What are the perfect survival video games? The Steam charts are stuffed with all types of examples, together with basic survival horror video games and new hardcore survival sims. To assist any bewildered adventurers, we’ve gathered collectively the perfect survival video games that can assist you decide and select which emergent tales and surprising adventures to undertake.
In the event you’ve received the grit to outlast the likes of the terrifying The Lengthy Darkish or the underwater surprise of Subnautica, our picks will assist steer you towards the (not so) protected pastures of the perfect PC video games that decision so that you can combat on your life. Whether or not you want surviving the horrors of warfare or you’re into the brand new breed of starvation and illness administration video games, get able to endure agony and loads of ache in these scintillating survival video games.
One of the best survival video games are:
Crsed: FOAD
This free-to-play battle royale began out as Delicacies Royale – a PUBG spoof, however when gamers stored coming again, it turned obvious that Darkflow Software program had discovered one thing that’s largely absent throughout the battle royale games genre: light-hearted fun.
Crsed: Foad is still about surviving to the end and outlasting dozens of opponents, but instead of armor, you’ll be scrabbling around for colanders and baking trays to protect your fleshy parts from incoming bullets.
Recent updates have embraced the silliness, adding new champions, a new map, flamethrowers, mortars, and motorboats, and rebalancing the melee combat. You can now also shoot from vehicles, as well as unlock and improve your champions with secret missions or daily challenges.
Abiotic Factor
Abiotic Factor only just launched into early access, but it’s already taken the survival game genre by storm. This love letter to Half-Life and the SCP Foundation drops you into the hapless shoes of a paranormal scientist fighting back against a containment breach in an underground research facility. You might not have a PhD in fighting aliens, but you can work your way up the ladder from lowly lab assistant to researcher, physicist, or even gastrologist – scientists have to eat, too!
The facility itself is ripe for the picking, and you can scavenge materials to craft weapons and traps that can help you fend off all the strange anomalies with a taste for human flesh. Abiotic Factor is very silly, often chaotic, and probably the closest we’re ever going to get to Half-Life 3… with a little sprinkling of Lethal Company for good luck. Developer Deep Field Games has also been putting out some big updates to keep things fresh – or not, in the case of the corpse location fix. You don’t even have to take our word for it; the Abiotic Factor Steam reviews speak for themselves.
Planet Crafter
Planet Crafter takes survival into the vast reaches of outer space. Your mission is to terraform a hostile planet to make it habitable for humans. However, before you can do that you need to find a way to keep yourself alive – and fast. Your ticket to survival lies in the rich resources available on the planet’s surface, which you can harvest to construct the facilities you need to generate oxygen, warmth, and food. Eventually, you can transform this barren waste into a lush paradise that sustains plants, animals, and most importantly, humans.
Planet Crafter’s modular building system captures a similar NASA punk aesthetic as Starfield – so if you were underwhelmed with the building mechanics of Bethesda’s RPG, Planet Crafter might be the perfect survival game for you. Whether you’re looking for laidback exploration on a distant world or a hardcore struggle against all odds, Planet Crafter has a wealth of difficulty options to tailor your experience, while the Creative Mode gives you complete freedom to build without restrictions. You can even invite up to nine players in online co-op if you find a solo excursion on an alien planet is a little too lonely for your liking.
V Rising
Released in early access during the wake of survival behemoth Valheim, V Rising is the vampiric solution to survival games, and it makes you realize just how challenging being a vampire is. As you build the castle of your dreams, complete with a coffin and human servants, this moody, gothic open-world game has light and dark moments as you gather resources, take on bosses, and master powerful skills. Just be sure to stay out of the sun.
Now’s the best time to start, as the vampire game is out of early access. We have plenty of resources in our V Rising guide to help you get started. We also have the best V Rising base locations, how to set up a V Rising server, and a list of all V Rising bosses, as well as their locations and rewards for beating them.
Sons of the Forest
Sons of the Forest is the follow-up to Endnight Games’ sleeper survival hit The Forest, and both could be included in this list of the best survival games available. We’ve stuck just to the sequel, though, which you can get on with just as quickly having played or not played the first game, as you survive against the harsh climate and terrain of the Sons of the Forest map, as well as the terrifying Sons of the Forest mutants and cannibals around every turn.
