Survivors Guild takes the proven Vampire Survivors formula and asks a simple question: what if it happened in a classic JRPG world with 4-player online co-op? Solo developer Quickstraw spent over a year building this bullet heaven experience where you battle slimes, giant rats, fairies, and other creatures straight from Dragon Quest and Shin Megami Tensei. The gameplay trailer dropped in November 2025, and a public playtest is running right now on Steam with regular weekly updates based on player feedback.
The core loop remains familiar: survive waves of enemies, strategically choose weapons and upgrades to build powerful combinations, unlock new characters with unique abilities, and face off against bosses. But the JRPG aesthetic and cooperative multiplayer transform how that loop feels. Instead of solitary vampire hunting, you’re coordinating with teammates through grasslands and dungeons while completing side quests that involve breaking pots, hunting golden monsters, and defending specific areas.
JRPG Aesthetic Meets Bullet Heaven
The JRPG influence goes deeper than surface-level visual choices. Survivors Guild deliberately draws inspiration from classic franchises like Dragon Quest and Shin Megami Tensei for its creature roster and world design. You start in lush grasslands battling slimes and giant rats before venturing into darker dungeons with more dangerous enemies. This progression mirrors traditional JRPG pacing where early areas ease you into combat before ramping up difficulty and environmental hazards.
Each level features distinct terrain, hazards, enemy rosters, and final boss challenges. These varied environments encourage different strategies and team compositions rather than allowing one dominant build to trivialize all content. The grasslands might favor ranged characters who can kite enemies across open spaces, while cramped dungeons reward close-range fighters who excel in tight corridors.
Side quests add structure beyond pure survival. Breaking pots references the satisfying destruction found in Zelda and other adventure games. Hunting golden monsters creates specific targets worth seeking rather than passively waiting for enemies to approach. Defending areas introduces tower defense elements where positioning and area control matter more than raw damage output. These varied objectives prevent runs from feeling repetitive even after hours of play.
Online Co-Op Changes Everything
Most survivors-like games remain solo experiences. Survivors Guild supports 1-4 players in online cooperative mode, fundamentally changing strategic considerations. Solo players focus purely on personal survival and build optimization. Cooperative teams can specialize, with different players filling complementary roles that create powerful synergies when coordinated properly.
Each character comes equipped with a signature ability and matching weapon that defines their playstyle. Some characters move quickly through danger zones, perfect for kiting enemies and reviving downed teammates. Others provide shields protecting allies from burst damage. Support characters summon additional units creating numerical advantages. Elemental specialists unleash large area attacks clearing clustered enemies. These distinct roles encourage team coordination rather than four players running identical builds.
The cooperative focus also influences upgrade decisions. In solo play, you pick upgrades benefiting your character exclusively. In co-op, you consider how your choices synergize with teammate builds. Maybe you sacrifice personal damage output to take support upgrades buffing the entire team. Or you focus on crowd control abilities letting damage-focused allies safely shred high-priority targets. These strategic discussions add social depth missing from pure solo experiences.
Active Playtest With Weekly Updates
The playtest launched just over a week ago, and Quickstraw has already implemented significant improvements including new enemy types, additional achievements and unlockables, balance adjustments, and quality-of-life enhancements. This aggressive update schedule demonstrates genuine commitment to community feedback rather than treating playtests as marketing exercises.
Upcoming features include more enemy variety, additional weapon options, new wave events changing encounter dynamics, and expanded quest content. The developer actively encourages players to join the Discord and share feedback, creating a collaborative development process where player suggestions directly influence design decisions. For solo developers, this community engagement often determines whether ambitious projects succeed or disappear.
Building Your Perfect Survivor
Character progression revolves around unlocking new survivors, each with distinct weapons and abilities encouraging different playstyles. Fast-moving characters excel at evasion-focused builds prioritizing mobility over raw stats. Tanky characters stack defensive upgrades becoming unkillable juggernauts. Support specialists maximize team buffs and healing effects. Elemental damage dealers focus on area-of-effect abilities clearing entire screens.
Weapon and item choices create the build variety survivors-like games thrive on. Finding powerful combinations that synergize unexpectedly provides the genre’s signature dopamine rush. Maybe you discover that a specific weapon combined with certain items creates a feedback loop where kills generate resources accelerating your attack speed until you’re firing so rapidly enemies can’t reach you. These emergent power spikes make each run feel potentially different despite using the same character.
