I know this might sound crazy, but I honestly believe that survival is an entirely separate game than open world and should be treated as one.
Imagine being a new player, getting this game on steam and joining open world only to get scoped in the face in the first 10 seconds. This results in those new players immediately quitting and leaving a bad review on the game as a whole without even experiencing survival.
As a veteran of the original game... I just want the original game with the bugs fixed, the cheaters gone, the snipers rare, and an active community. NewZ Survival has primarily fixed a lot of the bugs, made the snipers rare, and doesn't have nearly as much of a problem with cheaters as the original game did. The only thing survival is missing, in my opinion, is a player base.
With that said, in this game's current state, and with the association of Open World, I don't think survival can ever really grow. Since I first played survival on initial launch, the player base has only shrunk.
My suggestion would be to relaunch the survival portion of this game (as a separate game entirely) and make your primary selling point be "the original game without the bullshit".
Infestation: FixedZ
If I'm entirely wrong / my suggestion would never work, feel free to flame away and let me know.