Survival Kids is a 2025 reboot of the classic 90s Game Boy Color game of the same name. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Survival Kids Review Overview
What is Survival Kids?
Survival Kids debuted on June 5, 2025, as a launch title exclusive to the Nintendo Switch 2. This reboots Konami’s original Game Boy Color series from 1999—also known in Japan as Survival Kids and abroad as Lost in Blue—and marks the franchise’s first new release since 2008. It shifts from the series’ earlier non-linear survival style to a more structured, kid-friendly cooperative adventure.
Players are cast as one of up to four kids who discover an ancient map, only to be shipwrecked on a chain of living turtle-like islands called "Whurtles." Each island presents a vertical environment that submerges as players progress toward crafting a raft to set sail for the next one. These kids are guided by the "Lighthouse Keeper, who offers encouragement and direction without harsh penalties. If players fall, they simply respawn, and mistakes have minimal consequences.
Survival Kids features:
⚫︎ Co-Op Focused
⚫︎ Local Split-Screen and Online Co-Op Options
⚫︎ Lighthearted and Cozy Story and Gameplay
⚫︎ Environmental Puzzles and Exploration
⚫︎ Makes Use of GameChat and GameShare
 Switch 2 |
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| $49.99 | |||||
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Survival Kids Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Fun and Approachable GameShare and Flexible Co-Op Options |
Can’t Truly Pause the Game, Even in Solo-Play Tasks Can Get Repetitive Story is Barely There |
Survival Kids Overall Score - 62/100
Survival Kids is a kid-friendly co-op game that finds its rhythm in teamwork and puzzle-solving. It’s best enjoyed with a buddy on the couch or across consoles, where its repetition and simple objectives turn into a surprisingly effective bonding experience. Solo players might find the pace a bit sluggish, and the fact that the game punishes you for taking a break feels odd for a game this relaxed. Still, for what it sets out to do, it’s an island hop worth taking.
Survival Kids Story - 5/10
There’s little to no story in Survival Kids. Sure, there's a loose excuse for a story—something about treasure maps, storms, and kids who just keep wrecking rafts on giant turtle islands. It's light, pretty silly, and mostly in the background, but every so often it throws in a joke or moment so goofy it actually made me laugh. My little brother and I couldn't care less about the plot; we were too busy cooking and bickering over who forgot to grab the vines. Bottomline is, don’t go playing this game if you’re expecting to get glassy-eyed.
Survival Kids Gameplay - 7/10
Survival Kids leans into a simple gameplay loop: you're chopping trees, building bridges, and cooking food, all while a relentless timer keeps ticking. It's pretty clear the game's built for co-op, where the chaos of multitasking with a friend turns what could be busywork into a hilarious comedy of errors. You can play it solo, but the real fun is in the teamwork and the occasional mishap of accidentally tossing an important item you carried from half an island away off a cliff. It's not some super deep survival sim, but it's a little puzzle box that keeps you on your toes.
Survival Kids Visuals - 7/10
Survival Kids nails that bright, toy-like look that’s perfect for the Switch 2’s screen. Everything pops with color and is easy to read. It’s not pushing technical boundaries—I even saw it lag a bit at the simplest of animations—but the chunky animations and cheerful environments sell the game’s playful vibe. You’re probably not going to pause to take in the views, but you’ll definitely appreciate that nothing ever gets in the way.
Survival Kids Audio - 6/10
The audio in Survival Kids does exactly what it needs to. Island tracks keep the tempo light without ever demanding your full attention. Aside from the Lighthouse Keeper, there’s no voice acting (unless you consider squeaking noises from the characters voice acting), but the bounces and bops in the sound design help fill that gap.
Survival Kids Value for Money - 6/10
For its asking price, Survival Kids offers a decent amount of content, especially if you’ve got a co-op partner in tow and a soft spot for multitasking. The ability to play locally, online, or via GameShare adds flexibility that makes it feel like a smarter buy than most budget co-op games. It’s not the deepest experience out there, but it stretches its mechanics just far enough to stay engaging across its many islands. If you catch it on sale, it’s an easy recommendation; at full price, it’s still solid—just know what kind of ride you’re signing up for.
Survival Kids Review: Cast It Away
I’ll begin this review by saying that I’m not the intended audience for Survival Kids on Switch 2. That’s not a slight on the game; just an acknowledgement of its design philosophy. Bright colors and a lighthearted progression all suggest that this is meant for a younger crowd, or perhaps for families to play together. So, I did what any responsible adult with a little brother and an overdue backlog would do: I roped him in.
