The Survival mode in Garden Tower Defense flips the script by putting you in direct danger. Instead of protecting the castle from waves of insects, you'll have to defend yourself as they try to swarm and overrun you. To help you survive, follow our Garden Tower Defense Survival mode guide as we walk you through how it works, what rewards you can get, and some survival tips.
How to Play Survival Mode in Garden Tower Defense
Survival mode is one of four main game modes in Garden Tower Defense, with the other three being Story mode, Endless mode, and PvP. Survival mode makes you the enemy's target, so you'll have to run around the map while placing and upgrading your towers in order to survive. You can play it by going to its designated zone in the lobby and queue up with up to three other players. Currently, there's only one map available, called Islands, and it's split into four levels:
- The Farm
- The Jungle
- Tropical
- Toxic
You always have to go through them in that exact order; you can't pick just to do one of them, so even though it has great rewards, it can be pretty time-consuming, so strap in. Every level has 40 waves, meaning you'll have to clear 160 of them in total. At the start, you'll have to choose one of five difficulty options, those being:
- Easy
- Normal
- Hard
- Insane
- Impossible
On higher difficulties, the enemies will be tougher and more of them will spawn per wave, but the rewards are greater as well. Which difficulty is best for you depends on where you're at with your plant tower collection and general game progression. Aside from trying to beat easy or normal mode, I don't recommend you take on the more challenging mode until later on, when you have more powerful towers unlocked, because it can get pretty hectic, and if you die before completing all of it, you lose out on a lot of the rewards.
Best Strategy for Beating Survival Mode
Currently, the best way to beat Survival Mode in Garden Tower Defense is to use The Money Tree. You start off the mode with a small amount of money to get you started, and every time you kill an enemy, they give you some more on death. This makes it very difficult to prepare for higher waves without a steady cash income. That's why the Money Tree shines here, with its ability to generate unlimited resources. Generally, what you want to do is:
- Start by placing a Money Tree in one of the corners of the map.
- Shortly after the first wave starts to spawn. Make sure auto-wave skip is disabled, since you'll be staying on the first wave for a bit.
- Run around the map, avoiding the initial enemies as you do, and keep placing Money Trees every time you can, until you have the maximum amount of six down.
- Continue kiting the enemies until you upgrade all of them to the final level, and your infinite cash farm is complete. Now you can start placing down towers that deal damage.
- Make sure to bring your strongest towers with you, either ones with the highest DPS, like The Bloodvine, or towers with slowing properties like The Icebuds.
- If the enemies die before they can even reach you while you're hiding behind your towers, perfect, but if not, which will probably be the case for the later waves in the higher difficulties, make sure to lead them through your towers and avoid them getting too close.
Another great recipe for success is to play with some friends. You can also use the above strategy in a cooperative game, but dealing with the enemies will be a lot easier, because you can take turns, with one of you kiting the enemies and the others building up the towers. The best benefit, however, is that you can carry each other to safety if the enemies take you down and revive one another. Even if you do end up eaten by the insects, as long as someone else is still alive, you'll respawn after five waves or if the next level starts.
You can also queue up with random people for the mode. The community for the game is pretty great, with a lot of players willing to help people who are just starting, so you might even get carried every once in a while. Just know that sometimes you might be in for a more chaotic experience, with everyone going with their own strategy, which might turn out to be a fun time or end in disaster.
The Rewards in Garden Tower Defense Survival Mode
There are two main reasons to clear Survival mode in Garden Tower Defense and tackle its higher difficulties. First of all, it's the best place to farm Seeds, the in-game currency you need to get new and stronger towers. You need to beat the whole level to get the full reward, but even if you die before then, you'll still get some depending on how many waves you cleared.
