Official SOTF-TV Lore

This page is for official (staff-approved) SOTF-TV lore. This page can only be edited by the admins. All information on the SOTF-TV Winners and SOTF-TV Escapees pages as of the current revisions are officially canon. If you have an idea for a piece of lore, please post it on the TV Lore Suggestion thread on the boards.

This page currently serves as an index of SOTF-TV Seasons; the full articles detailing the seasons are also canon and admin-edits-only.

Season Index

2006 Seasons (1-2)

• Season One: The inaugural season of SOTF, Season One served as a strong proof of concept but produced a winner widely considered poor and to have triumphed over a number of better options.
• Season Two: This season improved upon the promise presented by Season One, presenting constant action and turning out a widely-respected and heroic winner, though it somewhat controversially specifically targeted delinquents in its casting.

2007 Seasons (3-4)

• Season Three: A widely popular season still considered among the best SOTF has to offer, this season also boasts one of the most enduringly popular and successful winners in Kenny Yamana.
• Season Four: This season is a solid example of early SOTF, doing a good job of meeting the high bar set by Season Three and including numerous innovations in broadcast and mapping that are still in use.

2008 Seasons (5-8)

• Season Five: Season Five was almost a disaster, as its winner died minutes after the runner-up, but the season was salvaged by chance through the cooperation of SOTF's first ever escapees, setting the stage for legitimized escapes in later seasons.
• Season Six: This season, staged in the Mojave Desert, is largely remembered for its final two: a pair of twins who took vastly different paths through the game.
• Season Seven: A popular season with a strong, heroic winner, Season Seven is a solid example of a largely-straightforward SOTF season.
• Season Eight: Little is known of this season aside from the identity of its winner, Travis "Bug" Hood.

2009 Seasons (9-12)

• Season Nine: While Season Nine is considered a middling season and its conclusion was initially a major disappointment to fans, its winner gained a certain amount of retrospective acclaim and reassessment following her murder.
• Season Ten: A disastrous season which saw the bulk of its cast eliminated in the opening minutes due to experimentation with a smaller arena and unconventional weapon assignments, Season Ten is also infamous for its protracted final standoff; this season is a strong contender for the title of worst SOTF season ever.
• Season Eleven: Season Eleven, taking place on a resort recently devastated by a natural disaster, was well-regarded (particularly in comparison to the seasons preceding and following it) and even found some popularity among those less enamored with its cast through a number of humorous moments.
• Season Twelve: A largely disappointing season, the game was stymied by the difficult to chart nature of its redwood forest arena, which combined with inclement weather to lead a large number of contestants to their deaths in Danger Zones.

2010 Seasons (13-16)

• Season Thirteen: Season Thirteen, taking place in a Wild West-flavored theme park, saw a largely heroic but very hands-on surfer girl win by finally felling the boy who had pursued her throughout much of the game.
• Season Fourteen: A season marred by overly enthusiastic experimentation and an abundance of questionable gimmicks, Season Fourteen's saving grace is its winner, Georgia "Hatchet" LaLourvey, who overcame her circumstances and remains a prominent figure in the SOTF media empire.
• Season Fifteen: Nothing of this season is known at present.
• Season Sixteen: Season Sixteen featured a halfheartedly-implemented medieval theme, taking place in a castle built by an eccentric poet; it was defined by a single large escape group, which slowed progress to a glacial pace before finally imploding without accomplishing its goals.

2011 Seasons (17-20)

• Season Seventeen: An all-around solid season that took place on an island which once housed an experimental nuclear reaction, this season saw an avowed SOTF fan emerge victorious.
• Season Eighteen: This season featured a heavy mystery theme, which went so far as to include a treasure hunt leading to significant hints as to how to escape, which led to a number of students surviving the game; while the season as a whole is regarded well, the reception to the element was decidedly mixed and it has not been recycled.
• Season Nineteen: Season Nineteen saw a winner manage to emerge from the game without killing anybody, instead relying on his wits and speed to keep him safe, though this made him very controversial among fans.
• Season Twenty: This season drew its cast from an all-girls school, and while it produced several memorable moments and contestants, has a mixed reputation overall due in part to its small arena and short duration; it does, however, enjoy an uncommonly devoted specific fandom.

2012 Seasons (21-26)

• Season Twenty-One: Taking place in a correctional facility, this season was considered decent but unexceptional, held back in part by an accident that accelerated its pace and an abrupt, truncated Endgame.
• Season Twenty-Two: A season defined more by the interplay of large alliances than the actions of individual students, Season Twenty-Two accordingly stands out as an unusual entry in the series.
• Season Twenty-Three: Nothing of this season is known at present.
• Season Twenty-Four: This season pitted students from a more religious school against those from a largely secular institution, with a religious theme park as their battleground, but these factors ended up largely irrelevant to the actual progression of the season.
• Season Twenty-Five: A season set in an uncommonly developed urban area, this season is mildly infamous for losing its most notable villain to a random fluke.
• Season Twenty-Six: A season, staged in an abandoned town, which saw a number of students manage to effect their escape.

