Grind Survivors Review
Grind Survivors feels great to play, but can take its title too literally.
Grind Survivors. Credit: Pushka Studios / Assemble Entertainment
Pushka Studios and Assemble Entertainment’s Grind Survivors is a frenetic, action-packed survivorslike roguelite. The scope is fairly limited, but what’s here feels great, and it kept me hooked for hours.
Story isn’t a focus here. You’re an armored, masked demon slayer. There are demons. You shoot them. That’s it, and I didn’t need more. This is a game about feeling good while blasting those demons moment-to-moment, and it delivers.
Gameplay will be familiar to survivorslike fans. You’re dropped into an arena and have to survive until the 20-minute timer runs out. Killing enemies and collecting orbs levels you up, letting you pick from three perks each time. Unlike other games in the genre, you’re not building out a collection of weapons mid-run. Everything revolves around boosting stats and layering status effects. Altars scattered around the map offer powerful extra stat bonuses; these are crucial to your survival and motivate you to keep moving rather than just trying to kite enemies around one spot. Meanwhile, you need to keep an eye on the cooldowns for your dodge dash and your character’s special ability. It’s just enough to keep things active and engaging.
Grind Survivors. Credit: Pushka Studios / Assemble Entertainment
Weapons are handled outside the run. You start the game with access to dual SMGs or a pistol, and gradually unlock more, including shotguns, tesla lightning guns, buzzsaw launchers, and more. Weapons drop at a level tied to your current area, but rarity is a separate system that determines their added perks. Between runs, you use the forge to combine and upgrade weapons using Ash. Increasing rarity doesn’t just boost stats, it adds perks like shields, regen, or dash bonuses. The catch is that entering the next level means higher-level weapons, so even your best upgraded gear gets replaced almost immediately. Don’t get too attached to any one upgraded weapon, because you’ll be recycling it very soon.
Progression outside of runs is split between a skill tree and rune system. The skill tree gradually boosts your stats by small percentages with each upgrade. The runes are where your builds take shape. You’ll earn over 30 runes over the course of the game, which allows for quite a bit of build diversity.
The freedom the game affords with builds is one of the best bits. Upgrades during a run are only limited by how many times you level up; you’re not working within a fixed number of slots. My favorite builds leaned into high dodge, with bonuses tied to shields or my character’s special. There’s a lot of room to experiment, and seeing a build come together and carry a run never gets old.
Grind Survivors. Credit: Pushka Studios / Assemble Entertainment
My biggest issue is the progression between biomes. Grind Survivors forces you through five difficulty levels on a single biome before unlocking the next. It took me over six hours of play to see the second biome. Replaying the same level over and over with only incremental difficulty increases gets boring fast. I wish the developers had staggered the progression across biomes to add spice and let players see something new sooner. They didn’t need to take the title so literally. It shouldn’t feel like a grind.
Even with that, Grind Survivors is a lot of fun. I kept wanting to try just one more time, which to me is one of the most important things a game like this needs to get right. Killing the monsters feels good, and I wanted to kill more. I didn’t finish the game in the 10 hours I played for this review, but I plan to go back. It’s definitely well worth the $12.99 asking price.
Grind Survivors
Grind Survivors feels great to play, but can take its title too literally.
