Season 5 has finally arrived on the early servers, and it’s already shaking things up in Last War Survival! After weeks of teasers, the Golden Wasteland is now open, bringing with it a true Wild West vibe — dusty towns, ruthless outlaws, and plenty of surprises for players ready to take control. This time, we’re getting new monsters roaming the world map, a completely different seasonal building system, and fresh resource mechanics that make base development feel more dynamic than ever.
In this guide, I’ll go over all the major changes you’ll notice in Week 1 of Season 5, including how the new buildings work, what the new monsters drop, and how to make the most of your time before the war stage begins.
If you’re looking for a stronger start, we also have a list of Season 5 tips you shouldn’t miss. Let’s get started (or watch our video version below).
Getting Ready for S5
As always, before the new season begins, you’ll get a message in your mailbox, but you’ll probably notice the big change even before opening it. It’s clear the game world is already getting ready for Season 5.
The world map now looks completely different. It has this new golden-yellow tone, giving everything a dry, desert-like look that fits perfectly with the Wild West theme of the Golden Wasteland.
You’ll also notice gigantic bears and the new zombies called Dancers wandering around. These are basically the familiar Doom elites and regular map zombies, but now they’re much stronger, reinforced with higher virus resistance, making them tougher to defeat than before.
You’ll also spot a new site inside your base with 10 ruins, which is where all the special Season 5 buildings will be constructed. I’ll explain how these new buildings work in just a bit. For now, let’s open the menu and take a look at what’s new for Week 1.
Season 5 – Goals
The Season 5 menu tab now includes two new sections: Goals and Tactics Cards. The Goals page is filled with milestone rewards that you unlock by collecting Crystal Gold, the most important resource of this season. The more Crystal Gold you gather, the more rewards you’ll unlock — at milestones like 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, and so on.
These rewards include Coffee, Coffee Beans, Venom shards, Tactics Cards, and more. One of the most important milestones is the 500K mark, which includes the UR Hero Promotion Badge — the item needed to upgrade Venom to UR rarity. Just like in previous seasons, this feature will likely be available starting in Week 2 of Season 5.
A nice bonus is that you can collect lots of Venom shards just by progressing through these goals. You’ll also earn Profession Reset Books, Tactics Cards, Skill Points, and Profession Certificates — useful if you plan to switch between Engineer and War Leader, since the Diplomat Profession is still locked for now.
There’s also an Alliance tab on the same page. It works the same way but for group milestones. Your alliance can unlock rewards by capturing Banks (Strongholds), and each captured Bank adds progress toward the next reward tier. Make sure to check this tab often and claim your alliance rewards as your team advances.
Purge Action – New Zombie Types
This event lasts 13 days and introduces us to the three new regular zombie types: Dancers, Sheriffs, and Cowboys all three including one of the 3 classes, Tank, Missile Vehicle, and Aircraft. In other words, you can find Sheriff Zombies of a Tank class, Missile Vehicle, and Aircraft.
The same applies to the other two mentioned zombie types. Dancers are the least powerful while Cowboys are the toughest. Although there are no rewards listed, I presume there will be some based on the highest level of defeated zombies.
As we can see, the number one player from our group of servers has already defeated level 29 zombies which is quite impressive from day one considering you’ll need around 6000 Virus Resistance to attack that level.
The rewards are ok as long as you rank among top 10 players. The top 3 players also get a special title, Wasteland King, Wasteland General, and Wasteland Trailblazer, but only available for 1 day though, which ruins the charm.
Season 5 Resources
Season 5 introduces several new resources that play a big role in your progress. The main one is Crystal Gold, which is the most valuable resource this season. You’ll also need Coffee to upgrade the Caffeine Institute and Coffee Beans to upgrade Coffee Factories.
Main S5 Resources:
- CrystalGold: the most valuable resource of Season 5
- Coffee: Used to upgrade the Caffeine Institute
- Coffee Beans: Required to upgrade Coffee Factories
Tradable Resources and Special Drink Boosts
- Whiskey: can be traded for Crystal Gold during the second week of Season 5 in the Wasteland Trade event. Can be obtained from Intercity Trade Truck missions which are now called Wagons.
- Special Coffees from the Coffee Menu of the Caffeine Institute
How to get Crystal Gold
The easiest way to get Crystal Gold is by defeating map zombies and Doom Elites. Other ways include capturing Cities with your alliance, deposit or plunder Bank Strongholds. You can also earn it by winning Shooting Duels which you can unlock by completing the first five stages of the High Noon event. I made a quick guide on this, so check the description if you are interested to learn how.
