After you escape from prison, you might find yourself on a tropical island. The Survivalists created by Team 17 seems to be set in the world of The Escapists. This time, you have to craft items to survive on a island. It’s not really a deserted island, as creatures attack you and dungeons are open for exploration. You do have an ace up your sleeve, as monkeys can lend a hand.
After you wash up on the island, you have to start gathering materials and crafting items. The crafting system allows for the necessities, but also things to really make a house a home. Weapons are important too, as things such as pigs and orcs will come around. Around the island are monkeys that you can get to follow you. As you feed them, some can be taught to do simple tasks. When you need some special materials, there are dungeons that can be explored.
What sets The Survivalists apart from other survival games are your monkey helpers. You have to decide what task they will do. Only one task per helper, and if you have them do something by mistake, that is what they will do forever. The mechanics seem a little wonky at first, but it serves the purpose of having a non human do work. The monkeys might chop down trees, but they will not grab the materials. You will have to search to find what they have done. The dungeon crawler part was a surprise.
It seems The Survivalists took parts from a few games. It mostly works, but be prepared to do the same thing a few times over. Survival games all add something different to the genre and The Survivalists adds helpers. The battle system is simple and the craft system is easy to learn. This form of social distancing might be inviting to spend a few hours on.
7/10
Available on PC, Switch, Xbox and PS4