After a dozen hours I have unlocked 11 survivors that you can use. You can start with 2 of them. If you un-check the "Random Starting Characters" you will see the first randomly assigned character and can then select the 2nd. The first is always random, however, you can exit out and back in and the random character will change. Do this until you get one of the two starting characters you like and then select the 2nd.
The 11 Survivors are:
Anna, Janis, Viktorija, Dmitry, Katerina, Spriditis, Dzintars, Zigmars, Maksim, Inese, Samanta

Anna has the following abilities:







Bat Bash is your main attack. Carnage is an excellent finisher. Hemorrhage I dislike because it does not add focus. Bloody triumph is a gamble of being an excellent finisher if there would be remaining enemies, or a slow weak attack. Unhinged Intimidation is a buff spell for Carnage The biggest problem with her kit is you want focus increases and she is very slow to hit hard unless Bloody triumph finishes an enemy.

When deciding between Carnage or Bloody triumph, consider whether adding 7 delay with Unhinged intimidation would allow you to still attack before the target would get another round. If so, use the Ui + Carnage for the guaranteed kill and take the 2 focus points. Otherwise I would gamble and use the Bloody triumph.

One of the Bloody triumph upgrade options.

The best combo is use Carnage to finish off an enemy, and then pick 'Push through' to self heal with the 2 focus points you get from it.


Anna has these three Focus buffs.
'Push through' is very strong as she has high toughness. Stacks.
'Bloodshed' is very poor unless you have a character that can do bleed abilities for her. Her own does not add focus. Stacks.
'Debilitate' is an ok choice, she only hits one enemy at a time but if your are going to spam Bat Bash early then it isn't useless. Does not stack, only choose once.

I recommend picking 'Push through' first, then 'Bloodshed' if you have another survivor with a good bleed ability. I would then pick 'Debilitate' once and spam 'Push through' focus choices or 'Bloodshed' choices.

You start with Anna, she is an ok survivor. She can heal herself with 'Push through' so is alright as a front-liner, her dps is alright as she can swing hard or reliably fast. She has the health and self healing to stay in the front-line while not being an amazing tank. She can be more damage focused in the back-line but is out shined by a lot of other damage dealers.

She Pairs well with Dzintars as he can make bleed, and heal her as she doesn't have armor abilities. Viktorija is also a good front-line partner.

If you did not start with Anna she will pretty much make a good addition to any squad. She is not the best at anything, but someone you dont mind getting as she she can serve in the roles of DPS and Tank.

Janis is a starting survivor, he has the following abilities:






Rusted Blade and Reciprocation are the two damaging abilities. Rusted Blade hits both front-line enemies. Reciprocation counter attacks enemies that attack him. He has minimal damaging abilities, this is not his strong area.

Recover adds protection to any survivor, wild shout is a taunt all and adds protection to Janis. These are the abilities I use the most as he is a fantastic tank. Check to see what enemies are doing before you select one of these abilities. Sometimes you want them to attack others, sometimes you want them to attack Janis. If they are already going to hit Janis, Recover adds more protection.

Provide opportunity has only one use I've found, Inese has an ability that takes forever and deals massive (like 90) damage. So have Inese do the ability, and then have Janis let her take ability significantly earlier. You wont get to use Janis for a long time tho unless you use Inese's other ability to then allow Janis to go next. Its a very odd but effective combo. They are probably the best duo for this strange reason.


Janis has amazing focus buffs. Unwavering Resolve is the main pick. I pick this 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Protect Teammates is ok against some AOE enemies. Dare will give Janis some more DPS potential. I am not sure if Dare stacks, but the others do. I would pick Unwavering Resolve 1st, 2nd, 3rd and then see if there is any aoe going or if you need a little more damage to finish the fight after that.

Janis is a front-liner. He protects and can do a little bit of damage. He can set up one of the biggest attacks in the game with Inese. He is a fantastic starting choice,you are only sad to see him when you already have your tanks and want more DPS in your lineup.

Viktorija is an unlockable survivor. She has the following abilties:





Viktorija is a front-line survivor that can guard the backline, she can give the entire front line protection with Laugh it off and allow for some healing. She can also negate a single non-damage-over-time hit on another survivor. She has a weak damaging ability.

