How to Survive

Iron Man difficulty is the hardest difficulty in the game, and it is available from the start. The only noticeable difference between the two difficulties is that enemies hit a lot harder on Iron Man. A Bomber's explosion can kill you instantly, as opposed to only 1/3rd of your Health. Unfortunately your items and levels do not carry over playthroughs, but there is a method to carry over all your armour, weapons and items from Normal to Iron Man, which will make completing Iron Man significantly easier. This workaround requires two controllers, so if you don't have one, you won't be able to carry across gear! In this case, it is recommended you do Iron Man on your first playthrough, as the purpose of two playthroughs is to carry across your gear.

Once you complete the game on Normal, load that save in a 2 Player session, and unload all your items onto the second player. Once you do that, trigger an auto-save (by travelling to another island) and then quit out. Start a new game on Iron Man with one of the two characters that doesn't have all your gear on them. Have this mule character as the second player in a 2 Player session and they should have all the gear still on them. This is because you only lose your gear/levels if you restart the game for a specific character, and because you never restarted the game for the mule character, they will still have all the items. Do note that you may have to join your Iron Man playthrough a few times for all items to show up, when I first tried my mule only had the armour she was wearing, and not all my weapons/items. With all your gear from your first playthrough, you should be able to clear Iron Man with ease. I completed Iron Man in about 4 hours, as opposed to the 10 hours Normal took me.

General Tips (for Normal and Iron Man):

• There are three weapons in the game that far outweigh all others: Triple Sticks Cutting Boomrang, Carbon Crossbow (Kenji only) and Handmade Precision Rifle. The reason for this is they all have very high damage and more importantly, they are able to pierce enemies. This means you can shoot one zombies and hit 5 behind him. Of these three, the Triple Sticks Cutting Boomrang is the best, because unlike the other two weapons, it is powerful enough to one-hit kill most enemies without the need of aiming for a headshot. On top of this, it also has a larger hit radius, allowing for it to hit more zombies, plus one throw can hit enemies twice - on the way and on the way back. For recipes, please see my Crafting Recipes section of the guide.
• There are eight Red Stones in the game, and they can be combined with any weapon to make it Golden, which increases the damage by 50%. Four are rewards for completing monkey side quests, while the other four can be found inside shacks with destructible barriers (these can only be destroyed with Explosive Charges or Explosive Arrows - indicated by yellow "Quarantine" lines in-game and red lines on the map). Golden weapons are immensely powerful, for instance the Golden Triple Sticks Cutting Boomrang can kill any enemy in one hit to the chest, with the exception of the zombie bosses and the zombie deer.
• Not enough inventory space? Items never disappear, meaning you can stockpile items in safe areas and come back to them whenever you please. This way you won't struggle to find inventory space as you proceed.
• Never use Healing Plants on their own. They only heal 25% of your Health, whereas Healing Poultices heal 50% and are very easy to make.
• The skills on the left-side of the skill tree are the most beneficial. These help with aiming time, critical hits and general weapon effectiveness.
• Unless you're using a Boomrang, always take the time to aim for the head. It's a lot more beneficial to shoot once to the head than twice to the chest.