Forsaken Beginner Guide: How to Play, Win Rounds and Pick a Main

How to play Forsaken: how a round works

A Forsaken round is one Killer against a group of Survivors. The Killer has to kill everyone before a timer runs out. The timer starts at 4:00 when six or more Survivors are alive. Survivors win by staying alive until it hits zero. Repairing generators shortens the clock, and every Survivor death adds time back.

That's the whole loop, and the rest of this Forsaken beginner guide is detail on each part of it. A note on sourcing first: this guide is built from the Forsaken Wiki's pages and update log; we did not play-test the numbers. Where the wiki contradicts itself, the text says so.

Between rounds you wait in the Lobby, where the shop is. The wiki says the player with the most Malice in the server becomes the Killer, and Malice drops back to 1 once you've played Killer. Everyone else is a Survivor. Malice comes from playing matches, from finishing generator puzzles (0.25 each) and from certain abilities, and the wiki says the shop sells it in packs of 15 and 30. If two players tie for the top, the game picks one at random. Only one player per round gets the Killer slot, so Survivor is the role you'll play most while you're new.

One more rule to know before you queue: the wiki's update log says being AFK for 90 seconds during a match kills you.

The round timer: what adds time and what removes it

The timer is the scoreboard. Everything either pushes it toward zero (good for Survivors) or pushes it away (good for the Killer).

Those timer numbers come from the March 2026 balance changes (patch 3.6.2). The wiki lists no later change to them, and patch 5.3.0 includes a fix for "Round Timer Scaling," which suggests the scaling is still active. Treat them as the current values, but check the update log if a new patch lands. Patch 5.3.0 also added a different chase theme for the last 30 seconds of a round, so you'll hear the pressure change before the end.

How to win as a Survivor

The timer table already tells you the plan, and the wiki's pages for the free Survivors repeat it. Staying alive matters twice: a dead teammate costs 40 seconds of timer, and the Survivors page describes your job as outliving the Killer until the clock hits zero. Generators are optional, but each puzzle takes 3 seconds off. The Noob page puts it plainly for a Survivalist: stay away from the Killer and work on generators.

Two things from the Items page help here. A Medkit heals 80 health but takes 7 seconds to start, and it refuses to work at full health, so use it somewhere the Killer can't see you. A Bloxy Cola gives a 10-second speed boost after about 4 seconds of startup. The wiki says those items lie around maps in set spawn spots. It also tags that page as private-server related, so check the spawns yourself on your first few maps.

Generators: the only objective

Generators are the main objective in public servers. The wiki's Objectives page says there are five on each current map, and the map data bears that out: all 19 current maps list "5 Generators." The only maps without them are dev-only or private-server maps. Between one and three Survivors can work one generator at once, and some allow only two because one side sits against a wall.

How a repair works, per the Objectives page:

• You hold the interact prompt for about one second to start, and your character crouches at that side.
• The puzzle is a 7x7 grid in the style of the mobile game Flow Free. Matching numbered, colored dots (between 1 and 13 pairs) must be joined by wires that can't cross.
• You don't have to fill every tile. Connecting the colors is enough.
• Leaving the puzzle loses your progress, and re-entering gives you a new one.
• Taking damage kicks you out automatically, and Killers can't repair generators at all.

Patch 5.3.0 added three more puzzle types (Pop the Lock, Wires and Gear), and the Objectives page hasn't caught up with them. So expect variety, and don't assume every generator is the grid. The same patch added two map-specific objectives: Feed the Orange on Horror Hotel and Clean Graffiti on Brandon6,875,935's Place. The wiki has no reward or timer numbers for either yet.

Wiki numbers disagree on the total value. The Objectives page says a finished generator removes 12 seconds and all five remove 60, but its trivia says 80, and patch 5.1.0 raised the puzzle count per generator from 4 to 5. At 3 seconds per puzzle that would be 15 seconds per generator, but the wiki never states the new total, so treat that as arithmetic, not a confirmed figure. The reward line is clearer, though easy to misread. The wiki lists 2 Player Points (Player Points page), 8 EXP "for finishing a puzzle of a Generator" (Experience Points page) and 0.25 Malice for "completing a Generator puzzle" (Statistics page). So these rewards are paid per puzzle, not per generator, and five puzzles in a generator makes 10 Player Points for one Survivor who finishes the whole thing (our arithmetic).

Fake generators

If Noli is the Killer, two of the generators are fakes. Finishing one gives the repairing players a Hallucination effect (up to three stacks) and then resets the generator. The wiki lists four easy tells:

1. 1A small smiling Noli face on top of the generator. Real ones are clear.
2. 2Glitching sound effects when you stand next to it.
3. 3A yellow-green progress bar instead of the real neon green.
4. 4Reward pop-ups that look wrong, such as a different currency symbol, or that show up late. Real ones appear immediately after a puzzle.

Stamina and sprinting: the numbers

Stamina is the resource that decides chases. You spend it sprinting and regain it when you stop. The wiki's stat tables give these values for every character in the Killers and Survivors lists.

Simple division gives you the practical limits. A Survivor can sprint for about 10 seconds from full (100 divided by 10). A Killer gets about 11.6 seconds (110 divided by 9.5). If you run the bar to zero, the stamina bar turns red, and regeneration doesn't start for 2 seconds. The wiki also notes that regeneration is slower the longer you sprinted, so "20 per second" is the best case.