Viktorija is a good survivor to assist your existing preferred front-line survivor. She is weaker than Janis in every way, although is very complimentary to other tanks. Viktorija + another tank in the front row allows you to have 2 big damage dealers in the back row with less worry about durability.


Her focus abilities are weak. Refuse to die is horrible. Treat wounds is a self heal that is ok. Protect teammates is ok. She is not a great tank. She is a great support tank. Having her do the protect teammates while your real tank like Janis taunts is much better. She does help other tanks very well. She is a tank.

Dmitry is a fantastic survivor for when you are about to gain another survivor. You have him your front line and you let him die so that you can save on food when you rest. Food management is important in this game and Dmitry is a survivor you will be overjoyed in letting die so that you can rest with less of a food cost. After testing out a strategy left by a comment-er , I have changed my mind about Dmitry.

Dmitry is really easy mode. Paired with Samantha and you just win.

Nimble Strikes does 3 damage to all enemies if you have no focus. As you spam Maddened concentration the damage he does with this goes up drastically.


The upgrade for Nimble strikes has an option to reduce the cooldown. I liked this one better.

Disorienting blow is a decent finisher, useful in boss fights as it also benefits from the insane focus he gets.


Take Cover will single handedly shield the entire team and make you almost unkillable. I normally use it if my maddened concentration gets resisted and the team takes more damage than it should have.

Maddening concentration is the your main spam. If you start with Sam, get 6 immunity on him and ensure shields are up, then spam this. over and over. Just keep picking HASTE as your focus buff. Here is the math: 4 time = 2 focus * 2 = enemy team +7 time. Suppose an enemy is at 10 time. you use 4 twice to put him at 10-8+7 = 9. You boosted your entire teams time. The rest of your team moved 8 spaces while the enemy team moved 1 space. Every time you boost your focus, you also boost Dmitry's damage on Nimble strikes. Dmitry hits every enemy. You can boost his damage until you 1 shot the entire enemy team. Easy mode.

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Katerina is fantastic. She shoots. She can heal. Fantastic back-liner.
Her abilities are all great except for Headshot. Headshot is garbage. 50% chance to miss. I missed 7 times in a row once as a test. Her DPS is solid without it, I don't even hold it against her. Her heal is faster than Dzintars.

Her Focus buffs are interesting. If you have no other healers then Seize hope is not useless and worth using on the first pick. Gunfire is pretty good dps and a solid 2nd pick. Spamming Concentrate to get more Gunfire procs is the strategy. This is probably the weakest part of her kit, but only because it is average.

Spriditis is an unusual character. Chaos is what he does. You have no idea other than supposedly good thing or supposedly bad thing. I try to minimize the impact by using the good things on front-liners and the bad things more as damage + debuff to the bosses or biggest enemy. Animated Limbs is a good protection cast later in a fight after a few positive buffs have been given to your main tank.

He has can be a front-liner with his high toughness and armor generating abilities.

His damage is random. Sometimes you land a great debuff and sometimes you dont.

He gets another ability (not shown yet sorry) that remove a random buff from an enemy which can be battle changing when used in certain fights. Like a big boss guy starts with 1 really powerful buff... you can remove it.

Stacking debuffs is thus not as good as stacking buffs because the stacked buffs work with the protection ability.

Spriditis has horrible focus buffs. He can likely gain in stats with infinite chaos, but I'm not gambler. Interruption strange because it allows your next action to basically double action. Either attack twice, or buff twice, or buff and protect, or double protect. Its kinda good. Condemn is also good if he is on your front line. He can tank fairly well.

He is a good find in most situations. I keep him around as he can fill many roles. I like him in the back line, ready to jump to the front should a tank die. He was on my team for one of my farthest achieving runs.

Dzintars is a back-line healer. He has some damaging and damage assisting abilities as well as being a consistent healer.

I like to start fights out with him doing Weak Spots twice to get to the first focus buffs. Weak Spots is particularly great because it lasts all combat, and multiplies with multi-hit survivors like Zigmars.

