Quick answer
Forest Survival's eight weapons are, in unlock order, the Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, SMG, Sniper, Minigun, Launcher and Subverter. Seven of the eight can aim down sights — only the Subverter cannot, because it is a hacking deck rather than a gun. Five can melee, and each weapon carries its own Mastery track from L0 to L10.
You switch with keys 1–8 or the scroll wheel, and heavier weapons slow your movement noticeably: carrying the Minigun is a different game to carrying the Pistol. If you are new, read the how to play walkthrough first.
The full weapon table
Forest Survival's weapon stats are flat numbers with no hidden falloff curve, so the table below is the whole picture. Fire rate is the gap between shots in milliseconds — lower is faster.
| Weapon | Base unlock score | Damage | Fire rate | Magazine |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pistol | 0 | 25 | 300 ms | 12 |
| Rifle | 100 | 35 | 150 ms | 30 |
| Shotgun | 250 | 15 per pellet | 800 ms | 8 |
| SMG | 450 | 20 | 165 ms | 40 |
| Sniper | 700 | 100 | 1200 ms | 5 |
| Minigun | 1,100 | 30 | 50 ms | 100 |
| Launcher | 1,600 | Explosive | 2000 ms | 1 |
| Subverter | 2,200 | 0 (hacks instead) | 850 ms | 4 chips |
Those unlock numbers are base values, not what a real run asks of you. Read the next section before planning around them.
How unlocking actually works
Forest Survival multiplies every weapon's base unlock score by a difficulty multiplier, and that product is the score you actually have to reach: Easy 1.3×, Medium 2.5×, Hard 3.5×. The Pistol has a base of 0, so it is free on every difficulty.
A worked example
Take the Subverter, the last weapon in the ladder. Its base unlock score is 2,200. On Medium the multiplier is 2.5×, so the real requirement is 2,200 × 2.5 = 5,500 score. The same weapon needs 2,860 on Easy and 7,700 on Hard. Nothing about the weapon changes — only the toll to reach it.
Effective unlock scores by difficulty
Forest Survival's real thresholds are below, base multiplied out for each fixed difficulty. Treat the Medium column as your default, since Medium is the setting labelled "Balanced".
| Weapon | Base | Easy (×1.3) | Medium (×2.5) | Hard (×3.5) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pistol | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Rifle | 100 | 130 | 250 | 350 |
| Shotgun | 250 | 325 | 625 | 875 |
| SMG | 450 | 585 | 1,125 | 1,575 |
| Sniper | 700 | 910 | 1,750 | 2,450 |
| Minigun | 1,100 | 1,430 | 2,750 | 3,850 |
| Launcher | 1,600 | 2,080 | 4,000 | 5,600 |
| Subverter | 2,200 | 2,860 | 5,500 | 7,700 |
Adaptive is the fourth difficulty and the exception to a fixed table. Adaptive floats its multiplier live between 1.2× and 3.4× depending on how well you are playing, so a clean run tightens the toll and a scrappy one loosens it. Watch the requirement shown in game rather than memorising a number.
Every weapon, one at a time
Pistol
Forest Survival's Pistol is the sidearm every run opens with: 25 damage on a 300 ms cycle from a 12-round magazine. The Pistol is a headshot tool for the first couple of waves — accurate, quick to reload, no movement penalty. It can melee, which keeps it useful when something closes while you are dry.
Rifle
Forest Survival's Rifle is the first real upgrade, at 35 damage on a 150 ms cycle with a 30-round magazine. The Rifle is what most runs are actually won with: enough damage to drop a Normal robot fast, enough magazine for a group, light enough to keep your footwork. It fires one round per click rather than on a held trigger, so deliberate shooting beats spray.
Shotgun
Forest Survival's Shotgun deals 15 damage per pellet on an 800 ms cycle from 8 shells, which makes it a decision weapon, not a panic weapon. Point the Shotgun at something already inside your bubble — a Leaper that has just landed, or a Splitter's three children. That 800 ms gap will get you killed if you miss, so back up while it cycles.
SMG
Forest Survival's SMG is the first full-auto weapon in the ladder, at 20 damage on a 165 ms cycle from a 40-round magazine. The SMG trades per-shot damage for trigger-held uptime and a magazine deep enough to walk across several targets, which is what Horde waves ask for.
Sniper
Forest Survival's Sniper hits for 100 damage on a 1200 ms cycle from 5 rounds, and it is the only weapon with a true scoped aim-down-sights takeover. The Sniper also over-penetrates: a round punches through up to 2 additional bodies after the first, keeping 55% of its remaining damage per body. Lining a corridor of robots up so one shot passes through three is the best play it offers, and sniper-heavy Siege waves are where you want it.
Minigun
Forest Survival's Minigun fires every 50 ms for 30 damage from a 100-round magazine, the highest sustained output in the game. The Minigun is heavy and you feel it: your movement drops noticeably while it is out, so commit it to a firing position rather than running with it. It cannot melee.
Launcher
Forest Survival's Launcher holds exactly one rocket and auto-reloads the instant the tube empties, on a 2000 ms fire rate. That single-round tube is the whole design: one explosive answer, then a load. The Launcher matters most against the Overlord boss, whose per-hit damage cap of 14% of maximum health applies to bullets only — explosives are exempt. It cannot melee either.
Subverter
Forest Survival's Subverter is not a gun: it is a hacking deck that deals 0 direct damage and deploys intrusion chips from a 4-chip cartridge on an 850 ms cycle, out to 17 m. A hacked robot fights its own kind for 6.5 seconds at 2.4× its melee damage, then detonates a 6.8 m, 110-damage EMP. The Subverter cannot aim down sights but it can melee. Bosses are immune to it, and the Revenant cannot be hacked directly.
