It's done! Welcome to my game! I put zombies in it.


To celebrate the game leaving early access, some of the youtubers from the discord have been making videos or will be streaming over the course of the week, keep an eye out for them at the top of the store page!

Yes, the 1st of June 2020 feels like not that long ago but terrifyingly it was almost five whole years - that's how long this game was in Early Access for. (I intended it to last "approximately one year"!) A lot has happened in that time - Story Mode, vehicles, friendships and relationships, chickens, constitution and rescuing, extortion squads, surrendering, alliances, infected weapons, hitting the road, numerous quality of life features (remember when you had to manually loot every corpse and sort your loot into buildings, or could only assign one role per person?), 11 complete translations, greatly expanded mod support, etc. Plus it's now on XBox Series!


Of course the game didn't start in 2020, the closed beta started in 2019, and I actually started development around 2016, using the Survivalist code as a base. The original Survivalist launched on Steam in 2015 (after which I added multiplayer). Before that, it launched on XBox 360 (XBLIG) in 2014. And I originally started development in 2009. So you might say this game has been in development for a while.

What does the future hold? As mentioned before I still haven't decided yet - one option would be to make another sequel, as I still have a long wishlist of ideas I would have dearly loved to put in this game. The other option is a new project that I have in my head which would really like to get out. It would share a lot of DNA with Survivalist though so, either way, Survivalist will continue in some form.

Meanwhile, the relentless march of publicbeta continues with the latest patch, v243. This concludes a playthrough and bug sweep I've been doing leading up to launch - here's the change list:

• Fix for Morgan Harding staying stuck on the spot after she returns home after warning Tent City
  
• Fix for kicking not causing damage in fisticuffs against allies
  
• Fix for NPCs saying they know their leader would pay you to bring them food, when their leader is dead
  
• Fix for characters getting stuck in a loop searching for containers if you set Carry Amount to 1 for cooking pots
  
• For modders, if you set up a recipe to build a vehicle, it will be driveable once built
  
• Don't show Abandon action for under-construction buildings (just demolish them instead)
  
• Fix for Out Of Sync error when adding wood to a fire while having both wood and charcoal in inventory
  
• Fix for NPCs getting stuck continually shooting and missing a camping stool
  
• Fix for vehicles taking full damage when parked touching the dump truck
  
• Fix for you losing approval if you loot the corpses of NPCs from the 'Turned' community
  
• Fix for incorrect speech when sending Emma to the safe zone
  
• Fix NPCs from a settlement with no campfires repeatedly picking up unconscious bodies to try to rescue them, but then dropping them immediately
  
• Fix for character spinning round on the spot trying to pay respects to a corpse they are carrying
  
• Fix for wrong backpack sometimes being equipped after you hit the road
  
• Fix for Out Of Sync error on character creation screen when hitting the road sometimes
  
• Updated Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, German, Hungarian, Latin American Spanish, Russian and Spanish translations
  

And the previous patch, v242, has made it to the main branch!

Some people have asked whether publicbeta will end now that Early Access is ending. The answer is no, it will continue to be the way I release patches :) And there will continue to be patches in future, at least because there are several translations being actively worked on.

What's this publicbeta thing?

v243 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".