First-run playbook for this Roblox horde shooter: which of the 5 classes to pick, how to kite the horde, where to spend Gems, and the loop that keeps you alive.
Survive a Million Monkeys Beginner Guide
Survive a Million Monkeys is a Roblox co-op horde shooter: pick one of five classes, hold off waves of rabid monkeys alongside friends, and climb the survivor leaderboard. New players should clear the tutorial, redeem codes in the lobby, start on a starter weapon, and keep moving instead of camping one spot.
- The loop is class, weapon, survive, repeat. Nothing important sits behind a grind wall you cannot see from the lobby.
- Two codes pay 2,000 Gems total, and the official Roblox listing advertises one of them on the game page itself.
- Horde density is the real difficulty curve, so positioning beats aim in this one.
- Servers hold up to 25 players, which changes which class is worth taking.
What the game is actually asking you to do
The official listing is short and blunt about the goal: endless rabid monkeys with a taste for human flesh, bring friends, bring guns, choose your class, unlock powerful guns, fight massive hordes together, climb the survivor leaderboard. That is the whole design. There is no quest log, no base to build between runs, no inventory to manage. You pick a class, you carry a gun, monkeys come, and the run ends when they get through.
That matters on a first session because most players arrive expecting a survival game with chores bolted on and get a pure horde shooter instead. There is nothing to prepare between waves except your own positioning.
The game comes from gorilla warfare and sits on Roblox Place 99409088950210, with servers that fill to 25 players. As of October 5, 2026 it is holding a 96 percent approval rating across just under 5,000 ratings and has passed 21,000 favorites. A launch this hot means the first full weekend decides which habits stick, so nailing the basics early is worth more here than in most Roblox launches.
Official source: Survive a Million Monkeys on Roblox
Your first ten minutes: tutorial, lobby, codes
The order matters, and it is not the order most players assume. The Codes button does not hover over the tutorial. You finish the tutorial first, you drop into the lobby, and only then does the Codes icon in the top right corner of the screen do anything.
- Start the game and clear the tutorial.
- Open the Codes icon in the top right of the lobby screen.
- Type the code exactly as written, capitals included.
- Press the green checkmark to redeem.
Two codes are live right now, MONKEYS and SURVIVE, and both pay 1,000 Gems. The full list with sources sits on our codes page. Run both before you spend anything, because your first Gems decision is much better with 2,000 in the bank than with 1,000.
Gems are the only progression currency in the game, and class and weapon unlocks are priced against that same pool. Redeeming first means you buy the unlock you actually want instead of the one you can half-afford.
Picking a class on day one
Five classes sit in the lobby roster: Medic, Engineer, Juggernaut, Bomber and Outlaw. That roster is the part of this game that is fully settled three days after launch, and it is the part every source agrees on.
What is not settled is the fine print. No published source has the skill text, cooldowns, or Gem prices for any of the five, so anyone quoting exact numbers to you is inventing them. The class tier list here ranks all five by role fit and flags which claims are sourced and which are not.
For a first run, the pick depends on who you are playing with:
- Solo or one friend: take a role that keeps you alive longer, so you get to watch a full wave cycle instead of dying in the first thirty seconds.
- Full server: take a support or area role, because 24 other players are already supplying the bodies to stand behind.
- Chasing the leaderboard: take the class you understand well enough to play while panicking, not the one with the best theoretical rating.
Free switching mid-run, if the game allows it, would change all of this advice. Nobody outside the team has confirmed that yet.
Movement is the skill that actually matters
A horde shooter punishes standing still more than it punishes bad aim. Monkeys close from every direction, and a player who holds one position gets surrounded no matter how fast the weapon fires.
The habits that keep beginners alive:
- Circle strafe while you shoot. Moving sideways keeps your front arc open, while backpedaling into a wall does not.
- Never reload in the open. Break contact, reload, re-enter.
- Take high ground when the map offers it, so you can cover a wide arc without being reached.
- Shoot the nearest monkey, not the biggest one. One chewing on you outranks five across the room.
- In co-op, spread out. Five players in one circle die in the same second.
None of this is hidden information. It is the difference between a first run that ends at minute two and one that ends because you decided to leave.
What the Blasting Off update changed
The first major update, called Blasting Off, raised the floor instead of lowering it. It brought dangerous new monkey variants, explosive banana attacks, additional firearms, and melee weapons.
The explosive banana attack is the one to plan around. Projectile attacks change spacing decisions, because you can no longer assume everything dangerous is touching you. New variants mean the enemy mix shifts as a run goes on, so a loadout that handles the early waves can fall apart later. The extra firearms and melee weapons widen the shop, giving you more options than the launch build had.
Weapons: choose a role, not a name
Weapon names are the least useful thing to research in this game right now. Exactly one specific weapon has been named by any source so far, the Epic Deagle pistol, and no damage, fire rate, or price figures have been published for it or for anything else.
What you can do instead is pick a role. Horde shooters collapse into a handful of buckets: fast-fire for steady chip damage, high-damage for dropping single targets quickly, close-range as an emergency panic button, long-range for safe engagement, and area-of-effect for stacked crowds. The weapons page breaks down which bucket to lean on at which point in a run, and where the Epic Deagle fits.
Where your first Gems should go
Gems buy the things that change how the game plays: class unlocks, weapon purchases, and weapon upgrades. Codes are worth 2,000 Gems right now, while the price tags on class unlocks have not been published by anyone outside the team.
The safe order for a first-week account is upgrades before novelties. A better version of a weapon you already know how to use beats a new weapon you have to learn while a horde closes on you. The Gems guide covers the budget math, including what to skip while your balance is still small.
Playing with friends
With 25 players per server, this is a social game whether you planned for it or not. The official group page and the developer Discord are where update announcements land first, and both are the only places worth trusting when someone posts a Gem price or a new weapon that nobody else can find.
Official source: gorilla warfare official Roblox group
The Discord is the other end of the same pipe, and it is where the developer posts before anywhere else:
Official source: Survive a Million Monkeys Discord
FAQ
Do I have to play with friends?
No. It is playable solo, but a horde shooter punishes a lone player harder than most genres, and 25-player servers mean there is usually somebody to group up with anyway.
Which class should I play first?
Any of the five will carry you through a first run. Pick the one whose role sounds like how you want to play, then read the class tier list before you spend Gems.
How do I get Gems?
The two active codes are the fastest route: 2,000 Gems total, redeemable from the lobby Codes box. The Gems guide covers what each purchase tier is worth.
Why can I not find the Codes button?
You are probably still inside the tutorial. The Codes icon only appears in the lobby, top right of the screen, once the tutorial is finished.
Is there a wave counter or a boss?
Waves of increasing size are the core structure. Specific wave numbers and any boss encounter have not been documented publicly, so treat any figure you see quoted as unverified.
Related Guides
- Survive a Million Monkeys Codes — the two live codes and the exact redemption path.
- Survive a Million Monkeys Class Tier List — all five classes ranked by role fit, with the unconfirmed parts marked.
- Survive a Million Monkeys Weapons — role buckets, loadout logic, and where the Epic Deagle sits.
- Survive a Million Monkeys Gems — what Gems buy and the order to buy them in.