- Czech translation in publicbeta! - 3 February 2026
Hey everyone, new patch! Jiří Linhart who did the Czech translation for Survivalist: Invisible Strain has now done Survivalist too!This patch will be in the publicbeta branch for a little while before moving to the main branch. To find it, right click on the game in Steam, go to Properties, Game Versions & Betas and select "publicbeta".
- Steam Deck Verified & Brazilian Portuguese - 29 June 2025
Hello, it's Survivalist patch time! As mentioned last month, Valve's testing team delved deeply enough into their back catalog to give Survivalist a yellow Playable tick for Steam Deck - meaning they judged it playable with a few minor controls issues. I've now fixed those issues in a new patch (v78) and they've given it a green tick! This is on Proton-9.0-4RC.I think it's the sort of game that works really well on a handheld as the graphics and UI (which were designed for XBox 360 when CRT TVs were still a consideration) look nice and readable on the small screen. Also the top-down view feels logical as it matches the angle you typically hold the Steam Deck at on your lap if you're playing sitting down. So I'm glad it's finally got that tick.Also included in this patch are some updates for the Brazilian Portuguese translation by the indefatigable Arthur Nunes. And speaking of Brazilian…
- Steam Deck Playable rating + Survivalist: Invisible Strain launch! - 26 May 2025
Hello, not a patch but a few updates: Valve have given Survivalist a Playable rating on Steam Deck! Evidently their testing team have been working through their massive back catalog and they've now reached Survivalist! The Playable rating means it works fine but there are a few issues such as keyboard button prompts being shown in places, which prevent it from having a green tick. I'm going to be looking at those and resubmitting it in the near future to try and get the full green tick, but in the meantime, it's nice to be offically recognized in some form ;) Survivalist: Invisible Strain has left Early Access, and launched on XBox Series! Well actually that happened exactly one month ago yesterday, but with everything going on around launch I forgot to post about it on here, the news page of the game that started it all! Oops. In case you weren't aware, Survivalist: Invisible Strain is…
- New patch with Brazilian Portuguese updates (v77) - 3 January 2025
Hello, I've released a small patch with improvements for the Brazilian Portuguese translation. Arthur the translator has been diligently playtesting it and making corrections over the last couple of months, and these are the results :) Happy New Year! ːJoeWheelerApprovesː
- Brazilian Portuguese Added - 17 October 2024
Well, you wait years for an update and then two come along at once. The game now has a Brazilian Portuguese translation! Many thanks to the translator, Arthur 'Loki' Nunes for producing what looks like a a very comprehensive translation, e.g. with good support for gender agreement when names get inserted into the text and suchlike. ːJoeWheelerApprovesː I should probably mention, because I know someone will ask, that unfortunately I still can't translate it into Asian languages with large character sets like Chinese, Japanese or Korean. This is because it uses a very old fashioned font rendering system as part of XNA. I've tried before, and I couldn't make it work. Sorry about that. (Survivalist: Invisible Strain, on the other hand, uses Unity and has translations for all of the above)
- Another Steam Deck patch! (v75) - 27 September 2024
It turns out that the latest Proton patch for Steam Deck (Proton 9.0-3) broke Survivalist again. I didn't realize that for a while as I stupidly didn't twig where some crash reports people sent me had come from, but I've now released a new patch to fix it - many thanks to those who reported it! ːJoeWheelerApprovesː I also found some Out of Sync errors playing online co-op between a PC and a Steam Deck and fixed those. Look, it works! ːGreenStrainːSo it's now working on Proton 9.0-3. Previously I had it working on Proton 7.0-6 and I believe it still did on Proton 8.0-5. I have some concerns about the current "Experimental" Proton build so I advise you not to use that. If you read this news post in the future and you have a problem with the game on Steam Deck, try going to Settings -> Compatibility and switching to one of the above versions of Proton (and let me know at survivalist.game@g…
- Steam Deck patch (v74)! - 15 January 2023
It has come to my attention that Survivalist crashes on Steam Deck as soon as you start a new game - or at least it used to, as I've now issued a patch which fixes that. Hooray! I've tested that you can at least start a new game and get as far as Fort Kohai on Proton 7.0-5 and Proton 7.0-6. As it turned out there were multiple issues, and they were all a bit weird and arbitrary, maybe Valve will fix them in a later version of Proton - or maybe they'll introduce more bugs, who knows. If you read this news post in the future and you have a problem with the game, try going to Settings -> Compatibility and switching to one of the above versions of Proton (and let me know at [email protected]). It's a pretty great game for the Steam Deck, being originally designed around a gamepad and all. Hopefully I can get it green tick verified now.
