Can You Play Permafrost Solo?

Single-player is fully supported

The Steam store page lists both single-player and online co-op. Its own wording is clear: play solo or survive alongside up to three friends. The publisher also invites players to brave the cold alone with only their dog at their side.

The developers back this up. In the official Q&A they said Permafrost is a fun game to play in single mode, even though co-op is a core feature. An official forum reply also confirmed that you can play solo or in co-op with up to four players.

Playtesters who went alone were positive. One player said they were totally sold, especially for single player, and enjoyed the cold isolation. Another finished every mission and side mission in the first area solo within the two-hour preview.

How to start a solo game

Solo play runs through a private session. When you start a new game, choose to host it privately instead of opening it to others. You then get to choose the world settings yourself.

Story mode eases hunger, rest and damage so you can focus on exploring and the plot. Survival is the full challenge, and Custom lets you tweak values. A reviewer who played solo chose Story for the first run and noted that settings can be adjusted later.

The two-hour preview showed how a solo run starts. You pick a background, a specialization and a dog breed, then head into the tutorial cave. The beginner guide walks through those first steps.

Your dog is your partner

Early in the story you rescue a dog, and it stays by your side from then on. The store page says it scouts ahead, warns of danger, carries supplies and keeps you grounded when the silence gets heavy. You choose the breed at the start from five options.

The official dog post explains that it can carry extra items when your inventory fills up. Calling it back is as easy as blowing a whistle. PCGamesN noted that it hunts for resources and offers company on solo expeditions.

Solo players have an advantage here. In co-op, only the host gets the dog, according to the official forum account. When you play alone, the dog is always yours.

The five breeds are Shepherd, Border Collie, Golden Retriever, Husky and Rottweiler. The developers ran a dog survey on Steam and promised that all of these would be available in the game. Picking one is purely a matter of taste, since the dog's role in your run stays the same.

What is harder alone

Going solo means doing every job yourself. You gather wood, hunt, build and defend without anyone to split the work. Inventory space also fills up faster, so the dog and storage chests matter more.

Big fights are tougher alone. One solo playtester died several times while trying to kill the bear for a quest. Others found that some animals, like moose and boar, keep chasing you once angered.

A reviewer who played the full Early Access build solo gave it six out of ten. They enjoyed it once the quest progression clicked, but felt an extra helping hand would have made a big difference. They also felt the dog sometimes acted like little more than extra inventory.

The same reviewer also noticed that the game did not seem to scale to a single player in every area. Selling a large stack of items, for example, felt slow when you had no one to share the trading with. These are the kind of details the developers say they will keep tuning through Early Access.

How long the story takes alone

In the official developer Q&A, the team gave rough playtime estimates for the story. A player focused only on the main storyline can finish in around 8 hours, while exploring optional locations stretches it to around 18. Completionists can expect roughly 30 hours.

Those numbers apply whether you play alone or with friends, since the whole story is available solo. The game is also built as a sandbox, so you can keep surviving and building after the main quest. Solo players often spend extra time because they gather and build everything themselves.

Does the game pause?

Do not assume the game pauses when you open the menu. The solo reviewer said it would have been nice if the game paused in the menu during a private session. Streamers were unsure about it as well, so treat any time spent in the menu as live time in a cold world.

Save before stepping away from the keyboard. A manual save is in the pause menu and works at any time. See how to save for the full picture.

Tips for a solo run

A few habits make solo survival much smoother. They come from players who went alone in the playtest and review builds. Keep these in mind on your first run.

• Carry a little wood and stone at all times for an emergency campfire.
• Drop non-essential items in a chest before long trips; one solo streamer did exactly this once their inventory filled up in the woods.
• Use the dog as a pack animal when your bags are full.
• Bring bandages and a bow before tackling bears or hostile groups.
• Remember that no-build zones are mostly in towns, so you can camp in the wild.

One solo streamer was caught off guard by hostile enemies in the woods. Treat every new area with care until you know what lives there. The map guide gives an overview of the regions.

Who will enjoy it solo

If you like quiet, atmospheric survival, solo Permafrost fits well. One preview article compared it to games like The Long Dark and Subnautica for its cold mechanic and story focus. Another reviewer felt it plays more like a survival RPG than a lonely sandbox.

Solo players in the playtest often mentioned the mood. One described the cold isolation as relaxing and eerie at the same time, and said it was the reason they were sold on the game. The dog keeps that loneliness from becoming too heavy on long trips.

If you want to share the work, co-op is always an option later. You can play with up to three friends on the same world. See the multiplayer guide for hosting and joining.