As discussed in our Sons of the Forest review, the sequel stays faithful to the original, with old tools, like the modern axe, being joined by new weapons, including the mighty Sons of the Forest shotgun. Just don’t think this makes surviving any easier, though, as you’ll be short on ammo, and those enemies are considerably tougher this time.
Enshrouded
For something a little more grounded but still fantasy-based, Enshrouded is a recent open-world game that takes inspiration from recent Zelda games and Valheim, a great survival game in its own right. In it, you must make your own shelter before venturing out into dungeons filled with monsters.
Of course, there’s a whole lot more to this game than meets the eye, and if our Enshrouded early access impressions are anything to go by, we’re excited to see what’s in store for its future. For actual gameplay tips, here is an Enshrouded guide to help you begin your journey.
Palworld
You’d be forgiven for thinking this is only a game like Pokemon, but Palworld has far more in common with many survival games on this list and perhaps even a few management games like Factorio. Your goal is to get the best team of Palworld Pals possible while also building an arsenal of the best Palworld guns to defeat the adversaries in the towers.
It’s in early access at the moment, meaning that more Pals, guns, and other features will come in the future, but for now, we recommend reading our Palworld early access review to see what you’re getting yourself into. If it looks like the game for you, we have a Palworld guide to help you get started, as those first few hours are a doozy.
Icarus
Landing on the unforgiving plant, Icarus, you and up to seven online pals must complete missions before returning to the comfort of the orbital space station to upgrade your gear. In this session-based survival game – battling against hostile weather conditions, vicious animals, and unruly terrain – you must successfully collect the specified resources and retreat to the dropship before the time runs out.
Since leaving early access, Icarus has had its fair share of bugs, but its refreshing take on sandbox survival and robust progression system make this a varied and surprising survival game. Read our full Icarus review to find out more.
Valheim
Abandoned in the Norse wilderness with nothing but a loincloth and your wits, you – and up to nine other Vikings – must build shelter, forage for food, and steadily build up your strength before heading out in search of glorious battle. The meadows you begin your journey in are relatively safe, but the procedurally generated wilds contain various biomes of escalating difficulty – you do not want to stumble into the plains before you’re ready, believe us.
Each one of Valheim’s biomes has its own magnificent boss; once you locate it, summon it, and defeat it, you unlock resources and powers that help you progress to the next region. You’ll also trigger increasingly powerful raids on your home base, so you must construct a well-defended homestead; don’t forget the chimney or smoke inhalation will get you before that giant blue troll does. If you can play over LAN, you don’t need an internet connection to enjoy Valheim, as it works perfectly as an offline game.
Scum
Like many of the survival games in this list, Scum is starting life in Steam Early Access, which means two things: it’s still quite shonky, and there are heaps of features yet to be added to the game. But even early into its life, there is plenty to enjoy about this detailed survival game set on a maximum security prison island.
What makes it stand out among its peers is an incredibly meticulous metabolism system which makes Scum a sort of simulation game that tracks what you eat, drink, and excrete. Eat many more calories than you’re burning off, and you’ll get fatter. Consume less than what you’re burning off, and you’ll have no energy and gradually lose weight.
But it’s a lot more complicated than that: you’ll have to watch your vitamin levels, stomach, intestine, bladder, and colon volume, and ensure that you eat well in advance of needing energy, as it takes time for your body to process anything you put into it. Scum puts the hunger and thirst mechanics of other survival games to shame. There are rewards for taking care of your body, too, as fitter characters deal more melee damage, run faster, and possess better weapon handling than their emaciated or overweight counterparts.
The result is a survival game where surviving is more important than amassing an arsenal of military-grade gear. Although once you’ve figured out how to take care of your body, you still have endgame goals such as exploring high-security areas, improving your supply of guns, and dabbling with PvP. If you need help with any of that, check out our top Scum tips, and if that’s not quite enough help, there are some handy Scum admin commands for you, too.
Raft
Starting on a small 4×4 raft, either solo or in co-op, you must survive at sea in this open-world adventure. Drifting aimlessly at first, gathering materials such as plastic, planks, and metal scraps to slowly increase the size of your raft and build newer, better tools – Raft is a constant fight for survival, battling hunger, thirst, and a furious shark.