The most exciting thing you can get is one of the four survival mode exclusive towers, each tied to a specific level, with different drop rates depending on the difficulty you choose. You can check more details about them in the table below.
| Tower | Stats |
|---|---|
| Lil Stump | DPS = 30 - 950 Damage = 15 - 150 (1x - 5x Burst) Range = 18 - 37 Attack Speed = 2.5 - 0.8 Price = 1200 |
| Sporefang | DPS = 40 - 1620 Damage = 20 - 270 (1x - 5x Burst) Range = 15 - 30 Attack Speed = 1.5 - 0.5 Price = 2200 |
| Tiki Tower | DPS = 80 - 2500 Damage = 80 - 1250 Range = 20 - 40 Attack Speed = 1 - 0.5 Price = 1500 |
| Seed Mech | DPS = 175 - 2667 Damage = 35 - 320 (1x - 2x Burst) Range = 17 - 40 Attack Speed = 1 - 0.6 Price = 3000 |
Each level rewards you with a different amount of Seeds and can only drop their own exclusive survival tower, with the amount of seeds and the tower drop rate increasing with harder difficulties. You need to beat all 40 waves in a level to get the whole seeds reward and the chance to get its exclusive tower.
The Farm Level Rewards
| Difficulty | Seeds | Tower Drop Chance |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | 2000 | Lil Stump = 2% |
| Normal | 2500 | Lil Stump = 3% |
| Hard | 3000 | Lil Stump = 4% |
| Insane | 3500 | Lil Stump = 5% |
| Impossible | 4000 | Lil Stump = 6% |
The Jungle Level Rewards
| Difficulty | Seeds | Tower Drop Chance |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | 4000 | Sporefang = 1% |
| Normal | 5000 | Sporefang = 2% |
| Hard | 6000 | Sporefang = 3% |
| Insane | 7000 | Sporefang = 4% |
| Impossible | 8000 | Sporefang = 5% |
The Tropical Level Rewards
| Difficulty | Seeds | Tower Drop Chance |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | 6000 | Tiki Tower = 0.5% |
| Normal | 7500 | Tiki Tower = 1% |
| Hard | 9000 | Tiki Tower = 1.5% |
| Insane | 10500 | Tiki Tower = 2% |
| Impossible | 12000 | Tiki Tower = 2.5% |
The Toxic Level Rewards
| Difficulty | Seeds | Tower Drop Chance |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | 8000 | Seed Mech = 0.1% |
| Normal | 10000 | Seed Mech = 0.2% |
| Hard | 12000 | Seed Mech = 0.5% |
| Insane | 14000 | Seed Mech = 0.8% |
| Impossible | 16000 | Seed Mech = 1% |
Garden Tower Defense Survival Mode FAQ
You get it through the Classic Summon when it's in rotation. It costs 100 seeds to make a pull, and each one has an 11% chance to drop. It will take some luck, but it shouldn't take too long
I would recommend against it at the start, because it gets much more manageable after you have more towers at your disposal. It's better to play it later on when you want to farm seeds, but you can always try the lower difficulties and see how it goes.
Yes, as long as you come prepared with the right strategy, contrary to the name, it's not at all impossible to do solo.
While you have to beat all 40 waves in a level to get its specific tower, you don't have to beat the whole mode. If you win the farm level, you have a chance to get its tower even if you die in the next one.
Even though it takes some time to complete, it is by far the best mode for farming those precious seeds that we all need for new towers. I recommend you use it to farm some before any major event that comes to the game, so you have the resources to collect the limited-time towers.
We hope our guide on the Survival Mode in Garden Tower Defense helped prepare you for the challenge to come. If you're looking for more content related to the game, check out our Garden Tower Defense Tier List.
Luka is a freelance writer for Pro Game Guides and a lifelong gamer, playing the original Zelda and Doom back when he was 4 years old. He enjoys games from all kinds of different genres, with his favorites being RPGs, turn-based strategies and third-person action games. If a game with roguelike elements comes out, more often than not, you can catch him playing it, so it's no surprise that Hades is among his favorite games, along with titles such as The Witcher 3, Dead Space and Dark Souls, to name a few.
