Hidden Survivor Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Cheats, and Strategies

Hidden Survivor is a brand new multiplayer survival game that challenges you to scavenge for resources, meet new survivors, and build up your own sanctuary. It’s made up of two different modes of play: Explore, which acts like team deathmatch meets battle royale, and building upgrades for your sanctuary. This is necessary, as your pool of survivors will grow over time and you’ll need to provide food and drinks for an ever-increasing number of mouths.

In this guide, we’re going to provide you with a bunch of tips and tricks to help you master Hidden Survivor. We’ll begin by walking you through how the experience works before moving onto some more specific tips and tricks that we picked up while playing.

How it Works

Hidden Survivor is primarily a survival game, with your overarching goal to build up your sanctuary into a comfortable space to live for you and your fellow survivors. It’s not an overly complex experience, but it does require plenty of grinding to earn the necessary resources to proceed.

When you first boot it up, we recommend just sliding left and right between the various different rooms of your sanctuary and tapping on things to see what they do. You won’t be able to perform any upgrades yet, but you’ll start to get an idea of what you want to upgrade first.

We also recommend tapping on each of the characters to get a good idea of their pros and cons. Each character should have a perk or two that will give them an advantage when you play, and you can also check on the current status of their Fullness, Moisture, and Spirit.

These are your three major stats that you’ll have to keep an eye on – and not only for your main character. Fullness can be sated by food while Moisture is adjusted by drinking water. If any of these three stats drops to zero, that character dies.

It’s not game over if a single character dies, but it is if all of them die. That’s why we recommend keeping track of their statistics between games, as they’ll drop over time. You’ll get food and beverages while playing, but you can also generate your own by purchasing upgrades.

So, how do you do that? Well, by playing the Explore mode. This is a team deathmatch multiplayer experience that chucks you into the arena as a random object. Over time, you’ll automatically collect resources, with the type of resource depending on the object you are at that present moment in time.

You can swap to another object at any moment by getting close and tapping on it, providing you with different materials. The real goal though is to collect items, which you’ll find dotted about. These provide you with buffs, including food, which restores your health, and glasses, which temporarily remove the fog of war effect.

The best item is a Reset Potion though, as it allows you to turn into a human for 40 seconds. You can then run around beating up all other players and stealing their resources if they die. Death isn’t the end though, as you respawn five seconds later.

Other players aren’t the only threat though. As time passes, you’ll notice that areas begin to appear red on the minimap. This means that you can’t stay in this location without taking damage, shrinking the area you can explore. You can also find out which area will turn red next as they turn yellow on your minimap.

Once three minutes has passed, the round ends and the winner is the player that earns the most points during the match. You’ll take any resources you’ve picked up with you too, which is what you use to top up your character’s stats and upgrade your sanctuary. This is the core loop.

Tips and Tricks

Explore as often as possible: Playing Explore mode is the best way to earn resources necessary to upgrade your sanctuary. Given that that’s the whole point of the game, you’ll want to play it as often as possible.
Check your parameters between each exploration: You can die permanently in Hidden Survivor, so make sure to keep an eye on your parameters. If one of these drops to zero, that survivor will die, and if all survivors die it’s game over.
Prioritise upgrades that provide food and beverages: While you can find food and drinks while exploring, we recommend trying to produce your own as quickly as possible. With that in mind, focus on upgrades that provide food and drinks first, so you can keep everyone alive.
Stay still when another player has found a Reset Potion: You’ll get a notification when another player has found a Reset Potion, so we recommend staying still from that moment. It’s difficult to run from these players, but they might ignore you fi you don’t move.
Learn what each object provides in terms of materials: While hiding as a particular object, make sure to keep a mental note of what objects you collect from them. Experiment with as many objects as you can find, and you’ll soon figure out how to get what you need for the next upgrade.
Keep it tactical: The best way to win matches in the Explore mode is to make sure you fulfil the Tactics objectives.

Try out these tricks and tips for yourself by downloading Hidden Survivor via the App Store or Google Play.