As you start to moor up at islands you find at sea, you’ll also uncover letters and secrets, as well as discover more materials to lead you in specific directions eventually. Raft does a wonderful job of doubling up as a relaxing game as you sail along the beautiful ocean, crafting new areas and tending to your seed garden, but before you know it, you’re dying of thirst, and you’ve run out of food. It also has its fair share of powerful critters lurking on islands, so our best advice, like any survival game, is don’t get ahead of yourself!
Frostpunk
Billed as the “first society survival game,” Frostpunk places you in the unenviable position of managing the last city on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and it’s up to you to secure its future against the bitter cold, food shortages, and political unrest that threatens to reduce it to rubble. Shrewd resource management and technological development are essential for your city’s survival, but as its ruler, you’re forced to make tough decisions that shape the society you’ve pledged to protect. The laws that you pass can spread hope or discontent among the populace, and ruling with an iron fist could result in an uprising.
Frostpunk is a city building game marked by ever-rising tension that drives you into the pits of moral despair – but at least you’ll be able to survive another day. Our Frostpunk review concludes that 11 Bit Studio’s 2018 hit “challenges the idea of survival at all costs,” so it’s well worth picking up years later. However, you might prefer to hold out for the Frostpunk 2 release date. Our Paul Kelly describes it as “a never-ending, hopeless, soul-crushing experience” in his Frostpunk 2 preview, which sounds every bit as harrowing as what we expect from the sequel.
Ark: Survival Developed
Ark isn’t simply the perfect dinosaur survival sport you should buy; it’s arguably one of many biggest dinosaur video games ever made. In spite of everything, prehistoric beasties make every thing higher. It’s a survival sport that fills each fringe of the template: punch timber to get wooden, use wooden to construct shelter, kill animals to search out meals, and inevitably die since you forgot to drink water. But Ark transcends the everyday survival sport sample by together with leathery leviathans that each need to hunt and eat you, however with some perseverance, you may as well tame and trip. Furthermore, chilly wars rage between Ark Survival Developed mega tribes as they search dominance over their world. Ark Survival grasp builders push the boundaries of creation in a survival sport.
Every part Ark does is rock-solid. The survival components could also be much like what you’ve performed earlier than, however they’re the bedrock for the sport’s extra bold components (and a powerful Ark mods scene). Your character has RPG-like stats, and you may head into the world to hunt sci-fi secrets and techniques that supply slightly extra incentive to play somewhat than simply ‘keep alive’.
It’s these numerous guarantees that make taking part in Ark worthwhile: different survival video games depend on you being happy with making it by way of the night time, whereas Studio Wildcard units you long-term objectives akin to ‘tame and trip a T-Rex’. Having a real sense of development and goals makes your time in Ark really feel priceless, and that’s one thing many different survival adventures wrestle with. Additionally, when you’re scuffling with the sport’s sci-fi-flavored growth, our Ark: Aberration ideas ought to assist.
Conan Exiles
With the large success of video games like DayZ, it was solely a matter of time earlier than a developer with entry to a licensed character determined to attempt the survival style. Conan Exiles shunts you into the Hyborian Age as everybody’s favourite barbarian seems to duff folks up and keep away from loss of life.
The setup is basically acquainted – develop crops, construct settlements, membership enemies to loss of life – however Conan has a back-of-the-box bullet level that not one of the competitors can declare: human sacrifice. Do you have to be capable to wrestle somebody to an altar and butcher them, you may invoke the favor of the gods and shift the steadiness of energy your method. That distinctive idea units Conan Exiles aside from the pack.
Astroneer
Astroneer is among the finest video games to come back from Steam’s Early Entry platform: stable at launch however remodeled into one thing really particular after two years of constant content material updates and sharpening. In Astroneer, you crash land on an alien planet and carve out an existence by creating your life assist pod right into a fully-fledged base with automobiles, energy sources, and laboratories.
In fact, as in all the perfect survival video games, you’ll want loads of assets to start out constructing the perfect base modules, and to try this, you’ll must discover your planet, hoovering up uncommon crafting supplies and shaping the terrain to unearth resource-rich caverns.
