During the fifth episode of Survivor 49, we got a lot of confessionals about Shannon maybe playing too hard. She was shown talking strategy with pretty much every player on her tribe, and at one point, she was seen trying to scheme with Steven just moments after he woke up. Her overeagerness was definitely positioned as a strategy mistake in the edit, but during host Jeff Probst’s subsequent podcast, he was very defensive of modern players playing harder in general.
Probst was clear you definitely still need to pick your moments and read the room, but he said the New Era game design has forced the hand of the castaways. He said starting with three tribes, shortening the game and adding in so many advantages and journeys has “forced a different pace.” He said that’s why you don’t see castaways playing the same way you used to back in the day. Here’s a portion of the quote he dropped during the most recent episode of On Fire
When we birthed Survivor 41, we birthed a new game. Yes, it is still fundamentally the same format, but we changed a lot of dynamics and we forced a different pace. So, you are playing hard out of the gate in the New Era because you have to. It’s a desperate situation. You start on a tribe of 6. You’re almost dead the minute the game starts.
Probst went on to say that one of the things he most looked forward to when casting Survivor 50 was thinking about how the clash of styles between OG players and the New Era players was going to go down. He wondered whether the older players would gang up on the more recent players and tell them to chill out and let them tend to the fire and do chores before talking about who to vote out or whether it would turn into a season that felt more like modern Survivor.
Probst’s co-host Jeremy Collins, who is not on Survivor 50, but is a former winner and multi-time player said he personally would adapt to the New Era. He thinks the OG players have to play differently because the game has changed. Here’s a portion of his take…
You have to play differently. For me, it’s a more aggressive game. I would change my style up a little bit and play more aggressive.
Here’s the thing. We know the game design of Survivor 50 is going to be fast and furious. We are reportedly starting with three tribes of 8, but because of there are 24 players who need to be chopped in 26 days, there’s probably going to be a lot of pre-merge episodes in which two losing tribes need to vote someone out. So, obviously the game play is going to be fast-paced and aggressive. They’ll have no other choice.
That being said, I think one key difference in the New Era that makes it more aggressive is how unwilling players are to take the easy vote. Of course there are blindsides and times in which the obvious person doesn’t go in OG Survivor, but there are also so many episodes in which the person on the bottom just gets voted out. That still happens a lot during the pre-merge in the New Era, but the superfans the show casts now are so aggressive about trying to make “big moves” and “pad their resumes” to try and attract jury votes and win the prize money.
That’s the part that makes me very curious about Survivor 50. Are we going to see people stick longer with their alliances like we used to see back in the day, or are we going to see a lot of frantic double-crosses and blindsides? To me, that’s less a function of game design and more a function of the type of people who are being cast.
Joe, as an example last season, won a ton of challenges and brought his closest ally to final tribal but was basically a non-factor because he allegedly didn’t make any big moves. An OG jury, like the one we might see on Survivor 50, likely would have given him a lot more credit for calmly being in control of much of the game.
I can’t wait to find out what happens when Survivor 50 premieres in the Spring. Until then, you can catch Survivor 49 on CBS on Wednesday evenings where we’ll almost certainly see the exact type of chaotic energy and aggressiveness Jeff and Jeremy are talking about here.