How to Create a 3D Survival Game in Godot 4 with GDScript (Udemy.com)
Learn to Create a First Person Survival Game with Godot 4 and GDScript. Systems, Gameplay, Design, You'll Learn it All
Created by: Eerik Hirvonen
Last updated September 2025
What you will learn
- Master Godot Game Development: Learn 2D, 3D, AI, Physics, Animations, Audio and Much More!
- Robust Systems Architecture in Godot: Global Communication, Controllers, Configs, Custom Resources
- Clean Gameplay Systems in GDScript: Managers, Multithreading, Composition, Inheritance, Viewports
- Overcome Common Game Development Obstacles Easily, Using: Raycasting, Physics Layers, UI Layers, Rendering Techniques
- Better File Hierarchy
- Using Plugins in Godot
- Overall Creating Clean, Scalable and Flexible Systems as an Extremely Solid Base for Bigger Games
How it compares
Against the other 281 rated Udemy courses in Game Development Fundamentals on CourseDuck:
- Rating4.6 out of 5higher than 57% of them
- Reviews412#88 of 282 by number of reviews
- Length14.9 hourslonger than 76% of them
- Last updatedSeptember 2025more recently than 70% of them
Course Description
Upd: Works in Godot 4.5!
Welcome to our comprehensive course on creating a captivating 3D first-person survival game using the Godot Engine 4 and GDScript programming language. Embark on an exciting journey where you'll dive deep into game development, mastering essential skills to craft immersive gameplay experiences.
This is an advanced level course, so I recommend knowing the basics of Godot, like nodes, scenes and GDScript, before starting this one. Everything else will be covered on the course!
Throughout this course, you'll be equipped with the knowledge and tools needed to bring your game ideas to life. Learn the fundamentals of game design as you build a first-person survival game from scratch, complete with intricate mechanics such as item gathering, crafting, hunting, cooking, and building.
One of the core focuses of this course is on establishing a solid systems architecture. You'll delve into creating a well-structured project file hierarchy and develop high-quality, flexible, and scalable game systems with clean and efficient code. By the end, you'll possess the skills to create games that are not only engaging but also easily maintainable and expandable.
Here's a glimpse of what we'll cover:
Implementing a first-person controller
Mastering raycasts for precise object detection and interaction
Adding immersion with sound effects and animations
Enhancing visual effects with particles and tweens
Implementing a state machine AI for enemy behavior
Establishing a global event system for efficient communication between game elements
Designing robust inventory and item equipping systems
Implementing a dynamic day and night cycle for realistic gameplay
Enhancing visual aesthetics with a water shader and custom lighting effects
Utilizing plugins for added functionality and multithreading for improved performance
Creating custom resources
By the end of this course, you'll have the skills and confidence to create your own 3D first-person survival game, ready to share with the world. Join us on this thrilling adventure and turn your game development dreams into reality!
Instructor Details
- 4.6 Rating
412 Reviews
Eerik Hirvonen
Hi, I'm Eerik and I work in a game company as a game developer.
I have designed and developed several games with Godot for a few years now.
My goals are to create games with strong systems architecture with clean coding habits.
Check my courses if you're interested in game development and want to learn more!
More courses by Eerik Hirvonen
Create A Dedicated Server Multiplayer Shooter in Godot 4 (2025)
4.7 (112 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 12.9h
$89.99
More Game Development Fundamentals courses
The Ultimate 2D Top Down Unreal Engine Course (2026)
4.9 (1,468 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 17.1h
$94.99
Blender Skill Builder: Modelling Challenges (2026)
4.9 (144 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 6.5h
$19.99
Jumpstart to 2D Game Development: Godot 4 for Beginners (2026)
4.8 (4,398 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 67.6h
$89.99
Create a Complete 2D Survivors Style Game in Godot 4 (2023)
4.8 (3,761 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 17.2h
$59.99
Master Lua Programming and Create Amazing Games with LÖVE! (2023)
4.8 (3,199 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 8.5h
$13.99
Complete Godot 2D: Develop Your Own 2D Games Using Godot 4 (2025)
4.8 (1,619 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 11.3h
$94.99
Reviews
By Chris Beesley on 7/19/2026
Overall a very good course, but with some caveat's. The end result is really solid. The learning throughout is good, but I did have to check comments a few times throughout to work out some issues. My key negative is the coding changes that occur off screen and are never addressed. This leads to confusion when your scripts looking slightly different to those in the course. Containers and UI in general could have probably done with a bit more of a look, but still a decent enough foundation. This is a good course , and I do recommend it; but there will be times that you will have to either check the final project code, check the comments specific to a video, or even search online for help.