Regardless of being simply as treacherous, Astroneer isn’t as bleak as most survival video games. There’s a beautiful low-poly artwork fashion that guarantees to appease you as you crest each new horizon, after which there’s the truth that you may have your friends be part of you at any time, due to drop-in/drop-out co-op. There’s additionally a way of development in Astroneer, as you may ultimately blast off and begin colonizing the opposite six planets in your photo voltaic system, offering tangible objectives so that you can work towards somewhat than mere existence.
Subnautica
With its dreamy underwater setting – partly created by the Subnautica group – and compelling gameplay loop, Subnautica is among the finest exploration survival video games on PC and even comes with its personal Subnautica freedom mode for a rather more hopeful and stress-free than different survival adventures. Certain, you’re a lonely man misplaced at sea on an alien planet, nevertheless it’s a sport all about terraforming your new setting and making unfamiliar floor your private home.
The artwork course helps push the concept of hope dwelling, with shiny and glossy applied sciences, superbly blue oceans, and faculties of tropical fish filling your imaginative and prescient at each flip. You discover the ocean depths in your submarine, trying to find new supplies in marine trenches and coral reefs. And while you’ve discovered every thing you want, you may assemble bases on the ocean ground.
The sport’s survival components embrace the meals and water necessities that the majority video games within the style do, however there’s a extra urgent concern in Subnautica: oxygen. You possibly can’t breathe sea water, so your oxygen ranges and consumption should all the time be in your thoughts. Seeing as you’re regularly threatened with the prospect of drowning, you actually ought to learn our Subnautica information to make sure you squeeze each final drop out of your diver’s life. Each survival sport has the ominous shadow following you round, nevertheless it’s merely good previous O2 right here.
This Warfare of Mine
For all of the stress that some survival video games can press on you, nothing compares to the harrowing 2D journey. As you’ll discover out in our This Warfare of Mine evaluate, the sport gives a unique breed of survival. It’s an outline of a bunch of civilians struggling to remain alive of their war-ravaged nation. Trapped in a besieged home, pinned down by snipers, and attacked by different survivors seeking to take what you’ve discovered, it’s a sport of traumatic choices and life-or-death penalties. It’s the aspect of battle that few warfare video games really take care of.
Every of your randomly generated survivors has backstories, offering them with talents for survival. Ex-firemen are fitter and extra strong, whereas those that used to cook dinner professionally can now feed the ravenous. However heading out into the world to search out the belongings you want – medication, components, scrap to make beds – may convey you face-to-face with these prepared to kill. And turning a survivor right into a assassin results in distress, despair, and – if not handled nicely – suicide.
It’s a bleak existence, and making what appears to be the apparent proper choice at one cut-off date can result in disastrous conclusions. The tip of the warfare continually looks like a pipe dream, and everybody will in all probability be useless earlier than you get there. In the event you assume you may reside with your self in such dire circumstances, although, this a must-play.
The Lengthy Darkish
This chilly journey is much like many of the video games talked about above, nevertheless it has among the finest horror video games options in it. In contrast to different titles on this checklist, The Lengthy Darkish has a fairly fascinating story mode (known as Wintermute) to sink your tooth into.
Set within the bitter chilly of northern Canada, The Lengthy Darkish trades zombies for bears and tropical islands for lethal snow drifts. Mom Nature is your true adversary right here, and to fight her, you’ll must preserve your calorie depend up, your physique hydrated, and a flame roaring everytime you curl up for the night time.
The fashionable aesthetic makes it fairly an arty sport, however don’t let that idiot you into considering this slows the tempo and forces you to assume lengthy and onerous about what you’ve executed. The Lengthy Darkish is a genuinely difficult survival sport with actual chunk.
DayZ
It’s the one which kicked all of it off the zombie survival development. This shuffling undead deal with stays among the finest zombie games and survival games. In other words, it’s the king of zombie survival games. By today’s standards, DayZ could even be considered one of the leanest virtual survivors, with barely any crafting to speak of and no objectives beyond staying alive. Food and water are vitally important, and getting sick can quickly kill you should you ignore your symptoms. Walking without shoes cuts and infects your feet, and blood transfusions of the wrong type will see you slip away for good.
If you’re content with fighting against disease, bodily functions, and zombies who occasionally phase through walls, you’ll get to DayZ’s best feature: exploration. The world of Chernarus is a Soviet wasteland, and Bohemia has captured that Eastern Bloc atmosphere with the towns and villages around the map. DayZ’s forests feel genuinely life-like rather than being man-made imitations, while there’s a true sense of isolation out in the wilderness.