Aiming down sights
Forest Survival lets 7 of its 8 weapons aim down sights on right click; only the Subverter cannot, since it is a deploy tool with no sight line. Aiming tightens spread and steadies the weapon — most valuable on the Rifle at range, least on the Shotgun. The Sniper is the exception that changes the whole screen: the only true scoped takeover, not a moved viewmodel. On touch there is no aim button at all — the fire button auto-aims at the nearest robot first.
Melee
Forest Survival gives melee to 5 of the 8 weapons: Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, SMG and Subverter. A swing deals 60 base damage across a 120° frontal arc out to 5.2 m, hits up to 3 targets, and has a 900 ms cooldown. That reach makes melee a real crowd answer rather than a desperation move — a swing into three robots that have crowded you beats a reload. The Sniper, Minigun and Launcher have no swing.
Throwables: seven kinds, one pouch
Forest Survival gives every run a pouch of throwables on top of the eight guns. You start with three frag grenades, and robots drop more on a schedule set by the difficulty: a 7% roll per kill and up to three drops a wave on Easy, 5% and two a wave on Medium, 4% and one a wave on Hard, with Adaptive sliding between Easy and Hard as it reads your play. A long dry spell ends in a guaranteed drop, and the whole stream is separate from power-up crates. Each throwable has its own first-person throw, from an overhand lob to a bowler's roll along the ground.
| Throwable | Type | What it does | Pouch cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frag | Lethal | Up to 210 damage in a 10.5 m blast; the 2.4 s fuse starts when the pin comes out, so holding G cooks it for an airburst — and it can hurt you too | 6 |
| Sticky C4 | Lethal | Clings to the first robot or surface it touches, then up to 290 damage in an 8 m blast | 3 |
| Thermite | Lethal | Rolled along the ground; floods a 5.5 m patch with fire that sets robots alight | 3 |
| Throwing knife | Lethal | Fast, flat and silent — 150 damage to a single robot | 5 |
| Hijack spike | Tactical | Thrown flat like a dart and sticks to the first robot or surface it hits; 0.7 s later it takes that robot over, or leaps to one within 4.5 m. The ally keeps its health, loses it only to robots that hit it, fights the nearest hostile at 1.5× damage (shooters fire bolts), follows you between waves, and never counts toward clearing a wave. Bosses, mini-bosses and the Revenant reject it | 2 |
| EMP | Tactical | Stuns every robot within 12.5 m and breaks energy shields | 3 |
| Decoy | Tactical | A noise beacon that pulls robots within 46 m onto itself until it pops — the Overlord, Revenant and Leaper ignore it | 2 |
Press G to throw, or hold it to see the aim arc before you let go. T and B cycle throwables mid-fight, and holding T opens a quick-select wheel; all three keys can be rebound in Settings. Throws need a free left hand: not while the riot shield is braced or a detonator is held. Throwables work in multiplayer too — every player sees every throw — and the Tutorial hands you two of each to practise with. The full control list is on the how-to-play page.
Active reload
Forest Survival's active reload is a timing window inside every reload, and hitting it snaps the reload to 200 ms. The sweet spot sits between 42% and 62% of the window — wide enough to learn by feel inside a wave, and a big enough saving to change fights on slow reloaders like the Minigun. Missing it costs nothing but the normal reload.
Weapon Mastery, L0 to L10
Forest Survival tracks Weapon Mastery separately for every weapon, L0 to L10 across an 11-entry XP table topping out at 3,720 XP. Every kill feeds XP to whatever you were holding, so mastery follows your habits rather than a menu choice. Because the tracks are independent, spreading kills across all eight ranks nothing up quickly — committing to two or three gets both a long way up the ladder.
Weapon FAQ
How do I unlock the Subverter?
Forest Survival unlocks the Subverter at base 2,200 multiplied by your difficulty: 2,860 on Easy, 5,500 on Medium, 7,700 on Hard, and a live figure on Adaptive between 1.2× and 3.4× base. It is last in the ladder, so you must survive deep to bank that score; kills inside an ARK-07 relay field pay up to 50% bonus score.
Which weapon is best against the Overlord boss?
Forest Survival caps bullet damage against the Overlord at 14% of its maximum health per hit, so per-shot weapons hit a ceiling. Explosives, nukes and ability bursts are exempt from that cap, which makes the Launcher and detonated barrels the efficient answer. The Overlord is also immune to the Subverter, so save your chips.
Do I keep my weapons between runs?
Forest Survival re-earns weapons every run — unlocks are scored inside the run, not stored on your account. Weapon Mastery XP does carry over, so time spent on a weapon is never lost even though the weapon itself resets. In the Tutorial every weapon is unlocked from the start, which is the fastest way to try one you have not reached.
Are all 8 weapons available in multiplayer?
Forest Survival uses the same eight weapons and the same unlock ladder in multiplayer as in solo. Some solo systems do not travel — the Mystery Box wave perks and the Tactical Director are solo only — but the guns are identical. Which class you pick and which map you play still change how each one feels; the general FAQ covers the rest.
Further reading on the project wiki
The wiki carries the full per-weapon breakdown, including handling values this page summarises. It is maintained separately from this site and kept in step with the code.
- Weapons — Every weapon with complete stats, handling and mastery detail
- Equipment — Grenades, deployables and the rest of the kit
- Inventory — How power-ups and the held-item slot interact with your loadout
Play Forest Survival free
Forest Survival runs in the browser with no download, and Solo and Tutorial need no account at all — only multiplayer asks you to sign in.