Survivor “Retired” Popular Puzzles Because of 3-D Printers

If you’ve noticed that Survivor 45 has some different puzzles than previous seasons, there’s a good reason for it. The iconic reality competition series has actually retired some of its classic puzzles that got reused from season to season, thanks to some intense preparation from players. Season 44’s Carson Garrett famously solved a puzzle very quickly and admitted on the show that he had 3-D printed a small version of that very same puzzle at home. He practiced several puzzles this way before heading out to Fiji, and it paid off in a big way.

According to Survivor host and producer Jeff Probst, plenty of players have used 3-D printers to practice puzzles at home, but Garrett was the first to appear in a season where one of those puzzles showed up. Therefore, the production team decided to switch things up by retiring a few puzzles, and introducing some new ones. 

“The backstory is we had been aware for years that players were making 3-D puzzles, because we would see it in their audition videos,” Probst told EW. “And we jokingly anticipated that one season things are going to line up and a player was going to end up on the show who actually made a 3-D puzzle and that same puzzle will be in the season.”

“When it happened, we really liked it,” he continued, “because it felt like it was a bit of a reward to the superman, and we appreciated the meta moment of something like that.”

It was a great moment for Probst to see Garrett win the challenge because of his dedicated fandom, but it’s definitely not something he wants to see become a regular element of the game. If memorization replaces strategy and gameplay, it’s not nearly as fun. So changes are being made, and even more could be made in the future.

“We understand that the idea can run its course and we feel like it has. So we did retire some puzzles, and we have new puzzles in Season 45, so I think it’s unlikely that we will find ourselves in that spot again simply because we aren’t looking for it anymore.

“Never say never,” Probst added. “Survivor players are very crafty and they could surprise us, but we’re aware and we’re on it.”

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