Survivalist: Invisible Strain is a quirky, brutal and surprisingly deep zombie survival game that made me use every bit of my brainpower to build a community big enough to hide away from the dangers outside the base walls. This is a title that may have you thinking, have I seen this before? The odds are pretty good that you have, as the first game, simply titled Survivalist, was released on Xbox 360 way back in 2014, where you had to survive in a zombie apocalypse as a lone survivor attempting to build a community within the harsh world that he was thrown into. The sequel Invisible Strain focuses on the same elements of the first title, while bringing a larger scope to tackle with tighter situations and harsher realities as a survivor. This game was brought to us by Ginormocorp Incorporated, the very same studio that worked on the OG Survivalist.
As I was thrown into an unforgiving world of zombies, raiders and refugees, I found myself taking on story mode to get to grips with the game and boy did I face a brutal reality. I walked into what was an ambush by a survivor pretending to be dead who then later joined my ranks and aided me on my mission to become a community leader. However simple that sounds, it definitely was not.
I traded, gambled with lives and avoided humans and zombies like the plague until I had a home to brag about and even then, it wasn’t good enough as I got swarmed by a strain of undead that were fast, blood hungry and ready to tear me limb from limb, thus ending my heroic journey. Every time you play, the story remains the same, but you can navigate it using story-building elements by adapting to the world as you see fit, and I saw fit to become a brutal warlord as it amplified my survivability far more than being a sympathetic softy.
With that said, there isn’t just a story mode to tackle, there is a sandbox option which I gracefully thought: “yeah, I can do this”, and as you can toggle zombie packs and which strains there are (which there are a few: Green, Red, Blue, white and the infamous invisible strain) I thought I could do this. As I launched myself into the randomly generated world, I was stuck between two communities which disliked each other and a trailer park which was overrun with blue strain zombies, not the worst but not the best.
In the sandbox, I had more choice and more options, the characters were less demanding, and I could get away with being who I wanted to be as compared to the story mode where you are tasked with base building and muddling your way through a story that slowly explains itself through choices and characters who just appear into the story. Speaking of appearing, the fog of war system makes that so, as things do literally appear, leading to surprise encounters and enticing exploration.
The multitude of varied and interesting characters both friendly and hostile are put together in such a way that kept me intrigued and on edge throughout, and I had to truly consider who exactly it was that I was allowing into my guild of closely-knit survivors, but sometimes the characters were far more loosely put together, especially many of the looters and raiders. They all acted about the same way, and I had no room for negotiation as they looked to kill me if I didn’t have gold, which is a commodity in the world. The story is pretty loose but engaging enough for the style of game, and the sandbox does its job to hold the seams together and takes me back to playing State of Decay or even Project Zomboid, which funny enough features a very similar art and gameplay style.
Now for the part you’ve likely all been waiting for… the strains, and how each one found new and unique ways to ruin me. Green strains are your typical zombie, slow, weak and killable, and if they bite you, find an antigen within a week and you’re good, unless you’re like me who had until the last day and THEN found one. Blue strains are stronger than the average zed, it took me a few swings of a fire axe to kill one and even then, they jump back and react to me swinging. Little did I know if you get bit by one, say sayonara in a day because Blue moves faster than the standard infection.
Red strains, man, they are literally the definition of a damage sponge, and if you get bit, you’re a goner in minutes. Red is rough! The White strain infected are literally death incarnate; they’re like the grim reaper kissing you as they are the toughest, meanest bunch of undead jerks in the game, and when you get bit, gone in 60 seconds is the best explanation. The dreaded invisible strain, in my experience, they lived in my community, turned on me and tried biting me in a matter of seconds. However, they have the same health as a green strain, so, very killable, just very hard to detect, and the rarest strain of all.
As I said earlier, the game takes a similar shape to State of Decay with the similar base building aspect, as well as the ability to swap from survivor to survivor and sort of play as anyone within your community. Then it blends with Project Zomboid in how you survive and how the world and graphics style feel. Invisible strain is fun to play for sure, and I had a blast playing it even though it wasn’t my typical preference of gameplay.
It left me feeling frustrated when people died and when I got overwhelmed in combat, but that’s the beauty of it. You can’t just go in guns blazing; you have to plan and evaluate every move you make, which takes this post-apocalyptic game into the arena of strategic tactics and careful decision making. It gave me familiar vibes to similar titles of the zombie survival genre and because of that I felt I had more experience in this game, right up until I’d get an invisible strain in my community that wanted to decimate me and my newfound friends.
The graphics and the art style of this title, I feel like I’m beating an undead horse here when I say this, but it is so incredibly reminiscent of Project Zomboid, only with a more 3D modernized edge to it and provides it to console players. It gives a comic book style, oil-painted look, and has that Sims sort of feel about how the camera operates and how you can utilize multiple characters. The game is smooth to play, at least it was for me during my time with it, and the graphics held up well with no glitches or bugs as yet. For me, this was a relatively unique (if not slightly inspired by other popular titles in the genre) experience of survival, base building and zombie slaughter.
My favourite part of a review, (that’s a lie, every part of a review is my favourite part, but I like music okay!) is the soundtrack. Upon entering the game, you get a taste of what the classic Xbox titles held for us, bringing me back to OG Xbox soundtracks for classic horror/zombie game. The soundtrack threw me back to playing Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddlers Green in my room with a couple of my friends, hiding our faces at the start of the game and seeing a stranger in the front garden! It has that nostalgic, oddly put-together soundtrack that you’d definitely find on a 360 or even original Xbox title, but that’s what a spin on a classic title such as the original Survivalist should have, no ifs or buts about it.
FINAL VERDICT…. VERDIct…. verdict… that was my impression of it ringing into silence… anyway…
Survivalist: Invisible Strain, is a surprisingly fun play, often leaving you as a player frustrated when things don’t go right, leaving me for a fact wondering what I could have done differently to better avoid uncomfortable situations. It gives you a real proper feel of how surviving in a zombie apocalypse might be, as you scavenge for resources, try to build a community and take out zombies and looters in whatever way you see fit.
As something that isn’t my typical game preference, it surprised me in many good ways. However, the only thing I would actually change, is the jankiness of the combat, as it often leads to unfair outcomes, but then again that does lend itself to a more authentic approach to combat, I suppose. A randomly generated wilderness every time you play the sandbox and a simple narrative that serves its purpose and remains contained within the story mode, makes for a pretty well-rounded game that not many people have been talking about in the survival post-apocalyptic genre, when it really deserves to be raved about.
Overall score – 8/10, not my typical style of game but a surprise that left me coming back for more. The missing 2 from my score is simply down to how it still plays sort of like a 360 title, but when that’s what it has been derived from and has been styled around, so I feel that’s the aim, but not my preference.
Survivalist: Invisible Strain is available now on Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam
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