The guide’s primary objective is to thoroughly explain all the available achievements and best possible ways to obtain them.
Introduction
The guide’s primary objective is to thoroughly explain all the available achievements and best possible ways to obtain them. It contains useful tips as well as strategies for unlocking each achievement. The guide should be able to answer all of the questions you may have regarding this game’s achievements. I am well aware that there already are guides to the game, however, I still decided to do one myself. Everyone can rewrite the achievements but that is not particularly useful, nor helpful when you are looking for answers. There were a lot of things I had to research and figure out on my own. I decided to share that knowledge. My guide is written with attention to detail. I will show you exactly how I have obtained the 100%, what did I do and what my strategies were. Please note that most of the achievements have exactly the same picture on steam so you are going to see it often here as well. Also, I have made Important Information section which I recommend getting familiar with. if you are looking for a specific achievement, use (Ctrl+F) combination on your keyboard and search it by either its name or the requirement.
Important Information
1. You can check the progress of all your achievements related to numbers by pressing “J”.
2. There is an alternative, faster way of obtaining the achievements by adjusting the world’s options. You can increase experience multiplier, the number of zombies, animals, humans, even bosses. You are able to make your vehicle never run out of fuel or never needing a repair. You can basically become unkillable. At the same time, it allows you to increase loot chances to the full, even for legendaries and rarest of items. This adjustment can be done while playing and takes immediate effect. The settings can be found while in-game:
ESC -> Settings -> Difficulty
3. It takes quite a lot of time for the zombies, humans and animals to respawn. That is even despite the fact that you have the coresponding option mentioned above decreased to a minimum, however, you don’t have to wait. You can wipe them out and save the game. Then go back to main menu and reload your save. Everything should start respawning right away. That is especially handy when it comes to grinding kills for steam achievements.
4. You will start with a map but no GPS meaning you will not be able to see your location. Fortunately for you, that is not a problem. You see, whenever you enter a new place, you will see at the left bottom that you have discovered a new location. That newly discovered location will show up on your map. If you do not see it, zoom in. When the map is zoomed out to the maximum, the icons will not be visible. Find the location and navigate from there. Since I discovered that, I have never got lost again.
General Achievements
Play SurrounDead during Early Access release.
At the time of writing this guide (January 2025), the game is still in Early Access. This is currently the most common achievement among players. It should be the first achievement you unlock. I got it the moment I loaded to the world.
Enter The Unknown
Play ‘Survival’
This achievement will unlock automatically. You should receive it when you click ‘play’ after creating your character. Survival is the default mode.
No One Lives Forever
Cause the death of your player.
You should get it without even trying. If that is not the case, simply walk to the zombie and let it kill you. There is also an option to commit a suicide under ‘ESC’ button but I cannot confirm whether that works for the achievement or not.
Fixed A Boo-Boo
Use a medical item on the player.
Simply use any medical item and the achievement should unlock. You begin the game with a rag in your inventory. It will work to unlock the achievement.
Driver
Find & drive a vehicle.
The locations vehicles were found at appear to be random, however, there is one thing they have in common. They were always found by the main road. Luckily for you there is also a car dealer in this game. You can choose and buy any vehicle from that guy. There is one problem, they are pretty expensive. Driveable vehicles can be differenciated by the smoke or fire coming out of them. Those vehicles are usually more graphically detailed than the ones that are a part of the environment. You will come across plenty of vehicles while normally playing the game so you should not worry about that achievement much. It should unlock on its own. The moment you enter a drivable vehicle, the trophy will trigger. I have included a location of the car dealer below just in case:
Construction Worker
Place down a buildable.
The achievement is very straight forward. You have to place a buildable. You will come across plenty of buildables ranging from sleeping bags to automatic machine guns. When you have the right item, simply right click on it and choose “Place” then place it on the ground. The moment you do it, the achievement will unlock.
Here Comes The Colonel
Gain access to a secure area.
This achievement refers to the area with friendly humans. You can come across settlements like that. They are pretty rare. I believe that a shop like the already mentioned car dealer counts too, however, I cannot confirm that at this time. I accidently came across a place like that at the beginning of my journey which triggered the achievement. I am attaching the location that worked for me below:
Surviving A Fall
Break a bone from a high fall.