The progression system balances immediate power gains during individual runs with persistent unlocks carrying between sessions. Individual runs involve temporary power spikes through strategic upgrade choices. Between runs, you unlock new characters, weapons, and permanent upgrades improving baseline stats. This dual progression system ensures both short-term tactical decisions and long-term strategic planning matter equally.
Boss Fights and Special Events
Boss encounters punctuate the standard horde survival formula, requiring different tactics than clearing endless waves. Bosses have distinct attack patterns, vulnerable windows, and specific mechanics that punish mindless circling. Learning these patterns and coordinating team responses creates skill expression beyond pure character stats and upgrade choices.
Wave events introduce variation to standard survival gameplay. Some events might spawn golden enemies worth prioritizing for bonus rewards. Others could spawn elite monsters with dangerous abilities requiring focused team effort to eliminate. Environmental hazards could periodically damage specific map zones forcing constant repositioning. These special conditions prevent runs from becoming autopilot experiences where optimal play means mindlessly circling while your weapons automatically clear everything.
Solo Development Passion Project
Quickstraw represents one person pursuing their vision for what a survivors-like could become with JRPG inspiration and cooperative multiplayer. Working alone for over a year without publisher backing or investor pressure means every design decision reflects personal passion rather than committee compromise. This creative freedom shows in the game’s focused execution around complementary core concepts that reinforce each other.
Solo development also means slower content production and marketing reach compared to studio projects. The developer compensates through grassroots community engagement on Reddit, Discord, and Steam forums, responding to player questions and implementing requested features within days rather than months. This direct communication creates genuine connection between developer and community rare in larger commercial projects.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Survivors Guild?
Survivors Guild is a survivors-like bullet heaven game developed by solo indie developer Quickstraw. It features 1-4 player online co-op, JRPG-inspired creatures and environments, unique character abilities, and boss fights with quest objectives.
How many players can play together?
Survivors Guild supports 1-4 players in online cooperative multiplayer. Each player can choose different characters with unique abilities and weapons, encouraging team coordination and build synergy.
What games inspired it?
The game draws inspiration from Vampire Survivors for its bullet heaven gameplay, and classic JRPGs like Dragon Quest and Shin Megami Tensei for its creature design, world aesthetic, and progression structure.
Is there a demo or playtest?
Yes, a public playtest is currently running on Steam. The developer releases weekly updates with new content, balance changes, and improvements based on community feedback.
When does it release?
No official release date has been announced yet. The game is currently in active development with the playtest serving as an early access preview. The developer regularly updates players through Steam and Discord.
Who developed Survivors Guild?
Quickstraw, a solo indie developer, created Survivors Guild over the course of more than a year. The project represents a passion-driven effort to blend survivors-like gameplay with JRPG aesthetics and cooperative multiplayer.
What makes it different from Vampire Survivors?
Survivors Guild adds 4-player online co-op with character-specific abilities and weapons, JRPG-inspired settings and creatures, boss fights with mechanics requiring coordination, and quest objectives beyond pure survival like defending areas and hunting special enemies.
Are there different characters?
Yes, multiple characters can be unlocked, each with unique signature abilities and weapons. Some focus on speed and evasion, others provide shields and support, some summon allies, and others unleash powerful elemental attacks.
Conclusion
Survivors Guild demonstrates that the survivors-like genre still has room for innovation beyond simple reskins of Vampire Survivors. By adding genuine online co-op with character specialization, JRPG aesthetic and creature design, structured quests beyond pure survival, and boss encounters requiring coordination, Quickstraw created something that feels familiar yet distinct. The JRPG inspiration provides visual identity and thematic cohesion rather than feeling like arbitrary decoration. Fighting slimes, giant rats, and fairies in grasslands and dungeons taps into nostalgia while the bullet heaven gameplay keeps things frantic and engaging. The cooperative multiplayer transforms strategic considerations from pure solo optimization into team coordination where complementary builds create synergies impossible alone. And the active playtest with weekly updates shows a developer genuinely committed to community feedback rather than treating players as unpaid QA testers. For solo developers, this grassroots approach often determines success more than marketing budgets or publisher backing. Whether Survivors Guild finds commercial success depends on reaching its niche audience of JRPG fans who enjoy survivors-like gameplay and want cooperative experiences. But the free playtest removes barriers for curious players, and the active Discord community creates space for enthusiasts to connect. Sometimes the best games emerge when developers build exactly what they want to play, trusting that others share their specific taste. Quickstraw spent over a year creating a JRPG-themed bullet heaven with online co-op because that’s what they wanted to experience, audience size be damned. That passion shows in every design decision, and for players seeking that exact combination, Survivors Guild could become their new obsession.