By Apollo Galaxy on 3/5/2026
O curso rendeu um aprendizado fora da curva. Muito ótimo este curso. Se você olhar em algumas outras classificações irá encontrar algumas críticas, maioria sobre algumas nomenclaturas e locais dos arquivos em lugares diferentes, mas pelo nível de conhecimento intermediário a avançado do curso, acho que todo mundo consegue se virar com as informações, e ele mesmo indica no vídeo o que deve ser feito.
By Lucas Long on 6/14/2025
Excellent course for learning better game architecture after having completed one or two beginner courses. I'd been hesitant to actually get started on any of my own ideas, because other tutorials hadn't taught very flexible systems to build upon. This course makes good use of inheritance and a signal bus, has nice file/folder structure, and you actually make a full, but short, game. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who hasn't taken any other godot courses, but as long as you have some kind of foundation in godot this is a pretty good course overall. There are probably a few things throughout the course that could've used a little more explanation, but nothing that is detrimental or that you can't piece together on your own (or google yourself).
By Héctor Flores Pauner on 5/16/2025
Este curso ha sido un gran acierto, creo que es el primer curso en el que se ofrece exactamente lo que realmente se publicita cuando entras por primera vez en el curso en Udemy, he aprendido un montón de cosas muy valiosas acerca del motor gráfico de Godot, como la arquitectura de las señales, escribir código simple y modular, así como una buena base para la arquitectura de las escenas así como la gestión de Nodos y escenas instanciadas en Godot, sin duda, un curso ideal para gente con un nivel bajo-intermedio que busca mejorar sus aptitudes en este motor gráfico...
By Mitchell Lee on 12/12/2024
Really like this course so far, learning a lot about the godot engine, and the many settings like collision layers and scene templates that I find very informative. I'm not sure I'm quite understanding the advantage of organizing the code this way though, there seems like a lot of code duplication, and places where creating new objects requires creating a bunch of different scenes nodes and configuration, I think it could be simplified and structured better.
By Frédéric MASSELOT on 11/26/2024
Une très bonne formation à GDScript au travers de la création d'un jeu de survie. C'est la première formation sur Godot parmis les autres où le langage orienté objet est aussi pleinement utilisé avec la création de classes et toutes les propriétés qui en découlent. L' anglais du formateur est très intelligible et il n'est aucunement nécessaire de maîtriser la langue de Shakespeare pour bien comprendre les cours. Merci à Eerik pour sa réactivité car à chaque questions suite à un point bloquant la réponse est généralement dans les heures qui suivent, en dehors de la nuit :) bien évidemment.
By Kelsey Pryor on 9/26/2024
I think this course was really well put together and learned a lot from it. I think two things I think would have made it better, was a change repository for each lesson instead of just the final project at the end so I can see the specific changes made in the lesson and find where I might have messed up or missed. Another is that there were some moments when I would move from one lesson to the next and there were code changes that weren't in the video. (thankfully not overly major ones), but definitely made me panic and not see some of reasoning behind those changes. Overall I think this course is super informational not only in Godot usability but in how to structure a project and resources.
By Noah Nordqvist on 7/22/2024
It was pretty great! Felt like a true intermediate course in that we jumped into more complex stuff early on, instead of puttering around with "so what's a variable anyway?", etc. Covered some things that I haven't seen as much of in other courses, such as drag and drop inventory and the event system. My only gripe is that we skipped over what feels like a fairly important part of a survival game, being able to drop items. But I suppose we now have the skills to do that ourselves! Thanks, Eerik!
By Erik Hansson on 7/4/2024
This is a wonderful course, so far the best learning material on Godot I've encountered. It covers a lot of useful stuff, and shows you how to implement it in an organized and extendable way. You would benefit from having prior game dev experience before this course, since the various topics you'll encounter are not explained in any depth. Though you can certainly follow along anyway, since every implementation step is shown, and read up on the details yourself.
By Gevons Tria on 3/26/2024
Yes, this is exactly what I am looking for. Instructor is very responsive on questions and clarifications. Not a fan of code appearing on the editor without typing it and just explaining it why it is there. Noticed it happening on the later part of the course. Workflows like adding new items are very extendible and easy to use. Configs like ItemConfigs is scalable, this will be my implementations for future projects. Money very well spent.
Quality Score
No CourseDuck member has rated this course yet. Taken it? Give each part a thumbs up or down.
Overall Score : 92 / 100







