Alone Season 13 Premieres on History: Is It Worth Streaming?

The hit survival series Alone is back with an exciting twist for Season 13, dubbed its inaugural “World Championship.” This time, the challenge unfolds within the unforgiving wilderness of the Canadian Arctic Circle, a stark contrast to the arid landscapes of South Africa featured in the previous season. With ten contestants hailing from seven different countries, including Australia, Slovenia, Portugal, and New Zealand, the series promises a thrilling test of endurance and survival skills. “The raw you is what you’re gonna face out there,” a participant remarks, highlighting the grueling conditions that await — cold, wet, and teeming with wildlife, likely including bears. Beyond the allure of the $500,000 prize, the journey offers a deeper reward: the chance to push one’s limits and discover inner strength.

ALONE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Scene: “I think I might have that little bit of insanity…” and “Lose your mind, find your soul…” serve as rallying cries for the contestants of Alone. The night before they venture into the wilderness is spent distilling their motivations into perfect soundbites, setting the tone for the competition to come.

Essence of the Challenge: This season’s diverse lineup features participants from around the world, all facing the same daunting reality. Equipped with clothing, essential gear, and 65 pounds of camera equipment, each contestant selects ten items crucial for their survival. Whether it’s tools for warmth, cooking, shelter-building, or the versatile paracord, these choices are critical once the helicopters and boats leave, abandoning them to solitude and self-reliance.

For Pedrosa, a 41-year-old from Portugal, hunting rabbit and ground squirrel provides sustenance and a humbling reminder that survival won’t always be straightforward. Meanwhile, Nero, a 40-year-old Australian, relies on “passive” food-gathering methods and relishes the nutrients from a squirrel’s liver. Jacks, a wildlife educator from New York, candidly shares her struggles with the camera, lamenting time lost to the thick mud and dense underbrush. For these contestants, the journey of Alone often starts with incremental, challenging steps.

The ultimate question looms: who will endure the longest and claim the $500,000 prize? While the premise of Alone is straightforward, the execution is anything but. The thrill of watching contestants hastily construct shelters while pondering our own survival strategies is central to the show’s appeal. Imagine facing the wild, armed with a single blade, a few arrows, and the daunting presence of 50,000 grizzly bears as your only companions.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Outlast: The Jungle is the newest season of Netflix’s Alone-adjacent survival series. While it is teams-based, having more people around doesn’t automatically make any of those people drier. And the robust international representation in Alone Season 13 speaks to the show’s global popularity. Australia is a thriving outpost for the series, and 2026-27 will see new Alone seasons in Belgium, Finland, and Denmark.  

Our Take: Eventually someone will win this season of Alone, and it will be a thrill to see how they carry the day with technical capability and personal fortitude. But there is another inevitability to Alone which is found in the dark hours between “You’re gonna have to be a tough, gritty son of a bitch to win” and the few quick beeps on a satellite phone that mark an official tap-out. For one competitor inSeason 13, this is less than 72 hours, which marks a never-less-than-fascinating main feature about this series. Alone-ers initially enter the bush fueled by boasts about balling hard and winning big cash, and none are unprepared to do this. In many cases, they don’t just know how to live off the land — living off the land is part of their real-world livelihood. Still, for a few contestants, the end is always the same, and it never gets old. After everyone is dropped off in their little inhospitable corner of the wilderness, after they secure food, water, and temporary shelter, they all sit down to…just be on Alone. To be with their thoughts. To finally understand the crushing emotional weight of this competition. And what a Season 13 Alone-er calls “the guilt of it” invariably sets in. Quick, what pocket is that sat phone in? 

The greatest lesson on Alone is not in the ways of bushcraft. It is the understanding we might have to travel to some dangerous middle of nowhere just to realize how much we need whatever is left behind. “There is not a thing in the world” – not even 500,000 big ones – “worth trading time with your family.”

Performance Worth Watching: We will be watching the performance of the nine arrows allotted to each contestant. Every one of them laments loosing an arrow at some varmint, only to miss the shot and lose the arrow, making them hungry now and possibly even hungrier later.  

Sex and Skin: Well, unless you’re talking about what’s exposed after a contestant skins the critter they caught in their trap, then no, not really. 

Parting Shot: The mental game is key out here. One guy trained his mind to always be hunting – that way he’ll never miss an opportunity. “In that moment, I will not miss the shot.”

Sleeper Star: Serendipity! Season 13 of Alone offers two early examples of how randomness can provide. A glass bottle unearthed from the wilderness can be repurposed as a fresh water canteen. And rusty nails salvaged from riverside driftwood become components in a device that will feed one player for weeks.    

Most Pilot-y Line: “It’s really easy for people to watch this show and be like ‘Oh, why didn’t she or he do that’ blah blah blah,” says Jacks Genega. “But it’s different when you’re out here, man. Your head, and everything you do, needs to be so dialed in.”  

Our Call: Stream It! Alone remains the most singular and singularly difficult-to-win unicorn in a crowded field of reality competition. Watch as Season 13 drops ten more people trained for this kind of thing into unforgiving conditions – and then watch as they are promptly challenged in ways they never expected. That $500,000 Alone grand prize might be the hardest money to win in reality television.  

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.