I use Phlebotomy to turn 4+ stacks of poison to bleed so it is more efficient to cure with Remedy.

He is not tough but starts with decent armor. Having Samanta put a parry buff on him is a great idea so you can forget about his health.


Dzintars has healing based focus buffs. Resist doom is a whole party heal on a slower timer than the self ones. So a self heal is 1 per 10 while while this is 1 per 30 * up to 4. Exsanguinate is good way to cure bleed while doing some dps. Exsanguinate is how you power up Anna Bloodshed. Footwork is a focus boost to your allies to get those early tank buffs going. Overall great survivor.

Samanta is probably the best front-line tank you can get. She starts with guard already a feature, the ability defence strategy is to specifically turn it off for someone should ever want to... I dunno... reasons?
Parry is probably the most important feature she has, this should be your first ability every single time. You can put it on anyone that starts with protection, and they will take less damage while protection is up.

Momentum is an interesting protection ability that can add up to +20 to a target survivor. It does a minimum of 3, usually adds more. It is comparable to Janis's taunt Wild shout but has much more upside than downside. Janis does not get guard, Samanta starts with it permanently.

Pulverize is actually a good damage ability, double if the enemy has protection is fantastic. Some fights are a little ridiculous where the enemy has like 94 protection, Samanta shines in bring that down.


Samanta has interesting focus choices. Staleate will give each teammate 5 armor for each enemy that has armor... There is a particular boss fight where you will get 20 armor for everyone every time with this.

Thick skin is nice because it makes Moemntum leave you with 7 protection if you are at zero. (3 thick skin + 3 initial +1 from having the 3 from thick skin).
Condemn adds to her damage ability

Samanta probably has the best set of focus buffs.


Samanta has weak toughness (low health) and that is her downside. You have have to keep her protection high otherwise she will regain less protection and has to set up the immunity with parry to really be strong. Absolutely fantastic front-line option. You are will not be disappointed with getting her even if you already have tanks as her damage is usually better than Janis.

Samanta partners better with Spriditis than Dzintars. She benefits a lot from his blessings and his ability to add protection to her. Anyone that can add protection to her is good, even horrible Dmitry can pair better with her for that reason. Parry is one of the best defensive abilities in the game. She shreds armor with lone offensive ability. A great survivor.

Zigmars is a back-line DPS survivor that can be very very potent. Triptych is the main ability that shoots 3 times, it starts random but can be made a single target with use of Vignette. If you use Dzintars Weak spots ability to make an enemy vulnerable and you use Triptych, it can trigger the vulnerable bleed 3 times. If you use the focus buff Debilitate with Triptych, it can make 3 enemies lose strength. When you use Minutiae, it makes each shot of Triptych deal more damage. Zigmars is very strong because of this. There are instances when you want all 3 shots to hit one target, and times you dont mind spreading the damage around.

Reinterpretation is really bad. Its basically waste this survivor's time to achieve half of what one enemy can do. The upgrade to this where the enemy takes 5 damage for an action, that one isn't completely useless.

Prolegomenon is a decent opening shot for Zigmars on a boss or especially touch enemy. The 3 poison will put in consistent damage over time. The upgrades to this ability are not great. One adds a protection requirement for 1 more poison. The other, superior in my opinion, option is requirement drops from full health to simply not poisoned for the 3 to apply instead of 1 poison. It would allow you to hit the enemy with someone else first, then still apply the 3 initial poison.


Zigmars has good focus buffs, Debilitate is fantastic when you hit 3 enemies with a Triptych. Thick skin gives him some self surviveability. Composition is very useful in the first main boss fight where multiple hounds are summoned. Only his Thick skin buff is really spammable. All three add utility to a very good back-line DPS survivor.

If you are able to select an ability for him to level up, I prefer the agility as Zigmars getting more acitons faster is more damage. Triptych has an upgrade this is absolutely godlike. It adds the Minutiae to the end of each Triptych. His DPS just goes nuts when you get that ability. One of my favorite survivors.

Maksim has 8 agility, she takes turns very quickly. Paintball is your go to move. It makes your target take more damage from ranged attacks. Zigmars likes this combo as each of his 3 shots will hit harder.

