Left to Survive Beginner’s Tips, Cheats, Strategies and Tactics Guide

Left to Survive is an immersive action game created by My.com. And no, the developers did not slouch when it comes to the action part of the game! But at the same time, the game turns out to be surprisingly fun too (disputable of course). This is where the addictive part of the game comes in. When you’re playing, you really can’t help but want to keep playing. This is despite the fact that some players might find the background music a little creepy (not us)!

As a zombie shooter with no actual character movement control, Left to Survive will still give you a good sense of action. At the same time, you have a city building element to the game to deal with. And as the title implies, there’s a PvP element to the game as well. Mixed into it is the fact that you really must make good decisions because other options won’t work in your favor!

The obvious and immediate question is what are those good decisions? The biggest problem for most players is the “first time mistakes”. Yes, it happens to all of us so don’t start making claims! Left to Survive can definitely leave you in that same boat. In this game, you have the questions of what to build, what to upgrade, what to shoot at, and when to do so. Seems like a straight forward idea, right? Again, now’s a good time to admit to your own first time mistakes! But don’t worry, our Left to Survive beginner’s tips and tricks guide will have the strategies and tactics just about anyone could use.

1. Tips And Tricks For Building And Upgrading Your Base / Camp

As mentioned, there’s a city building element involved with Left to Survive. Naturally, if you just randomly build things as they become available, there’s a good chance you’ll run out of things you need. Do note you can only build or upgrade one building at a time.

You do have a couple of options for placing things according to defending against base raids. However, most of that is really based on what you prefer. But when it comes to the building order and upgrades, there is a better bet. First up will be the farm as showing in the lower middle of the above screen shot. It will be the first building you gain. It should also be the first building you try to upgrade as much as possible. The problem is, the game is energy based (food in this case). In order to keep playing the campaign maps, you must keep your food supply topped up. So the recommendation is to put the farm at top priority even above your headquarters.

The headquarters is the next in line for upgrade priority in Left to Survive. You simply won’t be upgrading other things without it. It’s not just other building constructions/upgrades involved here. It’s also weapons unlocking included too. Next in line for the camp building/upgrading would be your armory. The armory provides scrap metal to upgrade your weapons with. This goes for all weapons including the helicopter weapons. You’ll need increasingly stronger weapons for the campaign maps. Having increasingly stronger weapon won’t hurt your feelings in the PvP mode either! But the problem is that you won’t get scrap metal in the campaign maps.

Next on the priority list should be the oil rig. You’ll eventually need oil to upgrade the headquarters. In the Left to Survive campaign maps, you can gain a lot of materials needed to build and upgrade things. However, you should not rely on that 100% of the time. So next in line would be the factory. From there, it’s a matter of storage and defense buildings. Your resource producing structures can only hold just so much. At the same time, you don’t want to leave things out in the wide open when raids come to your door!

2. The Survivors And Your Benefits

Sooner or later you’ll gain survivors. Each survivor in Left to Survive has a specific talent. Survivors can be placed in your buildings. The first survivor you’ll gain is an engineer. It can be placed in 1 of 2 buildings. Since this is your first survivor that you’ll gain early and fairly easy in the game, you should place it in the farm. You’d want the food production boost anyway. The other survivors can be learned in the store. Please note that it said “learned” and not “earned” or “gained”. The store is where you find out where you can gain other survivors. Most of them would be from crates. When you find out there’s no information as to where to gain a survivor, it means that survivor isn’t available according to your current place/level in the game.

As mentioned, each survivor in Left to Survive has a specific talent. The first survivor is an engineer. So when you place a survivor into a building, there’ll be a boost given to that building. For the most part, you’ll have a production boost or a Hit Points (HP) boost in that building. Of course go for the production boosts first! Base that on the resources you’re not gaining the most first. This placement comes after food production. You’d want to keep playing as much as possible so the farm survivor placements are definitely first. If you try to boost a building’s HP first, someone with upgraded weapons will make impressively short work of your HP boosts during raids. Building HP boosts are mostly an effort in useless which should only be considered when there’re no other options for their placement.

3. The Campaign For Your Gains

The campaign in Left to Survive gets a little tricky but the information you need just so happens to be included. The campaign is divided into the main story, sub quest, and buying maps. Once you’ve unlocked a campaign region, you can download it. Some would call this downloading setup a device space saver and others would call it a waste of time. It’s all in how you’re looking at it.