How to get Coffee and Coffee Beans
The most common way to get Coffee is by unlocking Coffee Fectories and upgrading them. The higher the level, the more coffee will be produced. Other ways to get Coffee and Coffee Beans:
- Defeating Doom Elites
- Completing Season Five Goals
On the other hand, Coffee Beans can be obtained from the Weekly Pass subscription which lasts 7 days, but also via the Season Battle Pass premium and free tiers. You can also get Coffee beans from the little cowboys visitors waiting in front of your base wall.
As you can see, I’ve got 200K of Coffee Beans and 75 Whiskey barrels from one visitor. So make sure you click them daily. You can also get Coffee Beans by completing High Noon event challenges each of the completed stages offering 68,000 Coffee Beans.
Season 5 New Buildings Explained
As mentioned in my previous Season Five video, there are 2 main resource buildings in this season: Caffeine Institute, and Coffee Factories. But there’s also the CrystalGold Shop structure which is not upgradable, plus an already built structure called Wild West, which is basically a shortcut to the Weekly Pass subscription.
Caffeine Institute
- Increases Virus Resistance
- Offers a special Coffee Menu with VR boosts
- Produces Special Coffee
- Upgrade Cost: Coffee and Headquarters of at least level 10
The first special building that Season Five allows us to unlock is Caffeine Institute. This building increases the Virus Resistance required to take down Dancer Zombies, Sheriffs, Cowboy zombies or the giant bears on the world map.
The requirement is easy – to defeat a level 1 Dancer Zombie group, which btw, is also required for all 10 seasonal buildings, an extra requirement unlike previous seasons where you only needed to upgrade on building to level 15 to unlock the next one. The good news is that you don’t need to defeat higher levels of zombies.
The Caffeine Institute also includes the Special Coffees Menu. Once you drink once special coffee, it applies a Virus Resistance buff of a minimum of 200 and stays active for 8 hours.
Here’s what each type of Special Coffee offers:
| Coffee | VR Bonus | Extra |
|---|---|---|
| Black | 200 | – |
| Espresso | 200 | +5% Constr. Speed |
| Specialty | 200 | +2% Training Speed |
| Cowboy | 500 | – |
| Latte | 500 | +5% Research Speed |
| Caramel | 500 | +5% Skill Damage |
| Mocha | 500 | +5% March Speed |
| Cream | 500 | +5% Food, Iron, Coin |
| Truffle | 500 | +5% Monster DMG |
For example, you can just defeat level one two for each new extra building. Sure, it’s best to try to defeat each zombie level at least once to get that First-win reward as it will drop Crystal Gold, Tactical Cards and Coffee Beans, but if that specific zombie group is too tough for you, or if you don’t meet the required Virus Resistance yet, you can just beat lower levels to unlock new buildings.
Coffee Factories
- Produce Coffee
- Activation Requirement: Defeat two Dancer zombie groups
- Upgrade Cost: Coffee Beans and previous Coffee Factory of at least level 10
Coffee Factories produce Coffee, the required resource to upgrade the Caffeine Institute. To activate or repair the first Coffee Factory, you must first defeat two Dance zombie groups on the world map.
Interestingly, to activate and start upgrading the second Coffee Factory, you’ll need to upgrade the first Coffee Factory to level 10. However, this will only allow you upgrade the first five levels as it will soon require the first Coffee Factory to level 15.
Crystal Gold Shop
Among the 10-season ruins, there’s also the Crystal Gold Shop, which can be unlocked after upgrading Coffee Factory 1 to level 10. Here you can trade your earned Crystal Gold for Coffee, Coffee Beans, Tactics Cards and Overlord upgrade items.
In fact, there are plenty of other items you can buy with Crystal Gold in this shop, but they become available progressively as Season 5 unfolds. For example, from the fifth day of Season 5, you can buy one UR tactics card for 12500 Crystal Gold, or a Cowboy Coffee recipe to unlock Cowboy Coffee in the Caffeine Institute to boost Virus Resistance.
How to increase Virus Resistance
As with previous seasons, Season 5 also requires a constant increase in Virus Resistance to take down map zombies, doom elites and Bank Stronghold bosses. Not having an equal or higher VR than the target monster will result in high troop losses. So here’s how to increase it:
- Upgrading the Caffeine Institute: this is the most common way
- Purchasing a weekly pass subscription: this will increase your VR by 250
- Unlocking special coffee recipes from the Caffeine Institute Menu: Each special coffee buff lasts 8 hours and you can only have one buff active. These recipes can be purchased with Crystal Gold from the Crystal Gold Shop from day 6 of season 5. Each special coffee buff increases your virus resistance by 200 or 500, plus some extra boosts like higher Research Speed, Training Speed or Skill Damage in world map battles.
