The Survivalists

Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.

Mostly Positive · 76%Mostly Positive · 76%2020

$24.99

US Steam price, checked 57 min ago

The verdict

A charming pixel-art survival game built around training monkeys to automate work, best with friends and on sale. It's short, grindy, clunky and abandoned, so skip it at full price.

Great for

Co-op friends or casual players wanting a cozy, light survival crafter with monkey helpers, bought on sale

Main risk

Thin content, clunky controls, bugs and lost saves in a game the developers abandoned, at a high full price

What players love

Monkey automation mechanic

Mentioned in ~1 in 3 positive reviews

“The monkey mechanics are the highlight, having them automate tasks is super satisfying”
Steam review · 18.6 h played ↗

“wake up on remote island tame monkey tame another one before you know it you run army give them weapons and tools run around dominate anything that moves 10/10 love this game”
Steam review · 11.6 h played ↗

“Monkeys can be taught anything; it's especially great that you can drop resources on the ground and they put them in a chest.”
Steam review · translated · 19 h played ↗

Fun and best with friends in co-op

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews

“played the whole thing with a friend and had a really good time Took us around 40 hours to finish it”
Steam review · 40.4 h played ↗

“One of those games where you can play four-player, splitting duties, and everyone has equal fun.”
Steam review · translated · 68.6 h played ↗

Exploration and islands to discover

Mentioned in ~1 in 11 positive reviews

“as you get more monkeys and recipes it turns into a fun adventure game with a lot to discover.”
Steam review · 14.3 h played ↗

“fun detailed and plenty to explore.”
Steam review · 18.3 h played ↗

Charming pixel art and music

Mentioned in ~1 in 12 positive reviews

“The art style is colorful and cute, and the island world feels alive with surprises.”
Steam review · 8.3 h played ↗

“The game is very enjoyable, interesting and atmospheric. The soundtracks are very good.”
Steam review · translated · 10.5 h played ↗

Cozy, relaxing atmosphere

Mentioned in ~1 in 17 positive reviews

“This is the perfect game when you just want to relax”
Steam review · 47.2 h played ↗

“Cozy Game about crafting and Chilling on a tropical island, with amazing music and Monkeys”
Steam review · 18.2 h played ↗

Good on Steam Deck and controller

Mentioned in ~1 in 75 positive reviews

“controller controls are done very well, a great title for Steam Deck.”
Steam review · translated · 8.4 h played ↗

What players complain about

Abandoned by developers, paid DLC

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews

“thanks team 17 for baiting me into spending 15 euro for a "early access" game and then proceeding to do absolutely nothing with it for 4 years straight.”
Steam review · 15.7 h played ↗

“Legit more paid dlcs dropped than gamebreaking bugs fixed since release :/”
Steam review · 3.5 h played ↗

“This game is abandonware. The last content update was in 2021 and Team 17 has been radio silent since.”
Steam review · 29.1 h played ↗

Clunky controls and monkey management

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews

“Monkey mechanics so hard to use that you better do it yourself”
Steam review · 1.4 h played ↗

“The whole thing feels like it was built for a console and never reworked for PC.”
Steam review · 8 h played ↗

“Monkeys need to be retaught all the time, which is annoying; it'd be good to teach once and pick a profession.”
Steam review · translated · 8.2 h played ↗

Buggy and unfinished

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 negative reviews

“The game is interesting but it's just so full of bugs... really ruins the game for me.”
Steam review · 13.2 h played ↗

“it is extremely buggy to the point where your own inventory glitches and the game can softlock you.”
Steam review · 7.2 h played ↗

Too little content, quickly finished

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 negative reviews

“There is little to no content and you experience most of the content in less then 3hours”
Steam review · 8.2 h played ↗

“Content is extremely scarce; within a few hours I unlocked the whole tech tree and all buildings... and there's no point playing further.”
Steam review · translated · 8.2 h played ↗

“this game only gave me 8 hours before I had run out of things to do.”
Steam review · 8 h played ↗

Corrupted or lost saves, no autosave

Mentioned in ~1 in 9 negative reviews

“Save file got corrupted and lost all progress. Apparently this is a very common issue and sometimes happens every 2 days.”
Steam review · 2.9 h played ↗

“I saved the world, came back next time and got a save error.”
Steam review · translated · 6.5 h played ↗

“The lack of an optional autosave feature kills this game.”
Steam review · 8.3 h played ↗

Broken or restricted multiplayer

Mentioned in ~1 in 10 negative reviews

“we keep getting kicked out of each other games.”
Steam review · 0.8 h played ↗

“In co-op there will be quest progression only for the host.”
Steam review · 36 h played ↗

“multiplayer doesn't work.... it always pops up a message... unable to connect to host”
Steam review · 0.5 h played ↗

System requirements

From the Steam store page

Steam Deck: Playable

Minimum

OSWindows 7

ProcessorIntel Core 2 Duo E8400 | AMD Phenom II X2 550

Memory2 GB RAM

GraphicsDirectX 11 Graphics Adapter with 1 GB VRAM

Recommended

OSWindows 10

ProcessorIntel Core i5-2300 | AMD FX-4350

Memory4 GB RAM

GraphicsNvidia GeForce GTS 450, 1 GB | AMD Radeon HD 5770, 1 GB

OSWindows 7

ProcessorIntel Core 2 Duo E8400 | AMD Phenom II X2 550

Memory2 GB RAM

GraphicsDirectX 11 Graphics Adapter with 1 GB VRAM

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