Survival games

Experience the thrill of fighting for your life with the best survival games!

From hazardous environments packed with ferocious mutants rushing to tear your guts out to enormous open-world spaces where an encounter with another player can end with you buried six feet underground, survival games always know how to keep you paranoid and constantly on the run. While elements of this now wildly popular genre have existed since the dawn of gaming, only with the arrival of the 21st century did we finally see all these features be packed into definitive, nerve-wracking experiences. Whether it be zombies, monsters or wildlife, deep space, lush forests or claustrophobic caverns, you have only one mission in the top survival games – to stay alive!

The best survival video games

From zombie games to open-world sandbox experiences, this genre encompasses many titles of different playstyles, themes, environments, intensity levels, and more. While there are many cult classics and beloved niche releases, only a few managed to snatch the title of the best. If you’re new to this and are searching for the right games to start your deep dive into survival, look no further:

• Subnautica
• Fallout 76
• The Long Dark
• Don't Starve
• Rust
• No Man's Sky
• Terraria
• Minecraft
• Valheim
• DayZ

Multiplayer survival games allow you to face off against the environment and other players at the same time, co-op survival games further drive the point about the importance of cooperation in the face of possible death, and singleplayer titles throw you into hostile territories to surpass insurmountable odds alone. Regardless of this, one thing is true among every game – annihilation spares no one.

What to expect?

The places you visit, the enemies you face off against and the capabilities of your character can differ wildly from title to title but there are certain elements that no experience like this can do without. Whether it be survival horror games or titles that let you do with the world as you please, you should always expect these:

• An environment that wants to kill you – weather conditions, biomes, flora, fauna and other various titbits will do anything to hinder your progress, the end goal being your death. The upside to all of this is that you can learn to overcome this;
• Crafting, crafting and more crafting – your character will always have certain needs, be it basic resources for general survival so you don’t starve or freeze to death, or safety measures like spears, guns, and more. Often times you’ll find yourself building your own shelter, crafting gear and tinkering with make-shift tools;
• Determination in the face of uncertainty – not every game has a winning condition, the point of it all being just trying your best to live to see another day. It is up to you to make your struggles meaningful.