Two takeaways follow from the table. First, Survivors out-walk every Killer: 12 against a top of 9.25. The wiki's stamina tips use that directly: if the Killer stops sprinting in a chase, stop sprinting too, because walking keeps you ahead while your stamina refills. Second, the sprint gap is small, between 1 and 2 points in the Killer's favor. That makes a long chase come down to whose bar empties first, which is why the wiki says never to let stamina hit zero mid-chase and not to sit at a full bar when you could be running.

Killers have an extra rule. Their stamina only drains when a Survivor is within 85 studs (patch 3.6.2 lowered this from 100), and they get a 10% speed boost when nobody is inside that range. In the Lobby, everyone has infinite stamina.

Last Man Standing (LMS)

LMS is what the game calls the final stretch when only one Survivor is left. The wiki has no mechanics page for it. The page titled "Last Man Standing" is the music list for it, so the rules are scattered across patch notes and character pages. What they say:

• A dedicated LMS screen appears when you enter it (patch 5.0.0). It can be toggled off in settings.
• The Killer and the last Survivor are highlighted to each other for 3 seconds out of every 10, like a radar pulse (patch 5.1.0). The Undetectable status effect also works in LMS from that patch.
• Special music plays for some matchups. The default theme, "A Grave Soul (Now, Run)," plays for any Killer against any Survivor, while "You and I" plays when only John Doe and Jane Doe are left.
• Spectators can bet on who wins the LMS (patch 5.3.0).

Your Bloxy Cola is weaker here. The Items page says it gives Speed 1 in LMS instead of the usual Speed 2. Even so, the page notes that many players save a cola for LMS.

Who handles it well? The Noob page warns Killers that leaving a Noob for Last Man Standing is ill-advised, because he can prepare a Bloxy Cola to stall more time. The Elliot page says he's possibly the worst Survivor for it, because Rush Hour can't recharge once spent. A tip on the wiki's Achievements page says Survivalists are extremely strong in LMS and that experienced Killers will try to find and target them. The C00lkidd page gives the Killer-side counterpart: it lists "inconsistent tracking with no traditional ESP ability" among his cons, so losing sight of the last Survivor hurts him.

Player Points and the free starting characters

Player Points are the game's currency, and you get 300 of them for joining the game for the first time. After that, a Survivor win pays 25, a Killer win pays 60, a Killer loss pays 15 and a Killer kill pays 15. Character actions add more: Shedletsky stunning the Killer pays 5, Noob's abilities pay 3 each, and an Elliot pizza that heals someone pays 8. You can't earn Player Points in private servers, though you can still spend them there. Every award, with the per-generator-puzzle reward, is in the Player Points guide. Robux packs exist too (100 Player Points for 40 Robux, up to 20,000 for 7,600), but nothing in a normal round requires them.

For scale: the cheapest paid Survivors (007n7, Guest 1337, Two Time and Builderman) cost 500 each, and the cheapest paid Killer, John Doe, costs 1,000. With the 300 starter bonus, one 500-point Survivor is 200 points away, which is 8 Survivor-win payouts of 25 before counting anything else (our arithmetic). Jane Doe can't be bought; you unlock her by completing her quest.

You don't need to buy anything to start. Five characters are free:

• Killers: Slasher and C00lkidd. Slasher unlocks automatically the first time you join. C00lkidd became a free Killer in patch 5.0.0, and the patch notes say he is given upon your first time playing.
• Survivors: Noob, Shedletsky and Elliot. The wiki notes that Shedletsky and Elliot used to cost 500 and 350.

Picking your first Killer and Survivor

Here's a rule you can check against the data: among the free characters for your role, take the lowest wiki difficulty, and break ties with higher health. Nothing below is a tier opinion. It's the wiki's own numbers.

First Killer

By the rule, Slasher wins: difficulty 2, and twice C00lkidd's health. Both share a sprint speed of 28, but Slasher walks at 9 against C00lkidd's 7.75. The catch is that the wiki calls Slasher heavily reliant on stamina management and the only Killer without ranged abilities, so he has to get close. The C00lkidd page lists "generally easier to pick up than Slasher" among his pros because of his varied kit, which contradicts the difficulty ratings. Both are free, so try both. Also note that the wiki's C00lkidd page carries an Upcoming Rework tag, so his kit may change.

First Survivor

Shedletsky and Elliot tie at difficulty 2, and health breaks it: Shedletsky has 100 and Elliot 80, the lowest of the three free Survivors. The wiki's own pros list for Shedletsky calls him "a pretty good starting character." Elliot's page calls him very team reliant and a prioritized target for Killers. If you'd rather avoid the Killer and stick to generators, Noob is the wiki's pick for that, at difficulty 3 with 100 health and a Slateskin Potion that grants 120 overheal.

For a bigger decision tree across every character, see the tier list. The maps page lists every current map, each with its five generators.

Sources

All figures come from the Forsaken Wiki pages below, plus the structured character and map data behind this site's own pages.

• FORSAKEN (game overview)
• Objectives
• Player Points
• Stats (health, stamina, malice, speed)
• Items
• Survivors
• Killers
• Maps
• Last Man Standing (OST page)
• Update Log 2026
• Achievements
• Slasher
• C00lkidd
• Noob
• Shedletsky
• Elliot