Survivor.io Skills and Evolution Guide - Everything You Need to Know About the Different Skills in the Game

Your success in games like Survivor.io often boils down to picking up the right skills. In other words, your build is your lifeblood. In this sense, having a bad build can often spell doom for a run even far before you’ve actually been defeated. And as the minutes pass and the difficulty increases, only those with a good skill build are the ones who will be able to eke out a living among the hordes of the undead.

What are Skills in Survivor.io?
How to Find Skills in Survivor.io
Skill Evolutions and How to Create Them
Survivor.io Evolution List

While Survivor.io is a pretty simplistic title in terms of general gameplay, there’s actually a lot of nuance in the way you can build your character in order to increase their DPS and survivability. Particularly when it comes to skill combos, having the right setup can often facilitate evolutions, which in turn will lead to higher DPS, defense, and overall performance. Trust us when we say that there’s nothing worse in this game than getting swarmed and not having enough DPS to actually mow down the enemies as they slowly encroach upon you.

In this guide, we’ll be giving an overview of the skills system in Survivor.io, as well as talking about the evolution feature and how to combine skills to upgrade and improve them.

What are Skills in Survivor.io?

This element is somewhat oddly named, considering that they aren’t actually skills that you learn like in an RPG, but actually collectibles that you pick up during your runs and that give your character access to a variety of feats and tools. These skills are not permanent and are lost after every match, and make up the brunt of the roguelite gameplay in this game, as every single run is randomized and can often present you with different skills and builds as you level up and open chests.

How to Find Skills in Survivor.io

As we mentioned just now, skills are completely randomized so you never know what you’re actually going to get on each run. Nevertheless, the way to find skills is always constant:

By Leveling Up: You can find new skills by leveling up. Once you collect enough experience crystals from slain enemies, you’ll be presented with a menu where you can choose one out of three different skills.

By Opening Monster Chests: Whenever you defeat minibosses (the larger enemies with red outlines) or bosses (the giant enemies with their own health bar), you will find a chest that, when opened, contains gold and will grant you at least one item. These chests also have a chance of granting 3 or 5 items, though this outcome is randomized.

Skill Evolutions and How to Create Them

While each and every skill that you pick up will help you in some way or form, especially as you continue to upgrade them throughout the run, the real endgame in Survivor.io is their evolutions, as these are the strongest forms of any given skill in the game. In this sense, it’s more important to plan out your build accordingly and to only pick up the skills that would benefit your run, than to randomly pick up different skills because they look or sound great individually.

Download Survivor.io on PC

Evolving a skill requires two main components: An active, and a passive skill. Once you have an active skill with their corresponding passive skill, and you get them up to max level each, you can then evolve them by opening a chest or leveling up, and choosing the evolution as your next item. You can tell when an item is an evolution since its outline and text are different from the others, and they only have one star instead of five, because they can’t be upgraded any further after this point.

Survivor.io Evolution List

Now that we know what skill evolutions are and how to create them, let’s go ahead and take a look at all the evolutions that you can create in Survivor.io, as well as their effects.

Boomerang + Hi-Power Magnet = Magnetic Rebounder: Throws two boomerangs that rapidly circle around the player, dealing damage to enemies as they pass through them.

Brick + Fitness Guide = 1-Ton Iron: Throws 8 dumbbells that spread outward from the player. These dumbbells have infinite durability and deal damage as they pass through enemies.

Forcefield + Energy Drink = Pressure Forcefield: Creates a forcefield around the player that deals damage to nearby enemies and pushes them back.

Durian + HE Fuel = Caltrops: Throws a very large spiked ball that bounces around the screen dealing damage to anyone it passes through. The ball also periodically shoots spikes at enemies, dealing extra damage. Players can walk under the large ball in order to get a bit of cover when overwhelmed.

Laser Launcher + Energy Cube = Death Ray: Emits a series of lasers from the edges of the screen that quickly spiral into the player’s position, dealing damage to enemies as they pass through them.

RPG + HE Fuel = Sharkmaw Gun: Launches a very big missile at enemies that deals heavy damage and explodes to further inflict damage to a large area.

Modular Mine + Lightning Emitter = Thunderbolt Bomb: Drops proximity mines on the ground that, when triggered, unleash bolts of electricity that arc outward and deal damage to a wide area.

Modular Mine + Molotov = Inferno Bomb: Conjures proximity mines that, upon blowing up, deal damage and leave several puddles of fire that inflict extra damage to enemies that walk over them. This skill has very strong AoE and crowd control capabilities.

Drill Shot + Ammo Thruster = Whistling Arrow: Summons a permanent arrow that zooms around the battlefield passing through enemies and dealing damage. It’s effective against both fodder enemies as well as bosses due to its sustained DPS.

Type-A Drone + Type-B Drone = Destroyer: Summons a permanent drone that shoots homing missiles with a very high fire rate and damage. However, the missiles have limited range so the player will need to get close to deal maximum damage.

Destroyer + Medi-drone = Divine Destroyer: The only skill in the game that requires an evolution as a component. This skill has the same properties as the Destroyer, while also generating a healing area like the Medi-drone.

Guardian + Exo-Bracer = Defender: Summons six large spinning tops that circle rapidly around the player, dealing light damage and knocking back enemies. Ideal for AoE and crowd control.

Soccer Ball + Sports Shoes = Quantum Ball: Throws fast-moving soccer balls that deal heavy damage to enemies as they bounce around the stage.

Lightning Emitter + Energy Cube = Supercell: Strikes random enemies with powerful lightning bolts that don’t require aiming. These lightning bolts also break apart on impact, generating six shockwaves that deal additional damage to enemies near the impact zone.

Molotov + Oil Bond = Fuel Barrel: Throws numerous fuel barrels in an outward spiral from the player’s position. These barrels break on the ground, unleashing large blue flames that deal continuous damage to enemies that walk through them. The spread of barrels is large enough to cover most of the screen with flames, effectively dealing damage to almost every enemy at any given moment. This is the best evolution for AoE in the game currently.

Void Power + Exo-Bracer = Gloom Nova: Creates black holes that suck enemies in and deals damage while they remain inside. Upon fading, these black holes leave a shield dome that pushes enemies away and prevents them from entering, providing cover to the player for a few seconds.

Lightchaser + Ronin Oyoroi = Eternal Light: Swipes at enemies twice with powerful sword swings, dealing heavy damage. The slashes are fast enough to maintain a sustained DPS as long as the player stays within range of the enemy.

Katana + Ronin Oyoroi = Demon Blade: Shoots powerful blade waves at enemies that deal heavy damage to the targets. These waves also restore the player’s HP when defeating enemies.

Kunai + Koga Ninja Scroll = Spírit Shuriken: Throws powerful shurikens at nearby enemies that inflict decent damage. This is a good all-rounder skill that’s great for general use.

Shotgun + Hi-Power Bullet = Gatling Gun: A ranged weapon that shoots in the direction that your character is facing (indicated by the white arrow). This weapon has a high fire rate and tight spread, allowing the player to hit distant targets for heavy damage.

Revolver + Hi-Power Bullet = Reaper: Fires up to 12 bullets in the direction the character is facing before needing to pause and reload before firing again. Each bullet deals heavy damage.

It’s very important to mention that, in some cases, even though a specific skill evolution isn’t very impressive or useful, the benefits granted from their passive item can often be much more important than the evolution itself—the extra upgrade is just the icing on the cake. For instance, while the Pressure Forcefield doesn’t do much damage on its own, it requires a fully upgraded Energy Drink passive skill as one of its components, which is great for keeping your health topped up at all times.