Pretty self-explanatory. Get on a large stone, a hill or a roof of a building and jump down. You have to trigger the debuff related to having your bone broken. It worked for me on my first try from a large stone. I recommend doing it from a roof, it should guarantee the achievement. You can save the game before jumping.
Catch A Fish
Catch a fish.
In order to catch a fish you first need a Fishing Rod. They’re commonly found around the world. Equip it right away so it doesn’t take space in your backpack. Once you have obtained the item, you need to find a body of water. When that requirement is also taken care of, press “9” to equip the rod. Throw it to the water and wait. The moment you see it moving, click on it in order to catch the fish. It is okay if it takes you a few tries.
Traverse related
Traverse for 10km with one character.
Globe Trotter
Traverse for 100km with one character.
Every step you take gets you closer to this achievement. You should completely ignore this one and leave it for the end as it probably will unlock on its own. Remember that you can check your progress in terms of this achievement under “J”. The distance conquered in a vehicle also counts towards this achievement. The best way to obtain it is to find or buy a vehicle, adjust world’s settings so that you don’t have to worry about fuel or repairs and just drive around by the road. In order to adjust your world’s settings do the following:
ESC -> Settings -> Difficulty -> Vehicles
Once you have done that, change “Fuel Depletion Mutiplier” and “Damage Depletion Multiplier” to “0” as on the screenshot below. That’s it, now go and drive the hell out of that vehicle.
Zombie related
Take out 500 zombies with one character.
Zombie Expert
Take out 5000 zombies with one character.
This trophy is self-explanatory. You need to take out some zombies. I advise to kill everything whenever you are in a location with loot. Small numbers will be adding up. You can find the most zombies in the cities and this is where I recommend doing this achievement. You can do it normally just going through the city and killing everything on sight or use a vehicle. Remember to save after you are done with clearing and reload that save to make zombies spawn again (see Important Information section for reference). Under normal circumstances, the vehicle would need repairs after one clear but you can adjust the world’s settings to make it undestructible (see Traverse related section for step-to-step instruction). Now drive over every zombie you see. They should be dying from just one hit. If that is not the case for you, don’t worry. The game allows you to also descrease the mutipliers of zombie’s health making them very weak to damage. You can also multiply the number of zombies in there which will save you a lot of time if you do that. That option can be found:
ESC -> Settings -> Difficulty -> AI
Now that you know how to do that, you need a good location. I personally have done it in the middle of the map by driving and clearing everything between Truck Stop and the city of Whitewood. The city itself only has one road so when you are going through this location, you will not miss many zombies. Same goes for the Truck Stop. It is pretty straight with a lot of zombies. Just kill everything, save, reload and repeat. With the zombie multiplier number set at maximum and undestructible vehicle, I was able to do 350 kills a round. It was usually taking me around 3 minutes to do that. You should complete this achievement using this strategy in no time. I am attaching a map of locations between which I have been running around.
Boss related
Take out a zombie boss.
The Reckoning
Take out 10 zombies bosses.
Another pretty simple achievement to get. There are bosses in this game in locations with better loot or just cities. All bosses look exactly alike. You can actually check whether the location you discovered has one or not. Open the map and put your cursor on the location you are checking. The game will tell you whether there is a boss or not. I am attaching a screenshot for reference:
Whitewood is actually a great place to farm those kills. You see, near where the boss spawns there is a lot of high vehicles like buses or a fire truck. You can get on top of it and the boss will not be able to damage you while you can put a mag directly in its face. Be careful not to get too close to the edges of the objects you will be standing at as he is able to hit you then. In order to keep killing the bosses this way you will need quite a lot of ammunition. Well, not necessarily because you can keep on killing him with a vehicle. Just drive over him a couple of times and he will eventually die. I wouldn’t recommend doing it without infinite fuel and indestructible vehicle (See Traverse related for reference). Without it, your vehicle will be quickly destroyed. Saving and reloading works here as well (See Important Information for reference). Once you load back to the game, the boss will respawn and you can kill him again.
Animal related
Take out 50 animals.
The Hunter Expert
Take out 200 animals.
