Beginner's Guide 7 min read Updated 2026-04-25
Doomsday: Last Survivors — beginner's guide
A comprehensive guide for new players to get started in Doomsday: Last Survivors, covering essential tips, hero priorities, and milestones for the first week.
Editor's note
This guide is a work in progress and will be updated regularly as we gather more information and feedback from the community. If you have any tips, suggestions, or corrections to contribute, please reach out to us!
Day by day
Your first week
Hour 1 – 24
Day 1 — first hours
Phase 1/3
- ▸ Plan to spend 2-3 hours on your first session — there's a lot to learn and you don't want to feel rushed or overwhelmed.
- ▸ Focus on the main questline. Complete every available story chapter and side mission, as they reward valuable resources, hero shards, and speed-ups to help you progress.
- ▸ If you are a spender, the extra builder queue is a solid purchase. It also unlocks Catherine Calamity, who is a decent early-game hero.
- ▸ If you are a spender, the Cynthia Calamity pack is also OK. It gives a good amount of resources and a solid early-game hero who pairs very well with Catherine.
- ▸ Complete all the events in the Radar Station as they become available.
- ▸ Upgrade your shelter and buildings as the questline demands. Focus on the buildings that gate your next quest objective.
- ▸ Customize your avatar and nickname to something you like. This is a small thing, but essential before joining an alliance.
- ▸ Resources are more limited than in other games in the genre. Be mindful when spending speed-ups and resources.
- ▸ Join an active alliance as soon as you unlock alliance features. Alliances provide protection, donations, resource help, and the social context that makes the game stick. Look for the most powerful and active alliance based on your shelter level.
- ▸ When the questline starts gating you on a long upgrade or research timer that you can't speed through, that's a good natural stopping point for day 1. Plan a short session for the next morning to claim free rewards.
- ▸ Before logging off, consume all your stamina, send your gatherers out on the world map and queue a long upgrade or research that will complete while you are offline.
Day 2 – 3
Early days
Phase 2/3
- ▸ Continue with the main questline. It remains the highest-yield activity through your first week and unlocks new features and content.
- ▸ If you can, log in 3-4 times a day to claim your hourly free chests, complete time-sensitive events, and manage your gatherers and queues. This will help you stay on top of progression and take advantage of free goodies.
- ▸ Always be researching something. Rush research for higher-tier troops first — they are considerably more powerful. After that, focus on researches that reduce construction and investigation time.
- ▸ Make sure to always be training the highest troop level available (in each troop building). It's key to reduce the idle time to the minimum.
- ▸ Visit the Hospital on every log in and heal any units available.
- ▸ Send scouts to the foggy areas of the map. They will grant you different resources and technologies for free.
- ▸ Help your alliance with construction donations and rally requests. This will not only benefit your alliance, but also earn you valuable speed-ups and resource bonuses.
- ▸ Don't forget to claim your VIP daily rewards even if you're not a paying VIP — you still get useful resources and speed-ups for free.
- ▸ Before logging off, remember to use up all your stamina (e.g., by hunting zombies), and to send marches to gather resources while you are offline.
Day 4 – 7
Rest of first week
Phase 3/3
- ▸ By end of week 1, you should aim to reach Shelter level 14 and have at least 5 main heroes leveled close to your current power cap.
- ▸ Complete every 'new player' event before its timer expires (Growth Plan, Newbie Welcome, and similar) — these events award irreplaceable resources, hero shards, and speed-ups that disappear once they're gone, so make sure to take full advantage.
- ▸ Try to participate in your alliance's activities and events as much as possible. This will help you build relationships with your alliance members, earn rewards, and stay engaged with the game.
- ▸ Don't worry too much about optimizing your hero pairings or shelter layout at this stage. Focus on following the questline, completing events, and joining alliance activities. You will have plenty of time to optimize and strategize later on, once you have a better understanding of the game mechanics and your playstyle.
Where to invest first
Hero / Commander priorities
- + Catherine Calamity: Zombie Hunter, included with the first purchase. She is a decent zombie hunter on the map, so make sure to use her on marches.
- + Cynthia Calamity: Zombie Hunter and premium hero. If you get her, she is a good companion for Catherine on zombie-hunting marches.
- + Norah: Siege specialist and a main character in the game. You get most of her upgrades for free, including a Legendary upgrade. Not a bad early-game investment.
- + Liam McFadden: Garrison specialist and another main character in the game. You get most of his upgrades for free, so it's not a bad idea to invest in him.
Don't do these
Rookie traps to avoid
- − Upgrading all buildings equally. Instead, focus on your base/HQ and the buildings that gate your next quest, and postpone the rest.
- − Letting your stamina cap out. Always spend stamina on monster hunts or zombie raids before logging off — wasted stamina is wasted progression.
- − Spending all speed-ups randomly. Spend them strategically on alliance event score and your hero/base development bottlenecks.
Pick your tier, know the trade-offs
Spending guide
Light spender
$10-30 / month
- ▸ The extra builder queue is a great-value entry.
- ▸ The Cynthia pack ($5.99) is also decent.
- ▸ Super Monthly Pass ($11.99) is a very good value as it provides an additional construction queue and several speed improvements.
Heavy spender
$50-200 / month
- ▸ There are tons of premium packs for heavy spenders that can give them an edge, such as the Hero Files to recruit new heroes, the Daily Boost, or the New Server Promos.
- ▸ Ace Heroes are also great investments as they allow you to auto-farm / auto-fight, saving you a considerable amount of time.
- ▸ In addition to the above, there are also events all the time with different packs and rewards.
Whale
$300+ / month
- ▸ Whales can purchase Gold and Gems directly from the Mall.
- ▸ VIP level milestones provide compounding bonuses such as Free Speedups or gathering and building upgrade speed increases — whales will definitely benefit from those the most.
- ▸ A word of caution for whales: spending wisely matters more than spending heavily.
Your 7-day checklist
First-week milestones
- ✓ F2P can comfortably reach Shelter level 14 and have 5 heroes at the current power cap by end of week 1.
- ✓ Light spenders can reach Shelter level 16-17 with 7 well-developed heroes.
- ✓ Heavy spenders can reach Shelter level 18-20 with 10 well-developed heroes.
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