Before we take a look at what each of these Cities and Banks offer in Season 5, I want to clarify which ones are which because there’s a typo in the game right now, saying that Banks are Cities. They aren’t. Banks are the old dig sites or strongholds. Between these two, only captured cities generate Crystal Gold.
Cities and how to capture
Cities generate CrystalGold and can be captured from day 2 of Season 5 with the opening of the City Clash event where Alliances can declare war on and capture Cities to gain powerful buffs and rewards.
To start, your Alliance needs to have its territory connected to a City — even diagonally. Once connected, R4 and R5 members can declare war during the war declaration time.
After declaring war, your Alliance can capture the City. However, only one City can be targeted at a time. If your linked territory is lost during the war, the declaration will be canceled.
Before capturing Cities, your Alliance must first take control of at least one Level 1 Bank Stronghold. Captured territories then open up new opportunities to declare war on nearby cities. During sieges, troops are affected by toxins, so increasing your Virus Resistance is important to reduce losses.
When a City is captured for the first time, participants and Alliance members receive special first-time rewards, including loot chests distributed by R4 or R5. Captured Cities also grant buffs to all members. When a City enters a protection period, it can’t be attacked again for a set time.
Abandoning a City doesn’t reset the countdown. After abandoning one and declaring war on it again, your Alliance must wait through a cooldown period.
There’s also a daily limit to how many Bank Strongholds and Cities can be captured. The more Cities your Alliance controls, the higher your capture limit for Bank Strongholds becomes.
Bank Strongholds
Strongholds, known as Banks now, are the first conquer-type event introduced to Season 5 via the Bank Stronghold Conquest event where alliance members can rally and attack the Plague Ravager world boss for resources, recruitment tickets and speedups. Once the boss is defeated, they can start to capture the Bank Stronghold.
How to make a CrystalGold deposit on a Bank Stronghold
- To make a CrystalGold deposit, head over to the Bank Stronghold conquest option of the Season 5 menu and click Bank on the right side. This will show all the banks captured on your server, not just the ones captured by your alliance.
- Tap the location of one of the highest-level banks because the higher the Stronghold Bank level, the better the CrystalGold return.
- Select the duration (1, 3, or 5 days), drag the number of CrystalGold you want to deposit and click Deposit.
Personally, I always choose 5 days. For instance, a level 1 Stronghold bank offers around 12,000 CrystalGold return on a 6000 deposit for 5 days, while a level 5 bank offers about 14000 return for the same duration.
How to plunder a Stronghold Bank in Season 5
To plunder a Stronghold Bank in Season 5 of Last War Survival, you and your alliance members must first capture it. Once the Stronghold bank attack is over, 10 players can reinforce the bank to speed up the capture process.
Once the capture bar is full, its vault will open for a short period, and you and your allies can start sending your squads to collect CrystalGold by tapping the stronghold’s Plunder button.
You’ll get 1000 CrystalGold for each sent squad until you reach the individual plunder limit of 12 turns. This will offer you 10 season contribution points for each CrystalGold plundered, therefore, 10,000 points per turn.
Captured Bank Stronghold – Deposit Interest
Captured Strongholds offer a new exciting feature in Season 5: Crystal Gold deposits. Once an alliance captures a Bank Stronghold, all members can deposit a specific number of Crystal Gold for 1, 3, or 5 days to get interest.
| Level | 1 Day | 3 Days | 5 Days |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 110% | 130% | 200% |
| 2 | 111% | 133% | 210% |
| 3 | 112% | 136% | 220% |
| 4 | 113% | 139% | 230% |
| 5 | 114% | 142% | 240% |
| 6 | 115% | 145% | 250% |
| 7 | 116% | 148% | 260% |
| 8 | 117% | 151% | 280% |
| 9 | 118% | 154% | 300% |
| 10 | 120% | 160% | 350% |
The percentage you get for your deposit depends on the level of the captured Bank Stronghold and the deposit duration. For example, the 5-day deposit option will basically double your Crystal Gold deposit in a Bank Stronghold level 1, offering a 200% deposit interest. On the other hand, a level 10 offers a 350% return for the same duration, so the higher the Bank level, the better.
Bank Stronghold Storage Limits per level
Legend:
- 🔑= Gang CrystalGold Storage
- 📈= Bank CrystalGold Storage Limit
- 🐷= CrystalGold Deposit Limit per Transaction
- 📋= Bank Deposit Slip Limit
| Level | 🔑 | 📈 | 🐷 | 📋 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 96000 | 600000 | 6000 | 100 |
| 2 | 102000 | 600000 | 6000 | 100 |
| 3 | 108000 | 600000 | 6000 | 100 |
| 4 | 114000 | 600000 | 6000 | 100 |
| 5 | 120000 | 600000 | 6000 | 100 |
| 6 | 126000 | 660000 | 6000 | 110 |
| 7 | 132000 | 720000 | 6000 | 120 |
| 8 | 138000 | 780000 | 6000 | 130 |
| 9 | 144000 | 840000 | 6000 | 140 |
| 10 | 162000 | 900000 | 6000 | 150 |
While this sounds fascinating, it’s more of a high-risk, high-reward situation because if a Stronghold is attacked and captured by another alliance during the War Declaration window, all Crystal Gold deposits will be transferred to the winner.