The decision here is which maps to play and when. This is based on which weapons you have and upgraded enough. Each map requires a certain weapon to be at a certain power rating. The currently selected map in the above screen shot shows the Close Combat map, its requirements, and its successful completion rewards. Also showing in the above screen shot is the fact that it’s the only available map in the region. At this point, the weapons were not upgraded enough to play the other maps. This is why priority was placed on the armory upgrades as mentioned above. Your weapons need scrap metal and money to upgrade them. But when you have other maps available, base which maps to play and when to play them according to which maps provide the highest rewards. Play the story maps as soon as they become available.

4. Weapon Upgrading Tips And Tactics

In Left to Survive, you’ll have a constant need to upgrade your weapons to be able to play the campaign maps. You can upgrade your helicopter weapons basically when you get the chance. That chance is after you’re sure you have plenty of resources for it. That’s all fine and dandy but there is a certain order to upgrading weapons. It just all depends on which weapon you’re upgrading at the time. And please do not get technical about the clip and the magazine. Yes, we know the difference but most know not to care when it comes to games!

The ADR Assault Rifle is showing in the above screen shot with upgrades already in place. Notice how the crit damage is not upgraded yet? That’s because you should not be relying entirely on crit damage to come out. Crit damage is the damage done to a target when you score a critical hit (a crit shot) on it. A crit shot will show as a different damage color and does more damage to the target. You only have a certain chance to hit a crit shot. Typically it’s not a great chance. The crit damage stat for a weapon does not increase that chance.

When it comes to the weapons upgrading order in Left to Survive, you’d want the clip size first. This holds very true for the above screen shot and all weapons. You really don’t want to run out of ammo too fast! Lack of shooting back is a great way to lose! When you compare the damage and reloading time stats, you should always consider that lack of shooting back problem first! At first, it seems like a good idea to have a higher damage rate. But when you’re taking too long to reload, you’re not going to like it. So now your upgrading order should be clip size, reload time, and then damage.

Most weapons in Left to Survive have the same upgrading options. This still leaves you with rate of fire, crit damage, and bullet spread. When you’re comparing rate of fire and crit damage, you should focus on rate of fire first. Rate of fire refers to more shots are coming out at a faster rate. You’d be firing 3 bullets per second compared to someone else firing 1 bullet per second (example numbers only). This amounts to more chances to gain a crit shot. Lastly would be the bullet spread reduction found in shotguns. This refers to how concentrated your shotgun firepower is compared to spraying all over the place. The more concentrated your shotgun firepower is, the more damage it will do in a single area. The recommendation is to place upgrading priority on bullet spread reduction over crit damage.

5. Surviving The Base Raids To Gain Resources

What good would a city building element be without a way to raid them?! In Left to Survive, it’s not just a matter of unlocking base raids; it’s also a matter of surviving them. Surviving base raids is how you’re going to gain the most from them.

During a base raid in Left to Survive, you’ll be flying around someone else’s base to destroy it. 100% destruction of their base is the aim. Naturally, the target base is not going to just wave hi and give you everything! So you have the problem of enemy targets on and around that base shooting at you. All the while you’re moving around in the helicopter trying to destroy the targets. To make it more interesting, your main gun can overheat which leaves you defenseless.

While you’re flying around, of course anyone would think to blow up the resource buildings as soon as possible. That’s fine if you don’t want to leave with much! Look at the base because you do have time. No matter what they are, aim for the defensive targets first. If it’s a defensive building, try to line up a missile shot at it first. If it’s a human target, use your main gun. Be sure to look where your shots are hitting so you can try to kill things quicker. Yes, you do move around quite a lot so it’s not always so easy to hit things. Whatever is left after you kill off defensive targets, hammer those as quickly as you can.

6. How To Gain The Most In PvP

Normally, anyone would think the PvP mode is a matter of “the quick and the sad”. In Left to Survive, this is only partially true. The entire PvP mode depends on several factors. But all things considered, the PvP mode can not only be endless fun for you, but a lot of gains too!

