it seems to be missing pretty common features from any other survival game, like maybe I'm missing something but trees don't regrow nor does tall grass? I expected there to be a grind to the gameplay but it's really accentuated in the early game because you're progressively having to go out further and further just to find the basic resources you'd easily stumble across at the start. I do like the monkey companions you get that can help you with crafting, but the command system is super finicky and confusing, mainly when you're trying to get it to craft something. It would work much better if you could simply give your companion a command from a list. Also the monkey companions don't pull items from your own inventory, meaning you have to place items on a crafting table before they can do their part. I think you can automate it better with multiple of the companions but I'm super early into the game so I'm not sure? I don't think I'd be enjoying my time with this if I wasn't playing it with a friend because it's nothing special as far as survival games go, but it's fun as a novelty I guess.

I get what this game is trying to do. The concept and trailer of the game looks really fun, you spawn on an island, explore, sail and discover more islands, build and craft things to gather materials and make a base to survive, grow and cook food, hunt, defend your base, explore dungeons, and even train your own monkeys who can help with gathering materials and fighting against enemies.

Even though this sounds like a ton of fun on paper, the problem with this game is that it's just not fun, even when i was playing with my friends i was still struggling to find any fun. It's a boring and tedious experience. It's really dissapointing considering i adore the Escapist games.

It's really difficult for survival crafting games to make you feel like the endless grind for resources is actually worth it, sometimes it's with some kind of multiplayer element like in Rust, or a unique setting like in Subnautica or the level to which you can maniplulate the environment like in Minecraft. So what is the Survivalists unique selling point? Monkeys.

Now I like monkeys as much as the next guy, in fact probably more than the next guy, but unfortunately mechanically they simply annoying. Basically you can utilise monkey slavery in order to farm resources or craft things, however becuse you keep having to give them new tools, run around collecting the resources they produce and keep giving them new orders when they run out of stuff to do it them a pain in the ass to actually use. Plus I want to feel like i'm the one surviving, collecting resources and making things, not exploiting a bunch of monkeys to do it for me, and keep in mind this is basically the games only unqiue selling point.

I really couldn't shake the feeling that I was wasting my time playing this, it's a combination of it's generic setting, annoying controls and pointless grind.

The basic idea behind this game is sound but has been done better elsewhere. Build things, grow food, defend your house, etc. It feels kind of miserable to control and even small structures (like stone walls to enclose a 2x2 area) take a nearly prohibitive amount of resources to complete.

I get the impression that it's designed to encourage the use of the monkey NPCs, (during any longish crafting activity, your guy will get a thought bubble over their head that suggests having the monkeys do it) but they're kind of a pain to set up and they only make the first one easy to find.