Push is basically, Maksim is fast so instead of Maksim going fast, another better survivor can go fast.

Sharpen makes attacks do bleeding damage. Zigmars likes this very much as each of his 3 shots will add bleed.



Maksim has some interesting focus buffs. Confidence is amazing when you have someone with Guard in your front rank so that your back rank does not get hit. It basically is a damage buff that goes away should the survivor get attacked, even if they take no damage.

Seize Hope is a very very tiny heal. In the big boss fight where hounds are repeatedly summoned and Anna can reliably one shot them, it can heal your team a bit. I think using it once is ok, but almost not worth using at all.

Interruption is the same with Spriditis, next turn with Maksim is a double turn basically. So Sharpen on Zigmars and then Mark the target for him.

Maksim is very very good with Zigmars. Maksim is ok with most others. I would use Maksim like Dmitry. Which is to say, only to ensure the necessary food goes down to heal after their demise.

Slice is better on targets that are farther away from taking their turn. That is how to understand her ability. Her damage is boosted by Dmitry's Haste focus buff.

Advantageous timing allows Inese to add protection to her entire team, or sometimes some enemies, conditionally. Sometimes adding protection to enemies can be a good thing. Samanta deals double damage to enemies with protection. Some abilities only work if enemy has protection. Inese can deal extra damage to enemies with protection. Sometimes this ability works better, sometimes its ok Be mindful of the which enemeis and allies will be effected when used.

Battlefield manoeuvres is mainly used with Janis who switches places with Inese when she uses her Decapitation ability. So you have 3 options. 1. Use the incredibly long timered attack so you take multiple turns with everyone but Inese for a while, until the enemy you selected just evaporates when it finally triggers. 2. Use Janis's Provide opportunity to not use Janis and instead use Inese during the incredibly long timer until it hits and you can use Janis again. 3. Do #2, but then add Battlefield manoeuvres to have the Decapitation trigger next, doing 90 damage to the enemy and 10 to Inese. Worth it despite the long setup. ~I need to try this with protection and immunity up, doubtful the 10 health loss is avoidable tho. Just have some heal ability.

Battlefield manoeuvres is also very good when the turn order looks like Inese - enemies - friends. You kind of skip the enemies turns and your friends get another go. She is sneakily one of the best survivors with her abilities. She pairs poorly with Dmitry as he slows enemies it can mess with her own time shifting abilities. That can get complicated. As well as Maksims push ability.


Inese has some good focus buffs. Push through is the same as Anna, a self heal. Elegant Strikes is 8+ more damage to enemies with proteciton. Its nice to punch through protection. Accidently adding 6 protection to a single enemy with Advantageous timing is worth doing to hit for 8+ more damage. Overwhelm is almost just +2 bleed as her 5 strength is higher than many enemies, particularly early in a fight before they buff, and in the early game. I can see Overwhelm falling off later on in a run.

Inese and Janis are the components for the 90 damage Decapitation combo. They are both good front liners together. Dzintars is slow, so Battlefield manoeuvres is good with him too.

On each map you will see the following symbols. I'll share a little bit about some options that may happen.

A question mark
I likes these the best. Sometimes just a perma stat bonues to something. Sometimes a fight then reward. Sometimes just a fight. Sometimes a series of fights that increase the loot gain.

An apple
Sometimes food, sometimes a skill check then food. Sometimes 3 food or 1 fuel.

A fuel can
Sometimes a fight or skill check then fuel. Sometimes fuel.

A yellow skull
A fight, the easier one.

A orange skull
A fight, the harder one. Can be difficult without a good composition. You should have 3+ survivors.

A red skull
Boss. The first boss keeps summoning hounds until he is killed.

A house
3 options based on how many survivors you have. Heal and lose more food. Lose some food and no heal. Lose health and eat no food. More survivors total equates to more food being eaten.


A medical symbol
Sometimes a single heal, sometimes options to heal more, sometimes options to get some food with your healing.

Trinkets. Things you get that give different bonuses to fights. Earned sometimes after winning fights. I have collected up to 3 rows of the things as I have progressed through the game. You get a lot of them. They do help out.