It’s best played with a friend or two, a camping trip where things could go horribly wrong. And by ‘horribly wrong’, we mean being captured by a gang of bandits who will force-feed you bleach and make off with your can-opener. So yeah, proceed with extreme caution.
Rust
This grim tale of endurance has become infamous for its naked men – but it’s not the size of a man’s particulars that’s impressive about Facepunch’s open-world game (and we all know that doesn’t matter anyway… right?). No, it’s the forts that players can, ahem, erect. Rust’s strong point is construction: as you gather materials from its wilderness, you can begin to lay down various items in a Sims-like manner, creating your perfect rural retreat by slotting together floors, walls, staircases, and windows.
While many servers exist where the traditional shoot-on-sight mentality exists, Rust has plenty of havens for those looking for a more civilized lifestyle. You can find player-created towns, complete with attempts at government, trading, and even prisons. It’s one of the nicest reminders that fantastic achievements can be made if people pull together and share their resources.
Rust underwent a massive overhaul that saw most of the original game scrapped in favor of a slightly new approach and completely new base code. The change ripped out many of the game’s core features, such as zombies and rad towns, but over time, they’ve gradually reapplied alongside new ideas. Rust remains one of the most played games on Steam, and if you’re one of them, be sure to check out these useful Rust console commands.
Don’t Starve
Probably the most horrifying concept of most survival video games is having to do it alone in a hostile setting filled with unknown threats. That’s precisely what Don’t Starve makes you do, because it’s a completely solo expertise. The fear of fending for your self within the wild is fortunately offset by the beautiful Tim Burton-style 2D artwork and the gathering of completely weird creatures lurking on this sepia-tone world. Werepigs, Beargers, Deerclopses, and lots of extra absurd monsters roam the land seeking to make issues tough for you.
Don’t Starve focuses closely on crafting to make your method by way of life, and a lot of your time is spent harvesting uncooked supplies – identical to different crafting video games. However somewhat than crafting homes like in Rust and Minecraft, this indie sport is all in regards to the instruments and contraptions you may make. The Science Machine and Alchemy Engine will grow to be your finest mates earlier than making method for historical wonders and the artwork of magic. Like Minecraft, Don’t Starve fortunately embraces the mad and the paranormal, and it’s all of the extra pleasurable for it.
If all this sounds fantastic, however you don’t need to harvest twigs and dry grass by yourself, Don’t Starve Collectively additionally permits you to play with a pal, and it’s truly among the finest co-op video games.
Minecraft
In the event you’re after the finest crafting survival sport on the market, look no additional than Minecraft. Sooner or later, it appears somebody determined survival was all about grueling punishment, sloth-like development, and murdering anybody who isn’t you. However earlier than the large survival blow-out on Steam, we had Minecraft: a enjoyable, colourful, artistic survival sandbox sport. Certain, some zombies will eat your face, and spiders, skeletons, and extra unorthodox enemies will shock you on each flip. On the very least, although, with the most recent Minecraft skins, you no less than all the time find yourself blocky and cute. Nobody minds a cartoon monster having you for breakfast.
Extra importantly, the way you survive in Minecraft is totally as much as you. You possibly can construct an elaborate fortress and play a defense-style sport, keeping off the creatures of the night time. Or you would craft thrilling weaponry and enterprise out into the world’s most harmful zones, testing each your mettle and steel. The world is infinite and stuffed with unbelievable pure wonders begging to be explored. Simply keep in mind to eat one thing each from time to time, and also you’ll be effective.
We spend a lot time specializing in the sport’s artistic aspect and its many Minecraft mods, Minecraft maps, Minecraft seeds, and all the opposite distinctive prospects on the market that we generally overlook that the vanilla Survival Mode is simply as thrilling in its method. And when you actually need to make an automatic mining manufacturing line in Survival Mode, don’t allow us to cease you. Simply be sure that the creepers don’t put a spanner in your works.
That’s it, you’ve survived! Whether or not avoiding the terrors of the deep sea or taking up hostile Minecraft mobs, hopefully, the video games above will sate your urge for food for survival. If not, then one in every of our most hotly anticipated upcoming video games may.