2013 Seasons (27-32)

• Season Twenty-Seven: Initially off to a strong start, Season Twenty-Seven was hamstrung by the sudden elimination of a large portion of the cast, forcing an early Endgame and leaving much of the tension built to that point unresolved.
• Season Twenty-Eight: Season Twenty-Eight was a lightly themed season which introduced costumes as an element of SOTF; the season itself, however, was largely disappointing, though certain aftereffects echoed in the consciousness of the game well afterwards.
• Season Twenty-Nine: A largely-unremarkable season that took place in mostly-open terrain surrounding a campground.
• Season Thirty: This season saw a sudden and shocking Endgame betrayal, which upended much of what the viewers thought they knew about the ultimate winner.
• Season Thirty-One: A horror-themed season which featured a number of unusual occurrences, Thirty-One had a winner who pursued killers with a fervor, though some might argue too much of one.
• Season Thirty-Two: A disaster of a season, Thirty-Two was dragged down by uncooperative and unsympathetic contestants, a sluggish pace, and an infamously terrible conclusion.

2014 Seasons (33-36)

• Season Thirty-Three: Set in a remote ski resort, Season Thirty-Three somewhat infamously produced a winner who absolutely refused to kill but was perfectly willing to ally with those who would defend her.
• Season Thirty-Four: This season was set in an amusement park; its winner, cheerleader Lily Harper, spent the early parts of the game laying low, but was eventually forced into greater activity, though she suffered serious injuries in the process.
• Season Thirty-Five: This small season saw an attempt made to introduce greater cohesion by spotlighting one contestant and those connected to him; while he won, the focus backfired when he proved uncooperative.
• Season Thirty-Six: Nothing of this season is known at present.

2015 Seasons (37-40)

• Season Thirty-Seven: One of SOTF's legendary seasons, Thirty-Seven saw underdog Jared Clayton claw his way to victory against the odds; already a popular winner, his involvement in more recent seasons has made him one of SOTF's public faces.
• Season Thirty-Eight: Little is known of this season aside from the identity of its winner, Archibald "Archie" Stewart.
• Season Thirty-Nine: Set in the Badlands, Season Thirty-Nine was initially controversial, largely due to its kill-less, often comically inept winner, but ultimately the girl's charm in post-game interviews helped turn its reputation around and it's now fairly well regarded.
• Season Forty: Nothing of this season is known at present.

2016 Seasons (41-47)

• Season Forty-One: A heavy pirate theme dominated this season, which was known for including a number of fairly successful gimmicks and for a number of contestants getting wholeheartedly into the maritime spirit of the event.
• Season Forty-Two: Themed to celebrate the tenth anniversary of SOTF, this season ended up a general disappointment, plagued by broadcast issues and a problematic group dynamic that saw action stifled at several stages of the game.
• Season Forty-Three: Flavored with a summer camp theme, Season Forty-Three was a solid season with some blemishes, though many fans fondly remember the interplay between its major groups.
• Season Forty-Four: A season that took place in the very school it drew its contestants from, this season saw one of its most notable villains emerge victorious.
• Season Forty-Five: This season was largely dominated and characterized by its stable of notable villains, who each followed a different path in an attempt to win freedom; ultimately, the most manipulative triumphed, though she was seriously injured in the process.
• Season Forty-Six: A Halloween/Day of the Dead-themed season which took place on an island village, Season Forty-Six also featured a successful, if morally-compromised, escape group.
• Season Forty-Seven: Season Forty-Seven, which drew its cast from six different schools, fell flat on a number of levels, many revolving around its winner, a profoundly unlikable boy who accidentally killed the majority of the most interesting contestants in one fell swoop.

2017 Seasons (48-52)

• Season Forty-Eight: This was a sprawling and lengthy season characterized by widespread destruction of the arena, and also by its winner, who spent the entire time hiding out only to shoot the runner-up from hiding at the very end, generating much controversy (and often disappointment) among fans.
• Season Forty-Nine: This well-regarded season, which featured a heavy baseball theme, descended into factional warfare that pitted the relief pitchers against the cheerleaders, a conflict which drove the majority of the drama.
• Season Fifty: Nothing of this season is known at present.
• Season Fifty-One: Season Fifty-One was a moderately popular season set in the scenic New England Autumn, which featured a few controversial scenes, including the brutal torture of its eventual winner.
• Season Fifty-Two: Little is known of this season aside from the identity of its winner, Dylan Calloway.

2018 Seasons (53-57)

• Season Fifty-Three: This season, which was set in a construction zone and featured an unusual escape arc, is known for its cinematic styling and tightly interwoven plotlines.
• Season Fifty-Four: Transcending its Wild West theme, Season Fifty-Four saw a continuous fan favorite barely come out on top due to the sacrifice of the boy she protected throughout the game.
• Season Fifty-Five: Season Fifty-Five produced many quiet and introspective moments thanks to its mostly-outdoors setting coupled with poor weather, but is viewed well in hindsight and produced a popular winner who became a notable LGBTQ advocate.
• Season Fifty-Six: Nothing of this season is known at present.
• Season Fifty-Seven: The long-demanded all-male counterpart of Season Twenty, this season was widely considered solid if unexceptional, bogged down by an extended spell of almost no action and the fact that its winner sustained injuries early on that rendered him mute for the majority of the game.

