REAL TIME
A 30-day season takes 30 real days. Clocks run 1:1, dusk comes when it comes, and every hour of the cold is an hour you actually live through.
NEVER STOPS
Log off and your survivor carries on: gathering, building, sleeping and running from wolves on their own schedule. Your friends can watch them do it.
THE WINTER WINS
Early frosts are an annoyance. By midwinter an unprotected survivor freezes in about three hours. Snow piles up, storms turn into blizzards.
Come ashore. Get ready.
A ship drops you on an unknown island with a knife, a little food and a captain's promise to come back in a month. Everything between now and then is up to you.
A hand-painted island, ten kilometres wide
Maps are huge, streamed in as you walk, with rivers carved by erosion, lakes, caves under the hills and a harsher climate the further north you go. Three marked places on your map are the only lead you have.
- Worlds up to 10 km across
- Rivers, fords, forests, ruins and hamlets
- Caves with real darkness: bring a torch
Design your own shelter, wall by wall
There is no house button. You lay floors, drag out walls, hang doors and choose a roof. Close the loop and the room becomes a home: warmer, better for sleep, faster for healing.
- Wattle and thatch, timber, stone, clay tile and slate
- Hipped roofs that follow any outline
- Barns, palisades, ramparts and gates
Farm, forage, hunt, fish, preserve
Till plots, dig wells, make compost and grow under cold frames. Cure and smoke your harvest so it lasts, because the ground will not give you much after the first hard frost.
- Crops with water and fertility to manage
- Smokehouse, drying rack, salting barrel and root cellar
- Thirst, hunger, warmth and energy all matter
Deer, wolves, bears and the animals you tame
Animals breed, grow old, rest at night and hunt each other. Wolves form packs and flank their prey. Win a cow's trust, ride a horse, or tame a wolf of your own, then keep your herd warm in a barn.
- Predators hunt, starve and scavenge
- Sneak by with Ctrl to keep wildlife calm
- Livestock that gives milk, eggs and wool
It only gets colder
Weather, snowfall and the wildlife all worsen as the season runs out. Early nights are cold. The last ones are brutal.
LANDFALL
Mild days, cold nights. Gather, craft, light your first fire.
FIRST SNOW
Patches of white creep across the grass. Harvest before it is buried.
THE DEEP COLD
Snow stays. Clothes, roofs and fires are the difference between life and death.
BLIZZARD
Whiteout storms, howling wind and a captain who is nowhere in sight.
Skills, metals and a very big crafting tree
Everything you do trains you. Levels unlock recipes and buildings, and anything you have not unlocked yet stays hidden until you earn it.
You are what you practise
Chop to get stronger, sprint to get faster, craft to learn faster. Building, crafting, farming, survival, smithing, combat, stealth, medicine and cooking each have their own ladder.
- Smelt tin, copper, bronze, iron and steel
- Forge tools, weapons and armour
- Leather, fur, wool and iron clothing
Set a schedule, then go live your life
Your survivor plans their own day: twelve two-hour slots, each mapped to an activity. They will gather what a recipe needs, keep minimum stocks, tend a farm and treat the wounded. Pick the controls back up whenever you like.
- Reflexes for cold, thirst, hunger and danger
- Minimum-stock rules for your supplies
- Helps with sites on land you share
Alone, with friends, or against them
Single player is just a private server, so every feature works the same in multiplayer. Host from the menu or run the dedicated server on an always-on machine for a world that truly never sleeps.
SURVIVE
Last until the match ends as the weather worsens and the animals grow fierce. Stay down too long without treatment and you die.
ENDLESS
A calm, never-ending world: fixed weather, no deaths, and no clock. Build the farm or the fortress you always wanted.
LAST MAN STANDING
PvP on the island. Claim land to stay safe, arm up, and be the last one on your feet. Fallen players come back as wolves.
Every pixel is painted in code
The art is 3D pixel art, rendered from tiny models with banded light from the upper left. Click any picture to see it larger.
Coming soon to Steam
Surviving the Season is on its way to Steam. The store page will go live soon, and wishlisting it is the best way to hear about launch. Until then, you can follow development on GitHub.
More storefronts may follow after launch.