Mike has a gun, an engineering background, and one very important plant to find. Unfortunately, the route to it involves hostile creatures, sandstorms, lightning, toxic gas, resource gathering, and enough machinery to keep any engineer happily tinkering for hours.
Survivesmith has now entered Early Access from Stardust-Forge Games, combining bullet heaven combat with crafting, exploration, and a base that needs almost as much attention as the world outside. The current build includes two regions, six explorable biomes, more than 20 resources, upgradeable gear, four buddies, and a Titan boss waiting at the end of the hunt.
Being an Engineer Comes in Handy
Mike doesn’t simply step outside and hope something useful drops. Before every expedition, you can choose his primary weapon, survival gear, buddy, tools, skills, and Haz-Pro equipment. There are still plenty of random elements once the run begins, but you get a decent say in what goes into the backpack first.
That preparation becomes important once the weather joins in. Different biomes bring their own hazards, including heavy rain, lightning strikes, darkness, sandstorms, and corrupted gases. Haz-Pro gear can protect you, but it needs repairing, so surviving a trip isn’t just about keeping enemies off the screen.
Sometimes the storm is the problem, sometimes the monsters are, and other times you forgot to fix the suit.
Take the Gun Apart Until It Does Something Better
Mike currently has three primary weapons, but the real tinkering starts with mods. Four different mod categories can be swapped during a run, changing how your gun behaves rather than simply making the numbers bigger. Stardust-Forge Games even warns that not every combination will work.
Sub-weapons and armor modules can also be upgraded, enhanced, and evolved as a run continues. The current gear system puts more focus on improving a smaller loadout instead of carrying every weapon you find.
That should suit anyone who gets more enjoyment from making one ridiculous gun than collecting 12 perfectly average ones.
Scrap Piles Can Be Very Exciting
Exploration has its own rewards too. More than 20 resources can be gathered across the available biomes. Some come from mineral deposits or trees, others from scrap piles, creatures, and anything else useful enough to take back home. Points of interest hide extra rewards, while Survey Sites provide data needed for research.
Your buddy can help with the workload. Four companions are currently available, with jobs covering combat, healing, and resource gathering. They earn experience during expeditions and have their own upgrade trees back at base. Having someone else pick up the scrap while you deal with a robot horde seems like a fair division of labor.
Everything Comes Back to the Base
Mike’s base contains eight terminals handling different parts of progression. Resources feed into research on the Life Plant at the Bio Lab. Energy crystals keep the Power Generator running, while the Refabricator turns raw materials into refined ones. There are also permanent upgrades and unlocks waiting between expeditions.
The Early Access version already includes three mini-bosses and one Titan encounter. Stardust-Forge Games expects development to continue for around six to eight months, with plans for a third region, elemental reactions, gear fusion, more characters, extra equipment, events, and additional modes before version 1.0.
For now, there are six biomes to explore and one Life Plant somewhere out there so you better bring the toolkit.