I have a habit of taking the first path with a ? to begin my run.

On this particular map I generated each path has at least 3 fights. Both Orange fights are in the same line with one chance to do a single orange fight which is followed by 2 yellow fights instead of the additional orange. At least you get to heal, maybe in-between them.

I like the question marks the best. I think the orange fights give better trinkets, not entirely confirmed.

What trinkets you get can really impact your strategy and which survivors you will want to use. I have had one that let bleeding persist. It made all my bleed causing survivors that much better. Sometimes you get one that revives a survivor once then disappears... this can be bad if you are trying to let one die to save food.

Food. I have mentioned this a few times. When you get to a house you will eat food for each survivor you have. Eating no food will hurt your whole team. Eating some food will do nothing bad. Eating a lot of food will make your team heal. When you get to the point when you have 8 survivors of the 11 you can get that I know about, you don't need that many. You will be eating way too much food or hurting yourself for not feeding them. Let some die. You may just get them back again... maybe.


I lost 2 from my initial team of 4. I went on to have a team of 7. Death is not a run ending moment. Unless: You lose all your DPS or Tanks. You simply want to let the run end because you see the futility in continuing from a bad position assuming you somehow finish the current fight you are in.

If you want to end a run because of any of the above reasons, just keep moving the survivors back and forth in the front row. The enemies will eventually kill them for you so can move on to another run while earning points on your survivors so they start stronger next time.

Yes, you read that right, every time you have a survivor, you accumulate points to unlock starting abilities, story things, and just unlocking the character in general. Janis has a lot of unlocks that I've noticed. He is a great survivor tho so starting with him is a good pick. You'll notice in the guide I have 3-5 abilities shown for each survivor. The ones with 5 I've unlocked more of through many
play-throughs. Sometimes I get to a point and know I won't beat the next boss, so I just suicide them to retain point earnings.

As far as ability changes, some are strictly better upgrades and some change the mechanics of the ability. For example, Spriditis's ability Animated limbs has completely different effect on the upgrades. I prefer the un-upgraded version. Whereas Zigmars's ability Triptych has a strictly better upgrade version that adds the Minutiae effect to the ability.

General combat tip 1. Try to immediately reduce the number of enemies you are fighting. Some battles get to the point where they constantly buff each other and stack protection until they just one shot your survivors or have like 90 protection on each and its just a slogg fest. The one boss I realized Spriditis could make one enemy weak enough to kill it which would weaken the others to make the rest of the fight easier. This is a very very tough game. Sometimes you don't kill them fast enough and you just start getting one shot by their crazy buffed hits. Im not 100% on the mechanics of battle yet. I've seen the same enemy hit for 3, then next round hit for 15. So not everything is spelled out.

General combat tip 2. Keep some protection on every survivor. Sometimes aoe happens, and you don't want it to go straight to health.

General combat tip 3. Always have some damage going out. If you just keep healing and protecting, you will get overwhelmed.

General combat tip 4. Unless you have Dzintars, you must respect poison. Think of it as a tax for letting the fight go long. Focus on damage output. remove enemies that do poison damage as a priority. Janis cannot handle 10 poison damage a round. His recover will melt.

General combat tip 5. Sometimes loosing a survivor to win the fight is ok. Even if they were your tank. Even if they were your healer. Not if they were your only real source of DPS. A team of Dmitry, Dzintars, and Viktorija might not win any fights in a reasonable amount of time. Next time to let Dmitry die and save the DPS. I lost 2 survivors and was able to continue and get a lot further. You can overcome loss.

I decided to make this guide as no one else had made a guide. So i'm the first. Feel free to make your own guide, borrowing is fine if you can give me a shout out, or let me know what you want added.

Start with Dmitry and Samantha.

Move Dmitry so he is behind Samantha.

• Each abilities upgrade options
  
• More combos
  
• Recommended skill ups
  
• Team examples
  
• Trinkets section - what they do and a survivor ability pairing example
  
• Team compositions at each major fight.
  
• Boss strategies
  
• Possible bug finds.