Experience

Experience gained at death.

Experience is an in-game point system used to unlock new Characters. It is awarded on the death or level transition screen, and depends on the days survived. Each survived day adds 20 XP. Subsequent games add to the existing experience. Note that respawning at a Touch Stone or Meat Effigy does not give a death screen, so no experience points will be given at that point.

The days survived in Adventure Mode don't count on death, so surviving 3 days in Sandbox Mode, then going to Adventure Mode and surviving for 5 more days, then dying and return to Sandbox mode, and dying again in Sandbox mode will earn experience only for the 3 days spent in Sandbox mode. However, going to the next chapter through the Teleportato in Adventure Mode will give experience for the time spent in that chapter.

Wes, Maxwell, Webber, Wilbur, and Woodlegs are the only five characters that can't be unlocked via experience.

Unlockable characters via experience

More than one character can be unlocked at once. For instance, if a player only has Wilson unlocked but earns enough experience to unlock Wolfgang, both Wolfgang and Willow will be unlocked. This means to unlock all characters in Don't Starve (Willow, Wolfgang, Wendy, WX-78, Wickerbottom, and Woodie), one needs to survive a total of 80 days; in Reign of Giants, one needs to survive a total of 96 days to unlock Wigfrid; and finally, one needs to survive a cumulative 128 days to unlock Shipwrecked characters Walani and Warly.

Willow 160 XP 8 days	Wolfgang 320 XP 16 days	Wendy 640 XP 32 days
WX-78 960 XP 48 days	Wickerbottom 1280 XP 64 days	Woodie 1600 XP 80 days
Wigfrid  1920 XP 96 days	Walani  2240 XP 112 days	Warly  2560 XP 128 days

Gallery

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  Old experience cap screen after the "Strange New Powers" update.

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  Current Death Screen at XP cap .

Trivia

• XP is capped at 1600 in the base game, 1920 in the Reign of Giants DLC and 2560 in the Shipwrecked DLC