If you're looking to build a chase game, getting a working roblox nextbot survival script is usually the first big hurdle you'll hit. It sounds simple on paper—you just want a 2D image to chase players around a map—but anyone who has tried to code one from scratch knows that making it feel "right" is a different story. You don't want a bot that just glides through walls or gets stuck on every single corner. You want something that relentlessly hunts you down, just like in games like Evade or Nico's Nextbots.
I've spent way too many hours debugging pathfinding issues in Studio, and honestly, the secret isn't just one long script. It's about how the AI perceives the environment and how it chooses its target. If you're tired of using broken free models from the Toolbox that break the second you update your game, let's talk about how to actually put one of these together.
Why Nextbots are still such a massive hit
It's kind of funny how a simple 2D image chasing you can be scarier than a high-poly 3D monster with complex animations. The reason nextbots work so well in Roblox is the psychological factor. They move fast, they're loud, and they don't have "idle" animations. They just exist and they want you dead.
From a developer's perspective, they're also great because they're relatively low-impact on performance compared to a fully rigged R15 character with dozens of textures. You can have ten or fifteen nextbots running around a survival map without the server totally catching fire, provided your roblox nextbot survival script is optimized properly.
Setting up the base for your Nextbot
Before you even touch the script editor, you need a physical body for your bot. Most people use a simple Part or a MeshPart. You want it to be roughly the size of a player, but slightly taller so it looks imposing. Inside that Part, you'll usually put a BillboardGui with an ImageLabel to hold that classic distorted face or whatever meme you're using.
The most important thing here is the HumanoidRootPart. Even if you aren't using a full character model, Roblox's PathfindingService works best when it has a root part to calculate movement from. Make sure it's unanchored, otherwise your bot is just going to sit there looking at you while you run circles around it.
The PathfindingService magic
The backbone of any decent roblox nextbot survival script is the PathfindingService. You could technically use MoveTo() on a loop, but the bot will just walk into walls like a roomba. Pathfinding creates a series of "waypoints" that the bot follows to get around obstacles.
The trick is not to recalculate the path every single frame. If you do that, you'll lag the server into oblivion. You want to set a "re-path" interval—maybe every 0.1 or 0.2 seconds—where the bot checks if the player has moved significantly and then updates its route.
Writing the actual chase logic
When you're writing the code, you need a main loop that handles the bot's state. Is it idling? Is it chasing someone? Usually, for a survival game, the bot is always in "chase mode."
First, the script needs to find the nearest player. You can do this by looping through game.Players:GetPlayers(), checking the distance between the bot and each player's Character.PrimaryPart, and picking the one with the smallest magnitude. Once you have a target, you feed their position into the pathfinder.
Here's a tip I learned the hard way: always check if the player is actually alive. There's nothing weirder than a bot standing over a dead body and spinning in circles because it's still trying to "reach" a player who has already despawned. Add a simple if humanoid.Health > 0 check before the bot commits to a chase.
Making it more than just a moving image
A raw roblox nextbot survival script will get the bot from Point A to Point B, but it won't make the game fun. To make it a "survival" experience, you need to add the bells and whistles.
- The Audio: This is non-negotiable. You need a
Soundobject inside the bot with a highMaxDistance. Use a loud, distorted track that gets louder as the bot gets closer. It adds that layer of panic that defines the genre. - Jumpscares: When the bot touches a player, don't just kill them instantly with
humanoid.Health = 0. Create a local script that triggers a UI flash or a loud noise on the player's screen. It makes the "death" feel more impactful. - Shaking: Adding a slight camera shake when the bot is within a 20-stud radius is a great touch. It lets the player know they're in immediate danger even if they aren't looking behind them.
Dealing with common bugs and glitches
You're going to run into issues; it's just part of the process. One of the most annoying bugs is when the bot gets "stuck" on a corner. This usually happens because the pathfinding waypoints are a bit too tight. You can fix this by increasing the agent radius in your pathfinding parameters.
Another common issue is "jittering." This happens when the bot is trying to move to a waypoint that it has already technically reached. To smooth this out, I usually add a check to see if the distance to the next waypoint is less than 2 or 3 studs. If it is, I just skip to the next one in the list. It makes the movement look way more fluid.
Optimization for bigger maps
If you're building a massive survival map with lots of rooms and floors, your roblox nextbot survival script needs to be smart. Instead of having the bot check the entire map for players, you might want to limit its "vision" or range.
You can also use Raycasting to see if the player is in a direct line of sight. If they are, you don't even need the expensive pathfinding calculations—you can just tell the bot to run straight at them. Only use the pathfinder when the player ducks behind a wall or goes around a corner. This saves a ton of CPU power.
Adding the "Survival" elements
Since we're talking about a survival script, the bot is only half the battle. You need a system that handles rounds, spawns, and maybe a shop.
I like to set up a folder in Workspace specifically for "BotSpawnPoints." When a round starts, the script picks a random spawn point that is far away from any players. This prevents that frustrating situation where a player spawns and immediately gets deleted by a bot that happened to be standing right there.
You might also want to include "Safe Zones." These are parts with a specific name or tag that the bot's pathfinder is told to avoid. It gives players a place to breathe, though in most hardcore survival games, there's no such thing as a safe place.
Final thoughts on your script
Building a roblox nextbot survival script is a great way to learn the basics of AI in Luau. It touches on pathfinding, distance checks, loops, and even some UI work if you're doing jumpscares.
The best advice I can give is to start simple. Get a part to follow you in an empty baseplate first. Once that works, add the 2D image. Then add the sound. Then add the pathfinding. If you try to do everything at once, you'll spend three hours staring at an error in the output window wondering where it all went wrong.
Keep tweaking the speed and the acceleration too. If the bot is too fast, the game is impossible. If it's too slow, there's no tension. Finding that "sweet spot" where the player just barely escapes is what makes people come back to your game. Anyway, get into Studio, start messing with those waypoints, and see what kind of nightmare you can create. Good luck!