Expansions
The two free update eras — A New Reign and Return of Them — that reshaped the world.
Explore eras →Survive the Long Dark Together
Don't Starve Together
A standalone multiplayer survival game from Klei Entertainment, set in the shadow-haunted wilderness known as The Constant. Gather, build, fight, and outlast the seasons — alone, or with friends who may or may not steal your food.
Don't Starve Together is the cooperative companion to Klei's cult survival classic. You arrive with nothing, the science is questionable, and night brings teeth in the dark. This Don't Starve Together guide maps every major system a survivor needs — from sailing the ocean to surviving a sandstorm.
The Game at a Glance
What is Don't Starve Together?
Don't Starve Together (DST) is the standalone multiplayer version of Klei Entertainment's 2013 survival game Don't Starve. One to several survivors are dropped into The Constant — a bleak, hand-drawn wilderness ruled by hunger, darkness and a creeping loss of sanity — and left to figure everything out alone.
There is no tutorial and no quest log. You learn how to play Don't Starve Together the hard way: chop trees, mine rocks, build a Science Machine to unlock recipes, and stay near a fire once the sun goes down, because Charlie waits in the dark. Three meters govern survival — Hunger, Health and Sanity — and letting any of them bottom out has consequences, from starvation to shadow monsters that only the low-sanity can see.
Above the moment-to-moment grind sits a calendar of seasons. Autumn is gentle, winter freezes and starves you, spring drowns the world in rain, and summer brings wildfires and a desert sandstorm. Beneath the surface lie the Caves and Ruins, a second world of monsters and ancient loot. The longer a server survives, the bigger the threats become — culminating in optional raid bosses that gate the best gear in the game.
The short version: gather by day, hide from the dark by night, prepare for the next season before it arrives, and try not to die — though even death just turns you into a ghost your friends can revive.
Start Here
Find your way through The Constant
Features
Game modes, ghosts, the ocean, sandstorms, meteors, and how the world heals itself.
See features →
Characters
Six survivors born in DST — from the engineer Winona to the cursed Wonkey.
Meet them →
Crafting
How the crafting menu works, plus recipes that can never be prototyped.
Build smarter →
Mobs
Antlion, Bee Queen, Klaus, Malbatross, Toadstool and the rest of the raid roster.
Face them →Events
Hallowed Nights, Winter's Feast, the Cawnival, and the retired Forge and Gorge.
Join in →Two Games, One Constant
Don't Starve vs Don't Starve Together
They share a world, an art style and a sense of humour, but they are different games. The original is a single-player puzzle of survival; Together is a living, multiplayer sandbox that Klei still updates today. New players almost always start with Don't Starve Together — it is the more active, more forgiving, and far more populated of the two.
Original · 2013
Don't Starve
A solitary, authored survival game. One survivor, permadeath, and a scripted Adventure Mode that pits you against the puppet master Maxwell.
- Strictly single-player — death restarts you in a fresh world
- Adventure Mode is the closest thing to a story and an ending
- Expanded through paid DLC worlds: Reign of Giants, Shipwrecked and Hamlet
- A finite, curated experience you can finish
Standalone · 2016
Don't Starve Together
The co-op standalone built for many hands. Survive together (or sabotage each other), and chase endgame raid bosses the original never got.
Which should you play, and who as? If you want company and ongoing content, pick Together. For your first run, a straightforward survivor is the best character for beginners — Wilson asks nothing special of you, while Wendy fights alongside the ghost of her sister Abigail, which makes early combat far kinder. See the full character guide →
See It in Action
Don't Starve Together Trailer
Watch the official trailer for Don't Starve Together — Klei's standalone multiplayer survival game set in The Constant.
The Bigger Picture
The Don't Starve series & what's next
Don't Starve Together is no longer the newest entry in the franchise. The series now runs from the original Don't Starve (2013) and its DLC (events, features), through Don't Starve Together (2016), and on to Don't Starve Elsewhere — a brand-new standalone co-op survival game Klei announced in April 2026 at the Triple-i Initiative showcase.
Elsewhere keeps the franchise's core loop but adds genuinely new ideas: vertical terrain with cliffs and elevation, jumping and swimming, biome-specific climates, and a creeping Fog that curses everything it touches. No Don't Starve Elsewhere release date has been confirmed yet — Klei has only said it is in development for PC. Until then, Don't Starve Together remains the studio's flagship survival game, still receiving free updates and still one of the most-played co-op survival titles on Steam.
Quick Answers
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Don't Starve Together free?
No — it's a paid game from Klei Entertainment, but its major content updates, including the A New Reign and Return of Them eras, were released for free to all owners.
Can I play Don't Starve Together solo?
Yes. Despite the name, you can host a private world and play entirely alone. The game simply also supports multiple survivors on the same server when you want company.
What happens when I die?
You become a ghost rather than getting a game over. Ghosts chill nearby living players and can be revived through a Touch Stone, Meat Effigy, the Florid Postern portal, or by a living friend — usually at the cost of maximum health.
Which game mode should a beginner choose?
Endless mode is the most forgiving, with easy self-revival and no world reset on a wipe. It's the best place to learn before moving to the higher-stakes Survival mode.
Do skins affect gameplay?
Not at all. Everything in the Curio Cabinet is purely cosmetic. A rare character skin survives exactly as well as the default look.
Pack your science machine
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