The first factor is your initial setup. As you can see in the above screen shot, going into a PvP match without med kits isn’t a great idea. However, you can get away with it if you know how to move and you catch some luck in gaining them during the match. As for the weapons setup, that all depends on how far into the game you’ve gotten. You will be matched will opponents that are equipped with stronger weapons. There will be times where the game will match you against opponents that are far better at it than you. Since the PvP matches in Left to Survive are luck of the draw, it’s always on you not to let that bother you. You in fact CAN still win. Again, it’s all in your decisions during the game.

For example, if you decide to “go up top” during a match, it’s on you to also decide to quickly get your targeting in action so you can start shooting immediately. You’d be surprised how many have been caught “going up top” and just standing there. It really is a move that first depends on the map and second depends on you not just standing there when you get there! Speaking of not just standing still, that’s also a really good decision. If you’re just staying in one place, it’s a great way to eventually end up kissing an opponent’s grenade! Yes, they hurt something awful! Also note that you can still get hit or outright killed depending on where you’re hiding/standing during a PvP match. Certain objects can explode and some objects can be shot through.

When it comes to “the quick and the sad”, this is a very important part of the game. Again, it’s not the only part. Sure, you can be quicker than everyone else put together. But if you can’t hit the broadside of a barn with a nuclear explosion, welcome to the sad category! So now it’s a matter of having both speed and accuracy. This is where the emulators can help you. While using an emulator, you normally would have much stronger hardware in your PC compared to a mobile device. This makes for much smoother gameplay. Any emulator worth having would include a key mapper. That key mapper would allow you to setup firing and screen movement controls for your mouse and keyboard. If you want to get faster, you can consider gaming mice and keyboards. Those things are built for speed/fast reaction times. The key mapper can also be used to setup keys for reloading. Reloading often and not just keeping your head out in the open is also a great decision! From there it’s only a matter of you hitting your targets instead of spraying the horizon!

The PvP mode in Left to Survive also is a waiting game. If you decide to wait alongside your partner during a match for your opponent(s) to stick their heads out that usually works. But if you wait too long, welcome to the sad category. Now note the “(s)”. As it turns out, for your better gains in the PvP mode are from playing 2 vs. 2. From there it’s a matter of not staying grouped together.

If you stay grouped together with your PvP partner, there’s an excellent chance you’ll both be kissing a grenade or 2. There’s also a good chance that your opponents will find a way to shoot you anyway for being in the wrong spot. This goes for being in that wrong spot too long and being there at all. If you waited long enough for your opponents to aim a lot for your partner; that leaves you wide open to attack them. Again, make sure you’re nowhere near your partner in that situation. You’d be surprised how often players try to focus on one person which is a horrible idea in 2 vs. 2 matches!

7. How To Gain Resources

As it turns out, much of that information was already included in this Left to Survive strategy guide. Look at the suggestions for building upgrades and which campaign maps to play in above. Note how there’s mention of using the 2 vs. 2 PvP matches more. The fun part is that the given tips and tricks were not the limit. The first gaining method is to simply not spend at random or because you felt like it! Spending is definitely a look before you leap situation. Yes, even players that spend real money on the game won’t want to waste their real money via careless spending. But for free players, you really don’t want to be wasting resources at all!

The first example of bad spending in Left to Survive would be the free crates. Sure, it seems like you’ll be having fun getting some extras. When you look at the rewards in those free crates, you’ll notice you can gain much or all of those things simply by playing. Do yourself a favor and save gold which isn’t always easy to gain. Another example of bad spending is buying consumables from the store. Most or all of those can be gained while playing. Some of those consumables you can even go without! Saving consumables for specific game modes is the trick. For example, using med kits or grenades in a campaign map isn’t such a great idea. Using them in the PvP mode makes a massive difference. Another example of “do not do it” would be building upgrade speed ups. Try your best not to do that! Just pass the time in PvP mode or let the rest of your day carry on while waiting.

On the side of good spending ideas for Left to Survive, you have weapons to buy. But even at that, you have to be selective. The recommendation is to buy weapons that regenerate your HP when you kill something. Check the effects each weapon has before buying it. For more gains, you’ll have to complete quests. This is another look before you leap situation. If by chance you can’t complete a quest, for whatever reason, skip it and wait for it to refresh itself. Don’t spend to speed up its refresh timer. Instead, take care of other things in the same section.

And that’s all you need to know to succeed in the game! If you know more Left to Survive tips, cheats or strategies, feel free to drop us a line!