- Italian update! - 25 June 2022
I've released a new version of Survivalist, v72, which greatly improves the Italian translation. Michela, who did the Italian translation for Survivalist: Invisible Strain has gone over it and carefully re-written most of the lines to be more fluent. We've also taken a few features from Invisible Strain which allow the game to handle gender suffixes, pronouns, and suchlike correctly in a bunch of situations where it wasn't before. For example, the line "You saved me/Alice/Bob from being bitten" could be translated variously as: Mi hai salvata quando mi stavano per mordere Mi hai salvato quando mi stavano per mordere Hai salvato Alice quando la stavano per mordere Hai salvato Bob quando lo stavano per mordere depending on the gender of the person who got saved, and whether or not they are the person speaking. (Hope I got that right). There's also a number of typo fixes for the English. A…
- The sequel to Survivalist is out now! - 1 June 2020
If you liked Survivalist you'll probably like Invisible Strain even more ːsteamhappyː It has the same basic mechanics - talking to anyone you meet, recruiting survivors, building a base, battling the infected and human enemies, online co-op, etc. But there are a huge number of improvements and new features! Much better graphics, a new third person view, stealth, melee weapons, hunting rabbits, chopping down trees, building fires to keep warm, setting traps, skinning dead bodies and throwing the meat to attract zombies, lots of choices besides combat! And of course there's the scary new invisible strain itself. It currently takes place on a randomly generated world map, so there's a huge amount of replayability. I'm going to be writing a story mode while it's in early access. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1054510/Survivalist_Invisible_Strain/ I've been working on this since about 20…
- Survivalist: Invisible Strain - Early Access Launch Date - June 1st 2020! - 18 May 2020
It's happening! The sequel to Survivalist, "Survivalist: Invisible Strain" has been in beta for nearly a year and it's time to make it available for everyone. Early Access starts on 1st June 2020! Of course, early access is just the beginning - it'll be in there for a pretty long time, at least a year I would say, while I add more stuff and work on story mode. I've posted a new gameplay trailer, which is basically a cut-down version of a playthrough I did last week. The somewhat tragic adventures of Brody Cantu and his gang, the Ugly Snakes: As you can see, it has been almost completely rebuilt with a ton of new features - stealth, melee weapons, rabbit hunting, traps, better graphics and a more traditional first person camera (though still including the same RTS elements), weather, character customization, the disturbing threat of invisible strain itself, and more. It's launching with…
- Survivalist: Invisible Strain - coming soon! - 27 March 2020
Many people know I've been working on a sequel to Survivalist for the last few years, called Survivalist: Invisible Strain. But I realize it has now been a very long time since I posted about it here! So I figured it's time for a quick re-introduction. Survivalist: Invisible Strain takes place about a decade after the events of Survivalist and is set in the mountains and forests of the Pacific Northwest. Graphics have been greatly improved, the camera angle in direct control mode is a more traditional 3rd person camera, and there's a ton of new features such as melee weapons, stealth, hunting, traps, character customization, and much more! Early access will start with Sandbox Mode which randomly generates a map for you, while I work on the story mode which will be released later. The game has been in beta testing since last summer and I think I'm getting pretty close to being able to do…
- Sequel Store Page is up! - 6 April 2019
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/apps/1054510/header.jpg?v=1554514922 Hello, I've now finally added the Steam store page for Survivalist: Invisible Strain!. So you can click Follow on it to make sure you get informed of news updates - though I'll probably post them here as well for the forseeable future. There's actually now a bunch of different places you can subscribe for Survivalist-related stuff: The community have created a Discord channel: https://discord.gg/P8aMp4X I've got a Youtube Channel where I post gameplay videos every now and then I also have a mailing list, you can email me if you want to be added to it. I've also posted a very minor patch for Survivalist, here's what's in it: Stop traded backpacks from being deleted Fix for not being able to complete the game if you don't get the quest from Alice before the Missing storyline ends Small fixes in French translation
- Sequel Playthrough Video - 21 March 2019
Hello again, I've uploaded another video of the upcoming sequel, which I'm now calling Survivalist: Invisible Strain. This video is a playthrough that I did of Sandbox Mode (i.e. a randomly generated map), starting from the title screen and going through character customization, exploring, doing quests, recruiting people and starting to build a base. It's a pretty long video! It shows a bunch of new features like stealth takedowns and generated quests. I'm at a stage now where I'm playing the game, finding bugs that need fixing or things that don't quite work and need to be changed, restarting and playing again, rinse and repeat. I thought by now I'd be starting beta testing but it looks like I'm not quite there yet, still got a list of things that need work. Hopefully it won't take too much longer. Anyway check out the video! P.S. To make this post prettier, here's a screenshot from on…
- Turkish Translation! - 8 September 2018
