I am making a game that’s at least inspired by the Survival genre, and I would like more experience to go on. So far I have played:
- Project Zomboid (this game would benefit immensely from playable side-games you can discover while exploring, like floppies with DOOM and shit like that)
- The Isle (this game would benefit from having things to do in it, don’t get me started)
- Valheim (I guess I should play more of this…)
- Abiotic Factor (This game is neat but got repetitive before I even finished exploring, but I should also return to this)
- The Planet Crafter (Kinda fun but really unpolished, I feel like a lot of devs are lazy about cleaning up the presentation of their game)
- Subnautica+Below Zero (Masterpiece, if pretty buggy towards the end… also lacks some polish)
- The Long Dark (Super unforgiving, but I guess that’s an okay design choice)
- Raft (Pretty fun, enjoyed playing it with my partner)
- RimWold (Does this count? Also pretty neat)
- Also Minecraft because of course
- I forgot Space Haven which was good but needs big updates, planning to check it out again when the current test build goes to public Beta
I am also aware of Don’t Starve and that people like it a lot but, idk man, for whatever reason I just don’t like the aesthetic.
What are some other good ones?
Unreal world. Nordic iron age survival sim roguelike with weird larping art?
Idk if these technically count as survival, but Satisfactory and No Man’s Sky are both great. Ark has probably changed a lot since I played it, but I loved it once I found a good server
If you enjoy restarting survival games, like that wild sprint to tech up to an “ok I’m probably not immediately going to die at any second” level, I highly recommend Icarus. It’s a mission-based survival game. Definitely some rough edges to it, and the devs have pumped out a wide breadth of new content over the years without addressing what I’d consider some pretty basic bugs, but I still have gotten my money’s worth out of it.
Green Hell has this macronutrient balance system that tickles a certain part of my brain in a good way.
From what’s not already on your list, 7 Days to Die is great. The multiplayer can be really fun in it too. The game used to be really rough, but it’s much better now.
Edit: Also, Green Hell and Conan Exiles are really good.
If you get the original STALKER and put the Anomaly mod on it turns into a survival game. There’s also these sorts of mods for your classic Bethesda titles, which might be worth looking at because those are additions to a game rather than an indie developer building everything from scratch
Terraria
Vintage story is one of the best survival games. Difficulty wise it seems dauntingly high at first. Strange Eldritch monsters and unforgiving wilderness. Then you discover knapping. Things get a lot easier. You hunt. Discover cooking. Food preservation. Pottery. Then you make your first pickaxe. Probably 10 hours in. Suddenly things don’t seem so hopeless.
Then a temporal storm hits. Difficulty is suddenly increased once again. You die a few times.
This cycle continues throughout. You think you’ve finally got it figured out. “This food should last” then winter hits.
It’s not an unforgiving game. It’s fair and you have to learn it to prosper. Eventually you will have a town and a mill. A smithy. Farms galore.
You earn the right to explore in Vintage story
I enjoyed Green Hell, thinking of replaying it. The story is kinda goofy. What I really like about it is how your own growing understanding changes the world from very hostile and difficult to rich and bountiful.
Astroneer is fun, it’s got a very interesting always-physical inventory.
Stationeers is interesting but frustrating, it feels like there’s a huge gulf between doing everything manually and extremely complex circuit building and scripting.