We played the game both cooperatively and in alternating single-player sessions, with me watching him puzzle his way through some of the more dexterity-based sections, and him watching me fumble through the easier ones with a little too much thinking. This was a tag-team review, not just of the game, but of what it’s like when two very different kinds of players explore a title clearly built to bridge that very gap.
Now, here’s something that might surprise you if you’re seeing Survival Kids on the eShop for the first time: This isn’t a new IP. The title traces its roots back to a rather brutal survival sim released for the Game Boy in 1999, also by Konami. That earlier version was a far cry from what the modern Switch 2 release offers. The 1999 game dropped you onto an island with minimal guidance and even less forgiveness. That game earned a cult following for how surprisingly deep it was, especially for a handheld title in that era. It was part of a short-lived series in Japan known as Survival Kids (Lost in Blue internationally). And then… nothing, for nearly two decades.
This Switch 2 version, while bearing the same name, is not a sequel. It doesn’t even feel like a reboot, really. It’s more like a reinterpretation of the original, something filtered through the lens of modern couch co-op hits like Overcooked. Gone is the lonely dread of surviving on an island by your wits alone. In its place is a lighthearted puzzle adventure with characters you can dress up, items to craft on the fly, and environmental challenges that demand coordination. The emphasis is still technically on "survival," but now it means something much different: Can you survive your annoying little brother who just won’t do what you tell him!
Kidding aside. Again, I am not the core demographic for this game. But my brother absolutely is. And when we weren’t busy arguing over who should carry what, or whose job it was to carry the leaf umbrella or the trampoline, we were laughing. A lot. That alone told me that Survival Kids is doing exactly what it set out to do.
A Plot as Stable as Their Raft
The story in Survival Kids is… well, let’s just say it exists. Technically. There’s a setup involving a group of kids who stumble upon an old treasure map and set sail in search of adventure. Naturally, things go sideways almost immediately. A storm rolls in, their raft shatters like a wet cracker, and they end up marooned on the back of a giant turtle-island hybrid. Then it happens again. And again. And Again. It’s not exactly The Odyssey, but the premise is cute enough to set the stage for what is essentially a level-based puzzle-platformer with survival-lite mechanics.
My little brother and I barely acknowledged the story after the opening cutscene. We weren’t emotionally invested in the logistics of how these kids keep building new rafts only to destroy them minutes later or whoever the Lighthouse Keeper is who narrates and guides your journey. We just barreled through the game. The game is self-aware enough of its own absurdity that it didn’t matter much in the end. I, personally, would’ve loved to have followed actual characters with some semblance of development, but this’ll do.
My brother, though, predictably, didn’t care one bit. I asked him what he thought about the story after one session and he just shrugged, said something about "fixing the raft again," and went back to tossing berries into a campfire. That’s really the pace Survival Kids settles into. The story is there if you want to glance at it, but you won’t find any real substance here.
Each level acts as a mini-chapter, not in narrative terms, but in gameplay goals. You crash onto a new island (somehow), find out that your raft is broken and on top of the turtle-island again, and get to work gathering wood, cooking meals, crafting tools, and solving minor traversal puzzles. Rinse, repeat. The story’s biggest role is justifying this progression, which it does with enough whimsy to avoid feeling totally hollow.
The Joys and Woes of Island Life
Survival Kids, for better or worse, revolves around crafting, teamwork, and a surprising amount of lugging stuff across precarious platforms. The survival aspect is more about efficiency and cooperation than actual danger. You won’t find hunger meters ticking down or animals chasing you; instead, it’s about solving small puzzles, building tools, and figuring out how to ferry two vines, three planks, and a trampoline up a cliffside without yeeting yourself into a pit. It’s low stakes, but engaging in the right mindset.
The basic rhythm of the game is this: You and your partner (or just you, if you’re flying solo) will set about fixing your broken raft again and again and again using whatever materials are lying around. Each island presents a new layout and slightly more complicated objectives. What starts as a simple "grab some logs and build a bridge" gradually evolves into multitasking-heavy sequences that require gliding across updrafts, dodging ancient turrets, and using makeshift elevators to shuttle bundles of supplies from one ledge to another. Sometimes it’s not about figuring out what you need to do but how to get the materials there, which makes for some neat problem-solving moments that hit especially well in co-op.
My little brother and I found the gameplay to be surprisingly enjoyable, even if it was slow-paced. We dabbled in co-op, but we mostly stuck to single-player, often with one of us offering "helpful" commentary from the sidelines. That was partly because unless you and your partner are perfectly in sync, some tasks weirdly felt more challenging with two people than with one. Chopping trees or breaking rocks, for instance, seemed to take twice as long in co-op, and dislodging snagged items demanded more effort. It’s probably because the game expects players to coordinate—and, well, we’re bad at that. My brother said some co-op tasks felt like pure busywork, and honestly, he wasn’t wrong.
