as you’d like, you’re probably going to love The Survivalists. Either that, or I’m a monkey’s uncle.
If you’ve been interested in survival games in the past but were turned off by high difficulty levels and complexity of systems, this is the game for you.