A big part of my gaming life has always been survival games. What are the best survival games? They don’t hold your hand; they drop you into a harsh world where you have to meet your basic needs like food, water, shelter, and warmth. These games are all about making you survive on your own, and I’ve found that they really test how well you can do that.
In the past few years, the number of survival games has grown quickly. There are many different kinds of games in the Steam charts, from old survival horror games to new hardcore survival sims. To help any lost adventurers, we’ve put together a list of the best survival games so you can pick and choose which stories and adventures to go on.
Survival games are an interesting collection of games. Almost all games have component where you can lose a game by dying. However, survival games make an act of staying alive the key component of the game. This is a fairly robust genre, with many really good titles. However, there are not many pure survival games on mobile. In most cases, it is a hybrid experience that includes survival mechanics and other genres. Below, we have mentioned the best survival games
Best Survival Games
Grounded
Obsidian has shrunk you down and left you in a normal backyard, but because of your size it could be a jungle. Surrounded by killer spiders, hungry birds and pesky ants, you can build a base by cutting blades of grass and get food and drink by roasting aphids and collecting dew drops. It is a beautiful and somehow wonderful environment, seen from the perspective of a person the size of an insect.
Valheim
It didn’t take long for the early access cooperative Viking survival game to draw a crowd, and it’s easy to see why. The huge procedurally generated world, fearsome boss fights, and excellent base-building system combine wonderfully with survival elements such as cooking and crafting. Solo play is great, but it really shines in cooperative play: players can devote themselves to building bases or embark on dangerous journeys across the sea to discover dangerous new continents.
Escape from Tarkov
Escape from Tarkov is a wild evolution of survival games, with a dash of battle royale thrown in for good measure. Instead of playing in a persistent world, you sweep across a map with a few other players and several dozen enemy NPCs. To survive, you must reach an exfiltration zone at the other end of the map, but you can also keep everything you loot to sell on a player-driven market or use in later rounds. It’s kind of like poker, only scarier. What makes Tarkov really interesting, though, is the hyper-realistic gunplay and the ridiculously deep customization of weapons.
Subnautica
Explore an alien, underwater world by piloting your handcrafted submarine through mysterious underwater landscapes. From beautiful coral reefs to caves and deep-sea trenches, you’ll gather resources and sustenance, build habitats and a submarine fleet, and create new technologies to help you survive in the deep. It’s hard not to compare it to Minecraft, but developer Unknown Worlds has put a unique spin on the survival genre.
Frostpunk
Frostpunk is a mix of city-building, society simulation and survival in a dark, frozen world. With a handful of cold, hungry and unhappy people, you must build a functioning city inside a snow-filled crater heated only by a huge coal furnace. Gather resources, hunt for food and manage your citizens by giving them hope for the future. It is a tough and beautiful survival game that will confront you with tough choices at every turn.
Outward
It sounds strange to say, but this fantasy RPG in which you can never die is one of the best recent survival games. In Outward you will face not only mystical monsters, but also the world itself, in which you must keep fed, hydrated and healthy. In the arid deserts the heat wears away your stamina, in the swamps the water can poison you, and with no quick trips, no quest markers or even your location on the map, every excursion is an exercise in preparation, patience and survival.
The Long Dark
With a focus on atmosphere and environmental survival, The Long Dark stands out in an increasingly crowded genre. The player plays the role of a bush pilot stranded in an icy wilderness after a mysterious global calamity. There are no zombies, mutants or other players: it’s just you battling the elements, wildlife and your own human frailty.
RimWorld
It has been five years in Early Access, but RimWorld has finally reached version 1.0. In this management and survival simulator you oversee a randomly generated colony of people stranded on a procedural alien planet. You expand the base, keep your colonists safe and sound, and deal with disasters thrown at you by RimWorld’s artificial intelligence, which can include anything from disease outbreaks to alien attacks to weather events. The most difficult challenge may be getting your colonists to get along: each of them has a distinct personality, desires and moods.
Raft
It sounds almost idyllic: floating serenely through the world on a raft, building and expanding the world while fishing the wreckage out of the ocean with a grappling hook. But there are sharks. They’re hungry, and if they can’t eat you, they’ll settle for eating your floating home. You will have to somehow find food and fresh water, keeping your raft afloat and growing. Fortunately, you can play cooperatively with a friend and double your chances of survival.