It’s also important to know that the level of the captured Banks also affects how much Crystal Gold can be deposited in total by alliance members and the number of CrystalGold transactions, which increase from Bank Stronghold level 6.
Season 5 Boosts
As you may know, each season in Last War Game offers a few heroes, a skin, and usually a decoration that all can help you deal more damage in zombie battles or offer season-specific boosts, and Season five makes no exception. This time there’s:
- Turkey Parade Float base skin
- Happy Turkey decoration (
- 4 heroes with 10% increased damage to map monsters:
- Venom (from day 1)
- Fiona (from day 4)
- Stetmann (from day 18)
- Morrison (from day 39)
The Turkey Parade base skin will give you an extra reward slot when plundering supply trucks, even if not equipped. It also includes an extra 2% profit on your CrystalGold deposits (more about this in a bit). Plus, the design also changes in Season 5 from the default Thanksgiving parade wagon to an animated sheriff-style turkey that pulls out two pistols, fires for a couple of seconds, holsters them, and repeats.
But the most interesting thing about the Turkey skin in Season 5 is that if you hit the like button on any base using this skin, you’ll receive general speedups.
You can collect this reward from 10 different bases across any server. I suggest asking for locations in the world chat or searching the map yourself. Bookmark all 10 Turkey skin bases so you can jump to them quickly and claim your daily gifts without wasting time.
The Turkey decoration offers up to 5% increase to CrystalGold deposits in Season 5, starting at 1% at level 1 and 5% at level 5.
As for heroes, Venom is also the SSR hero that can be promoted to UR, while Fiona, Stetmann, and Morrison will finally get their special weapons. I recommend focusing on upgrading these four heroes at least 3 weeks before Season 5.
High Noon Event
The High Noon event is a fun shooting challenge where you guide Venom through a series of stages and duels to earn rewards. Each day, 5 new shooting stages unlock, and your goal is to eliminate all enemies using a limited number of bullets. Watch the next video for more details or visit our YouTube playlist for the High Noon event to learn how to win all stages.
To play, drag on the screen to adjust Venom’s shooting direction. Once you fire, bullets will ricochet off obstacles and can bounce up to five times before disappearing on the sixth hit. You’ll need to plan your shots carefully—if you run out of bullets before clearing all enemies, the attempt fails. The rewards include speedups, resources and Coffee Beans.
Completing stages earns rewards, and once you’ve cleared enough, you unlock Shooting Duel mode, which starts on the 9th day of Season 5.
In this mode, Commanders can challenge others in real-time duels. Both players can place a deposit before the duel starts, and the winner takes both. If the match ends in a draw, both deposits are returned. However, quitting mid-duel means losing your deposit.
Duels can only be made against players in the same seasonal division, and there’s a limit to how many challenges you can take part in.
Battle Pass Subscriptions
Season five also offers the two premium battle pass subscriptions: Weekly Pass and Season Battle Pass.
Weekly Pass
The weekly pass is available for 7 days and it offers an extra Coffee Factory, a 250 Virus Resistance boost, increases the marching speed of your squad against zombies by 30%, and 50 Protector Horns that you can use daily to get 50 Desert Protectors, the special units the you can get after converting the lost units. It also includes a few extra daily resources like speedups, 20000 coffee beans, 50 stamina and 2 blue Tactic Cards.
Season Battle Pass
The season Battle pass is another easy way to get a few extra items, including Coffee Beans. If you manage to complete all these milestones, you’ll get over 200,000 Coffee Beans just from the free tier. Also in the free tier is a new special item, Chrome Base Skin which you can collect if you hit the 34000 battle pass points.
This, however, is not a base skin per se; it’s basically a reskin of the Turkey Parade Float, available for 30 days. In other words, you’ll first need to purchase the turkey base skin to use this item.
And if you want to spend a bit during Season 5, the Luxury Battle Pass pack offers some interesting items. Among these, the most valuable are 1 Core Card Choice Kit, 2 S5 Skill Point tokens, 1 Profession Skill Reset Book, 1 Profession Change Certificate, 132000 Coffee Beans in total, and 1 permanent nameplate.
And this wraps up our beginner’s guide to Season 5 in Last War Survival. Leave a comment and tell me your thoughts on this season and any tips and tricks you’d like to share. Thanks!