I wasn't expecting to do another patch so soon after the last one, but the Turkish translation has just been finished! Many thanks to Murat Sarı for getting through it all. Enjoy! (The change list is.. that's the only change in this patch)
- The sequel will have bunnies, and stealth! - 1 September 2018
Hello, time for another update on Survivalist 2. I've got a new demo video for you showcasing the ability to use stealth to take down zombies and bunny rabbits! Also includes a bunch of stuff I haven't shown before like the new bow and arrows, chopping down trees and building campfires for cooking, and demonstrates how to use the wind direction to your advantage when hunting. Check it out here! Here's some screenshots too: https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F7662285%2F85a9e8138b9edafc73c58d8a1a6e6ced22f39a40.jpg https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F7662285%2F210021546dbde6416620d113a5a22b022ad1089a.jpg https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F7662285%2F2fffb8625d2f39a4ea8e00bb30fb44cb70fe7ec1.jpg I've also released another small patch for Survivalist 1 to fix a few bugs that people reported recently. Here's…
- Minor Patch and Sequel Melee Weapons Video! - 28 April 2018
Hello, I've uploaded a small patch for Survivalist today - here are the fixes: New out-of-breath sounds Fix for looters getting stuck in an unkillable state with their hands up I've also uploaded a video showing the melee weapons combat in the upcoming sequel! I've been iterating on it for a while now and I guess there might be more changes in future, but I think it's mostly there. Basically I didn't want it to be just a case of going up to enemies and hitting them repeatedly, so there's blocking and dodging, and you can aim for the head or legs as with the shooting system. If you aim high your legs are vulnerable, and vice versa, and of course there's fatigue to worry about. Check it out! Finally, I've also been working on the zombies, here's a pic from the menus: https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F7662285%2F66fb83c0705789fdcf83df53cccf2a5e6a531501.jpg P.S…
- Sequel Screenshots - Character Variation! - 11 March 2018
Hello, I've been working a lot on the character variation and clothing system for the sequel recently, so I thought it's time for me to post some screenshots to show how it's all going! Due to me changing the engine from XNA to Unity, I wasn't able to keep any of my character assets from Survivalist so I had to start from the beginning again with this. Check it out! (Right click and select Open image in new tab to view them full size): I've also been having some fun with the menus, trying to do a sort of old-school comic book/pop-art halftone effect: It has been a while since I posted last - if you're wondering where I've been, not everything I work on is visually interesting, for example earlier this year I was optimising the grass and the snowflakes but there wasn't much point me posting more screenshots of grass and snowflakes running at a better framerate. But rest assured I'm conti…
- Sequel Screenshots - Character Variation! - 11 March 2018
Hello, I've been working a lot on the character variation and clothing system for the sequel recently, so I thought it's time for me to post some screenshots to show how it's all going! Due to me changing the engine from XNA to Unity, I wasn't able to keep any of my character assets from Survivalist so I had to start from the beginning again with this. Check it out! (Right click and select Open image in new tab to view them full size): I've also been having some fun with the menus, trying to do a sort of old-school comic book/pop-art halftone effect: It has been a while since I posted last - if you're wondering where I've been, not everything I work on is visually interesting, for example earlier this year I was optimising the grass and the snowflakes but there wasn't much point me posting more screenshots of grass and snowflakes running at a better framerate. But rest assured I'm conti…
- Sequel Screenshots & Translations fixes - 24 September 2017
I've mentioned in the forums that I'm working on a sequel to Survivalist - here's some actual screenshots from it! (Right click and select Open image in new tab to view them full size). There's still a long way to go and I can't say too much about it yet. What I can confirm is that it'll have melee combat, changeable clothes, a basic procedurally generated sandbox mode as well as the main story, and this lower camera angle that makes it look more like a typical third person game. But it's still an RTS hybrid, so there's still command mode and the fog of war, though the viewable distance is further. You can get a sense of what that's like from the screenshots. Also, it's not in the desert anymore - it's further north, there's snow, rain, and seasonal changes! I can't give any ETAs or deadlines on it as I'd only break them, but I aim to be updating the news pages with various screenshots…
- Sequel Screenshots & Translations fixes - 24 September 2017
I've mentioned in the forums that I'm working on a sequel to Survivalist - here's some actual screenshots from it! (Right click and select Open image in new tab to view them full size). There's still a long way to go and I can't say too much about it yet. What I can confirm is that it'll have melee combat, changeable clothes, a basic procedurally generated sandbox mode as well as the main story, and this lower camera angle that makes it look more like a typical third person game. But it's still an RTS hybrid, so there's still command mode and the fog of war, though the viewable distance is further. You can get a sense of what that's like from the screenshots. Also, it's not in the desert anymore - it's further north, there's snow, rain, and seasonal changes! I can't give any ETAs or deadlines on it as I'd only break them, but I aim to be updating the news pages with various screenshots…
