Bite-sized Review:
The Survivalists - Frostbite Fortress

By Chris Picone, 29 March, 2026

I hadn't played (or even heard of) The Survivalists until the release of the new Frostbite Fortress DLC, so I had to play my way through that before I could complete the review.  Now it's not without its flaws but my first impression is, wow, this is probably the most ambitious survival game I've played.

Aesthetics

The Survivalists is a great looking game. I'm not entirely sujre how to describe the art style, but I love it.  It's detailed, but not overly so.  Functionality is still prioritised, so it's very easy to tell resources and other important information at a glance.  There's a decent range of biomes; you start on a tropical beach, free to explore the shallow waters and sand - or inland, where you will find forests, predominantly.  But unlike most survival games, exploration is heavily emphasised, and you will also go on treasure hunts and even explore temples & dungeons.  Frostbite Fortress, of course, lets you transport to a new snowy biome, which adds new environmental risks, equipment, monsters, etc.

Gameplay

Aspects of The Survivalists are much like any other survival game. You start with nothing, have to craft yourself dodgy hand axes, clubs, and other tools, hack down a bunch of trees, bushes, and boulders, and collect wood, grass, rocks, etc. Build some crafting tables, craft better gear, rinse repeat. The more you craft, the more you unlock  Each new item wants more advanced resources, which will see you searching far and wide across the island to find.  Combat also features - both a risk for you to deal with but also a source of precious resources. And of course you need to eat to heal, so you'll also be "crafting" food along the way. This leads to probably my biggest complaint about the game:  Crafting is layered.  Which sounds like it should be a good thing, but in practice it means that, for example, to build some furniture, you might need to fetch long grass, manually craft it all into rope, craft more long grass into straw bundles, craft pebbles into stone chunks, then craft each of those things into the next more complex item, then craft those into another, more complex form. That unlocks the next tier of item, which means then you do it all over again. It felt very tedious and grindy very quickly, and also required searching for an incredible amount of base items. Having said that, this could be a strength for other players, who are looking for a longer, more chill sort of experience. Fortunately, the game gives you monkeys to help you. These are controlled by issuing primitive commands, which is fun and certainly speeds things up, but I also found the automation to be a little clunky, and the lack of intuitiveness to be mildly frustrating. The Survivalists does offer one other, very cool, feature:  Multiplayer.  Up to four players can join up and work together.  The Frostbite DLC adds new "stuff" - more items, monsters, something new to look at - but nothing new conceptually, although it does add potion crafting.  

Verdict

I have enjoyed what I've played of The Survivalists so far but I did find it to be a tad too grindy for my taste.  Although, as I mentioned earlier, people who enjoy a chill experience and long, drawn out game, will enjoy it all the more because of it.  The exploration element is very cool, as are the monkeys, and the mulitplayer mode. As for the DLC? I'd say if you're already a fan of The Survivalists, it's definitely worth getting, as a logical sort of sequel to allow you to keep playing in a fresh environment. 

Links: 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4094590/The_Survivalists__Frostbite_Fortress/