2019 Seasons (58-62)

• Season Fifty-Eight: Heavily flavored by its casino location, this season also saw a truly unique escape executed by a single contestant... in the midst of Endgame.
• Season Fifty-Nine: Nothing of this season is known at present.
• Season Sixty: Season Sixty was a disaster for the organizers, as a collar flaw was discovered that was severe enough to lead to the game's early cancellation, leaving over half the contestants to survive.
• Season Sixty-One: The slowest game in the history of SOTF, Season Sixty-One was also hindered by the maiming of its winner, who was so badly injured she fell into a coma from which she has still not awakened.
• Season Sixty-Two: Sixty-Two was plagued by production difficulties, as an insect infestation drowned out much of the audio; the winner was a boy who spent the whole game hiding in an area left open to students for its comparatively high sound quality, who scored an upset against the more competent and popular runner-up by fluke.

2020 Seasons (63-66)

• Season Sixty-Three: This season was of fairly average quality, though perhaps the most notable part of it was the deaths of the vast majority of the fan-favorite contestants just prior to the finals.
• Season Sixty-Four: A largely unremarkable season, Sixty-Four took the SOTF concept back to its basics but managed little more than to not be as big a disappointment as the seasons that preceded it.
• Season Sixty-Five: A revitalization of the SOTF concept, Season Sixty-Five grouped seasons into teams which were allowed to share victory and offered release to any student who managed to score ten kills; with a strong cast of iconic contestants, it proved highly popular, though a handful of production gaffes retain a measure of infamy.
• Season Sixty-Six: The most recent season of SOTF, Sixty-Six followed in Sixty-Five's footsteps, honing the team mechanics; its influence and legacy have yet to be determined, as it only recently concluded.

Other/Non-Season-Specific Lore

Video Games

• SOTF Combat is a 1v1, arcade style beat 'em up, in the vein of Tekken, Street Fighter, or Guilty Gear. Currently in its fifth release (SOTF Combat V), the characters are, unsurprisingly, all iconic members of previous seasons of SOTF-TV. The games generally speaking have the loose story of the fighters being gathered together to determine once and for all who the 'mightiest champion' is. The series is praised for its vibrant graphics, destructible 3D environments and inventive array of fighting styles. However, it is also often criticised for focusing its attention primarily on the winners of versions rather than popular fan favourites.

• SOTF Champions is a MOBA - or Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, similar to games such as League of Legends and Defence of the Ancients. Players control a single character in a game with RTS and RPG elements. SOTF Champions sees teams of characters battling across maps based on locations from seasons of SOTF-TV. Naturally, the characters are all based off of past participants of the game, although there are a handful of original characters, such as the suit-wearing Executive, and perhaps the strangest, an anthropomorphic representation of a collar. The game is highly acclaimed for being excellently balanced.

• SOTF-TV Battlegrounds is a popular last-man standing shooter in the style of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds available for $25 on Steam and on home consoles. The game sees contestants randomly assigned different weapons of varying effectiveness and placed on random locations of a map (based nearly entirely accurate representations of previous arenas, including less fair and balanced arenas such as those seen in Seasons Ten and Fourteen) with the goal being for players to be the last one standing. The game is playable in both solo and squad modes. While the squad mode predated the team mechanics introduced in Season Sixty-Five, it was overhauled following that season to be more like what was featured on the show, both in play and aesthetics. The game has been praised for its unique and fun gameplay and for its accuracy to the source material—particularly in its arenas and danger zone mechanics, but also for its cosmetics system which allows players to get hairstyles and clothing of popular and iconic SotF contestants. It also, however, has received criticism for its glitchiness and due to its microtransaction system, with players getting loot boxes that can only be opened with keys, sold at $1.50 apiece.
• Heart of Life is an RPG series published by RoundEgg Games. The gameplay of most of the entries consists of exploration and scavenging of semi-linear zones, broken up by heavily social and story-focused scenes. The player character always takes the role of an original character (or 'original classmate', as some like to say) added to a past SOTF-TV season, usually treated as a preexisting classmate of the contestants, with varying degrees of customisation, from as little as a gender selection option to as detailed as a full character creation screen. The series' main strength is its writing and characters, which are considered to be on a very high level, particularly as the writers are not afraid to take major divergences from canon events in order to make the story more exciting and less predictable. The character dialogue system is very robust, and later entries put significant work into layering past choices into future dialogue and relations. However, Heart of Life's detractors point to underwhelming combat, overly railroaded plots, and lack of options in 'routes' as significant flaws. The core series currently stands at 7 entries and a remake.