Survivors

Adventurer Taylor

Taylor unlocks at VIP 1 — reached by most active players within their first week. Her role is Radar Task support: she adds extra Explorer Chests to every Radar Task you complete, and the chest quality scales with her star level, jumping from Rare chests at low stars to Deluxe (Legendary-grade) chests at 4-5 stars. She caps at 5 stars.

The catch: her shards aren't available anywhere free-to-play — they only come from VIP Exclusive packs tied to VIP levels 1 through 7. Getting Taylor to 4 stars (the point where chest quality jumps) is commonly cited as one of the best-value purchases in the game for anyone already spending, but F2P accounts will simply stay at the VIP 1 unlock indefinitely — which is still a genuine, permanent, no-cost benefit on its own.

At Lv. 0, the VIP1 Pack alone unlocks her — good value for low spenders on its own. Reaching Lv. 4 costs roughly 325-365 shards depending which specific packs you buy, and is cited as paying for itself within about a month through the extra chest value.

Guide credit: Aethernis (ko-fi.com/aethernis).

Agent Shirley

Shirley unlocks at VIP 8 and boosts March Size and Attack power — a combat-facing buff that applies to every rally and PvE attack. Like Taylor, her shards are locked behind VIP Exclusive packs, this time tied to VIP levels 8 through 14, with no free-to-play acquisition route.

Assignment & Leveling

Both Taylor and Shirley are assigned into the Headquarters building, which has two dedicated HQ Survivor slots. Both level the same way — using survivor shards spent in the Talent Hall — and the game periodically adds further HQ Survivors through season events and higher VIP tiers, each typically providing a different niche bonus. The exact roster available varies by game version, so check your own account's Survivor menu for the current options.

Generic Recruits, Assigned to Buildings

Unlike HQ Survivors, Building Survivors are generic NPCs recruited through the Tavern rather than unique named characters. Each one can be assigned to a specific building to boost its output — production buildings gain more resources, training buildings gain more capacity, the Tech Center researches faster, and so on. Higher-rarity survivors give bigger bonuses, and you can hold multiple survivors in a waiting pool before assigning them.

Recruitment

Building Survivors are recruited using Survivor Tickets (purchased with diamonds or earned through play) through the Tavern's "Recruit Survivors" option. Every 50 recruitments guarantees a Legendary survivor or equivalent shards, giving free-to-play accounts a steady, if slow, path to strong survivors without spending.

The Talent Hall & Survivor Shards

The Talent Hall — unlocked once the Tavern reaches level 3 — is where Building Survivors are upgraded, using Survivor Shards, Survivor Tokens, and duplicate survivors. Upgrades run through 5 star levels, each broken into 5 tiers, with shard costs rising at every step; reaching 5 stars from scratch takes roughly 585 shards total. Promoting an Epic or Legendary survivor additionally requires 5 duplicate copies of that same survivor on top of the shard cost.