What a lovely way to close out a Survivor-less January. Survivior’s social media channels dropped an official cast teaser and Jeff Prost tweeted out a collage of all the new players this season. Take a look:

Are you ready to be DARING?🔥 Meet the 18 new castaways who have dared to give it their all to claim the Season 44 Sole #Survivor title. pic.twitter.com/iA2dVr1xov

— SURVIVOR (@survivorcbs) January 31, 2023

These 18 new castaways are ready to leave it all on the island! Head over to @survivorcbs for a deeper look and see you all for the #Survivor: 44 premiere March 1st on CBS! pic.twitter.com/L6S0a6Vk5A

— Jeff Probst (@JeffProbst) January 31, 2023

I’ll be the first to admit that as far as teasers go this was essentially a nothing burger. That being said, we know between now and March 1st the show will be putting out more information on each castaway, such as bios and their pre-game interviews. Once those start making their way out I’ll be able to put a more educated opinion about who to keep an eye on during the season only to have it blow up in episode one.

Per the CBS tweet it looks like “Are you ready to be DARING?” is this season’s new “monster.” It’s probably just a tagline conjured up by the marketing team over at CBS and I’m sure Jeff will give his typical “it’s our hardest season yet!” mumbo jumbo as we get closer and closer to the season. Perhaps it could imply that the stakes to taking risks that many of the new twists we’ve seen in recent seasons are even higher though this season had already been shot by the time 43 aired so maybe this will be different from what we saw where the risks were rightfully scaled back a bit from the previous two seasons. Maybe, just maybe, Jeff can finally get the Shot in the Dark or the Knowledge is Power to work this time.

Here’s a quick refresher for what we saw at the end of last season:

As for the cast, obviously we didn’t learn much here besides their names an occupations but per the preview from the 43 finale we know a little bit about some of the cast members:

• Carson Garrett (blue shirt, glasses) is a rocket science student who feels like he’ll be this season’s token young nerd that receives a lot of screen time.
• Brandon Cottam (striped shirt) used to play in the NFL but looks like he may have a little more personality than 41’s Danny McCray.
• Carolyn Wiger (blonde lady) might be this season’s Noura from Island of the Idols. I mean that in a good way as every season needs a kooky lady who can perform in challenges.
• Yamil “Yam Yam” Arocho (beard, purple shirt) looks like he’ll be one one this season’s fan favorites, now let’s see if he can play.
• I couldn’t tell exactly from the trailer but it looks like either Kane Fritzler or Matthre Grinstead-Mayle is going to take a gnarly fall at some point this season.
• Looks like one of these people is going to go down in the first challenge and its not Matthew, Carolyn, Sarah Wade, or Helen Li.

The whole cast’s bios are available already but I’m gonna need to see and hear from the players themselves before I start judging. As the show starts putting out more about the cast I’ll put together a more in-depth preview before the season comes out but until then, Happy Survivor Cast Reveal Day to all those who observe!