Still, credit where it’s due: Survival Kids does a great job nudging players to work together without ever forcing it. You can split up tasks and cover more ground, and when the cooperation clicks, the game rewards it—chopping is faster, building is faster, even fishing goes smoother. Multitasking also helps cut down on those tedious treks back to camp just to swap tools. Whether your partner’s actually on board with that plan is another story. We often ended up bickering over who dropped the rock into the river or whether we really needed to haul that giant treasure stone when we were already behind on the timer. But hey, that’s part of the charm.
The game doesn’t skimp on mechanics. There's stamina management, a family-friendly crafting system, traversal puzzles, light platforming, and even environmental hazards that force you to adapt. We appreciated how these systems gradually layered onto one another without overwhelming you. It’s simple stuff, but the constant drip of new tools and mechanics keeps things from feeling stale.
From a pure content standpoint, Survival Kids is kind of lacking. There are four distinct biomes with multiple islands in each, and every island has six stars up for grabs. Most levels took us anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, sometimes even longer if one of us accidentally fell into the water while carrying something important (usually me). The game gives you a decent 10 hours of gameplay upfront, potentially more if you’re aiming for all stars.
Times Waits for No Survivor
What did get on my nerves was the game’s awkward relationship with time. Because it’s a co-op first game, you can pause the game, but the timer will still continue to move. Even in solo play, pulling up the pause menu doesn’t stop the timer. So if you need a bathroom break, want to grab a cup of coffee, or take a minute to do whatever, you’d better move fast or risk losing those time-based stars. It’s a small but meaningful frustration, especially in a game where earning a full six stars per island (three for speed, three for hidden collectibles) is the ultimate goal.
The stars themselves are another mixed bag. I appreciate the incentive for replayability, but locking the final island behind a minimum star requirement—without much warning—felt a bit like a cheap trick. I had to backtrack and replay a few levels, which wasn’t the end of the world, but definitely made me and my brother grumble. My brother didn’t care much about the stars; he just wanted to explore islands. Fair. But for those of us trying to 100% the game or just unlock every area, it’s a design choice that feels a little at odds with the otherwise casual tone.
Is Survival Kids Worth It?
For Families and Friends; Don’t Go at It Alone
Whether Survival Kids on the Switch 2 is worth buying really depends on what you’re looking to get out of it and who you plan on playing it with. For me, an adult already experiencing what feels like a midlife crisis in his late 20s, this wasn’t exactly top-priority on my wishlist. But I picked it up because I wanted something light to play with my little brother, and in that context, it’s done its job. For him, the simple mechanics, bright visuals, and the kind of drop-in co-op experience was enough to sell him on the game immediately. It was more of a slow burn, but somewhere around island eight, while the two of us were messing about throwing logs everywhere, I realized I was actually having fun—not ironically, not "for a kids game," but in that low-stress, cozy way some co-op games manage to nail.
Price-wise, this is where your mileage may vary. At full price, it's not outrageous, but it's also not a must-buy. You could get a better game for $50, like Split Fiction, arguably one of the year's best. While the production values are solid, they aren't premium. The UI looks like a polished PSP game, the animation is decent, and the music is functional but not memorable. Only the Lighthouse Keeper has voice acting, with your characters merely squeaking. There's no strong story, and the graphics are just "fine," not impressive. Where it does make a strong case for itself is in its accessibility. The ability to play local, online, or even GameShare to stream the game to a second or third Switch console without needing an extra copy is impressive. We tried GameShare during one of our sessions, and it worked without a hitch.
Survival Kids isn’t Game of the Year material, but it’s a solid addition to any shared game library. And honestly, that kind of dependable, low-friction fun is sometimes harder to come by than it should be.
| Switch 2 |
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| $49.99 | |||||
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Survival Kids FAQ
Is Survival Kids the Same as Lost in Blue?
Survival Kids (2025) is the newest release in the series of the same name, following 2008's Lost in Blue: Shipwrecked.
Game8 Reviews
Survival Kids Similar Games
Survival Kids Product Information
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| Title | SURVIVAL KIDS |
|---|---|
| Release Date | June 5, 2025 |
| Developer | Unity Technologies |
| Publisher | Konami |
| Supported Platforms | Nintendo Switch 2 |
| Genre | Adventure |
| Number of Players | Local Co-Op (1-2) Online Co-Op (2-4) |
| ESRB Rating | ESRB E |
| Official Website | Survival Kids Website |