To my surprise the achievement for 200 kills is the rarest one on steam at the moment. Obtaining it is actually pretty easy. Animals in this game spawn at certain locations around the map, always by the road. Rabbits can easily be chased and killed with melee but the rest you will have to shoot. That is another achievement the vehicle comes handy to. Once you have the vehicle, you can adjust the game’s settings (See Traverse related section for a step-to-step instruction) so that you don’t run out of fuel and don’t have to repair the vehicle. Now you can drive over the animals for quick kills. Please note that they will be running away from you. Only wolves and bears will not. What is also worth noting is that you can also do the save and reload trick to respawn the animals after you have killed them (See Important Information section for reference). Another important thing is that you can mutiply the number of animals that will be spawning on those areas. In order to set that up, do the following:
Press ESC -> Settings -> Difficulty -> AI, then scroll down to the very bottom to Animals and set the multiplier to the maximum.
Now that you have the required knowledge, you need the location to do it at. I personally have done it on one part of the road that had 4 different animal spawns. I would go through all 4 spawn locations with a vehicle killing every animal I came across. Then I would do the save and reload trick to respawn them and repeat. I think you can easily obtain the one for 50 kills on your first round between 4 spawns and the other one for 200 kills will take no more than 4 rounds. I am attaching a screenshot of the place I was doing it at.
Human related
Take out a human survivor.
What We’ve Come To
Take out 100 human survivors with one character.
Another pretty simple yet repetetive achievement. You have to kill 100 human survivors. It doesn’t matter whether the survivor is a friendly one or a bandit. Both will count towards the achievement progression. You can easily spot human survivors because of smokes. They usually have a fireplace on and the smoke can be visible from a very long distance. Simply go towards that direction and you will eventually encounter survivors. Be careful because friendly survivors are a rarity. Whoever you encounter will most likely be a bandit or a soldier. There are also military locations which will be guarded by military survivors. Human survivors almost always have guns so if they are not friendly, they will start shooting at you right away. When you get into close range, they will put out their knives and start chasing you. It is best to take care of human survivors from a distance using a sniper rifle. There is also an alternative way which, again, involves the vehicle. You can make your vehicle undestructible (See Traverse related section for reference) and even bullets won’t be able to damage you. You can simply then just drive over people and farm kills. What is also worth noting is that you can adjust the world’s settings to multiply the amount of human survivors that will spawn as well as their health. In order to access those options, do the following:
Press ESC -> Settings -> Difficulty -> AI, then scroll down a little. You will see three options related to humans there: Bandits, Military and Scavengers/Wandering Traders. You can increase the number multipliers to the maximum and reduce their health to the minimum. This is the best setting for the achievement.
Now that you know what to do, lets find a place to do it at. I personally did them at the observatory location shown below. There is quite a lot of soldiers there. Just kill all of them, save, reload and repeat. You can either take them out with a sniper or go into a road rage and drive over all of them in the parking lot. It is up to you.
Laboratory XX
Gain access to a hidden secure laboratory.
There is an underground laboratory located in the middle of the forest. In order to get the achievement you have to go there. You will need a key card to access it and only after you have used the card, the achievement will unlock. It will be guarded by a few soldiers which will try to kill you on sight. There are a lot of trees you can hide behind during the shootout. I took them out from the distance using sniper rifle. I have had no key card coming there but I found it at one of the corpses of the humans that were defending it. If you do not have the key card, loot the bodies. I am not sure if the loot is guaranteed or I just got lucky but if you will not get the key card from the bodies of your fallen enemies, do the save and reload trick to spawn them and kill them again for loot (see Important Information for reference). I am attaching a screenshot of the location of the laboratory.
The Final Decision
**REDACTED**
The achievement has no description so it can cause confusion but it is actually easy to get. You need to go to the location of a nuke. I am not sure what the backstory is but there is a huge nuke stuck in the middle of the road. Literally in the road. It was dropped down but never exploded and your task is to explode it yourself. Once you are at the right location, simply shot at the nuke to make it explode. This will unlock the achievement. I am attaching a screenshot of where the nuke is located.
Summary
And that wraps up our share on SurrounDead: 100% Achievement Guide to SurrounDead. If you have any additional insights or tips to contribute, don’t hesitate to drop a comment below. For a more in-depth read, you can refer to the original article here by Malfour, who deserves all the credit. Happy gaming!