Best survival games 2022 | TOP 25

Survival games are one of the most engaging genres available on the market today, with open-world and sandbox doing particularly well. Steam has been almost flooded with various, single-player survival games in recent years, as well as multiplayer and even MMOs. There are free survival games, and some that require coughing up the dough. Most of these games do not belong to the AAA segment – instead, indie developers have fallen in love with survival games, creating multiple clones. Some of them are hellishly playable. For that reason, we decided to compile a list of the best survival games of 2022 and beyond.

The fight for survival is the story of life itself. If you think about it, everything is trying to kill us. There are natural disasters, murder hornets – *ahem* – deadly viruses, and good old-fashioned diseases and tumors, or a thing called brain aneurysms. Life is a fragile thing, so why not get in some virtual practice at staying alive?

It makes sense not to wait until you’re actually stranded on a desert island to learn how to transform a pile of sticks into a cabin cruiser. We thought it might be useful (and entertaining) to put together a list of survival games to help you get ready should you ever need to battle the elements.

Best survival games is a topic that often implies early access. Games are released in an alpha or beta version, only to be fully released after an unspecified – and usually considerable – period time. Players who enjoy survival games are therefore often exposed not only to the dangers prepared for them by the devs – they also die often because of broken mechanics and bugs. But that's what we've put together the Best Survival Games list for: so you can choose the best games for your own taste.

Valheim

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, you’ve no doubt heard about the viking-themed survival sim Valheim. One part Minecraft, one part Mordhau, this procedurally-generated hardcore survival sim has taken the gaming world by storm. With more than 190,000 overwhelmingly positive reviews on steam, this is a trip to Valhalla you don’t want to miss.

Valheim might not be the prettiest game on our best survival games list, agreed. However, it more than makes up for that with gameplay and sheer playability – these are really unprecedented, and the game’s about much more than simply gathering materials and crafting. If, for example, you’d like to upgrade your house, you need lots of wood. But you can’t put tons of wood into your backpack, so you also need to figure out the logistics of transport, as well as make sure trees don’t kill you as you’re toppling them!

1. Our Valheim game guide.

Don’t Starve

If you’ve ever wished Cuphead was a survival game then Don’t Starve is just the game for you. The old-timey aesthetics, the extreme likelihood of death, all that’s missing are finger guns and a deal with the devil. Genuine challenge and a uniquely designed world reminiscent of Tim Burton makes this a solid addition to any survivalist’s library. There’s also Don’t Starve Together if you want to bring a friend.

As in many other survival games, here you also have to take care of food and shelter. The key is to prepare for the arrival of dusk – our character cannot travel in the dark (since monsters obviously lurk in the darkness), so in the evenings, you must light a fire and keep it going.

1. Our Don’t Starve game guide.

The Long Dark

The Long Dark is more of a narrative-driven survival game but it didn’t start out that way. The original game simply dropped you into the woods and had you fending off cold, hunger, and hostile wildlife. A story mode makes it much more accessible to first-time survivors but doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to mechanics.

In Long Dark you’ll scrounge, craft, fight, and shiver your way through the game’s post-apocalyptic story, learning how to stay alive along the way. The game’s light on combat but it’s genuinely rewarding if you enjoy the genre. Nothing beats the feeling of a successful supply run and returning to base, starting a fire, and cooking up some soup as the wind howls outside. The Long Dark is one of the more interesting games on the list.

This Land is My Land

Set in the realities of the Old West, the action game is all about stealth. The protagonist of This Land is My Land is a native Northern American, who infiltrates hostile camps and creates ambushes. Though the game isn't strictly a survival title, it includes systems of food and drink, which includes the possibility of poisoning, and brings a complex crafting system, where we can utilize the materials obtained during hunting and other expeditions.

This Land is My Land is an open-world game developed by the same team that gave us Naval Action, a rather niche, yet thoroughly engaging and utterly playable video game about sailing great ships, waging naval warfare, and trading. This Land is My Land is still in early access, so new elements and systems are bound to be added in future updates.

Green Hell

I was never a big outdoors person and certainly not into jungles. There are bugs out there the size of a mini-fridge, so no thanks. You can, however, visit the virtual Amazonia in Green Hell and can even bring a friend along for some jolly survival cooperation. Studio Creepy Jar is also bringing the game to VR this year after porting Blair Witch to the Oculus Quest. The game itself is a pretty classic survival – we land in the jungle, gather resources, craft, build, and try to survive, because in the jungle, everything wants to eat us.

Green Hell sold pretty well. So well, in fact, that the developers announced the creation of a prequel to the game in the form of a free update – Green Hell: The Spirits of Amazonia, which was released in January 2020.

The Forest

This one is great to experience on a screen, but playing it in VR takes it to a whole new level. The experience of having blood-soaked cannibals come screaming at you out of the woods is one of a kind in VR. The story might be a bit of an afterthought, but The Forest brings all the great survival mechanics – exploration, crafting, fighting, building – together into one solid package. And hey, there’s also multiplayer.

In The Forest, we are a survivor of a plane crash, stranded on an island that’s unfortunately not desert. We collect raw materials and other necessary things, and quickly discover that there are some really creepy dudes hiding in the bushes. Natives turn out to be hostile, so we need a shelter. We collect wood, stones, we build and prepare to fight back.

Stranded Deep

This one may actually keep you alive if you find yourself surviving a plane crash in the south pacific. You wash up on an island and it plays out mostly how you’d expect. Well, maybe except for the giant squid boss battle.

After the plane crash, we have to gather resources needed to build a shelter, true Robinson Crusoe-style. Interestingly, we can explore not only the island itself, but also swim in the coastal waters of the Pacific. The game also has a weather system, which affects the condition of our character.

Subnautica and Subnautica Below Zero

Keeping with the nautical theme, Subnautica is one of the ultimate games in the survival category. You crash land on an alien planet and have to explore, craft, and survive long enough to unravel the mysteries of this strange, alien world. The amazing soundtrack and gorgeous graphics will have you swimming for hours if not days. Just watch out for the big sea monsters.

Subnautica also got a nice add-on – Subnautica: Below Zero, in which we visit the underwater kingdom of an ice planet. This is one of the best survival games currently available on the market. Unfortunately, it doesn't have multiplayer nor co-op mode. But it is probably one of the best sci-fi survival game on the market. Yes, really, try Subnautica.

1. Our Subnautica game guide.

DayZ

No list of the greatest survival games would be complete without Day Z. What started as an ARMA 2 mod, spun out into a world-wide phenomenon. Known for its punishing mechanics and unforgiving world, Day Z is for those who like the hardest of hardcore experiences. When you do manage to survive and even recruit fellow survivors, all that effort pays off with pure gaming magic.

DayZ is a tad clunky, and you really need a lot of time to fully understand the mechanics, but at the end of the day, the game still enjoys a dedicated community. So if you prefer shooting to building, this is the game for you. On a side note, DayZ was in early access for so long that gamers no longer believed it would ever be released. Oh, yeah, and this is one and only zombie survival game on our list.

Rust

Rust is a hard game to define because there’s just so much you can do. You’ll fly gyrocopters while naked, build elaborate bases (while naked), and get into furious PvP gunbattles (also while naked). It has all the survival mechanics you’d expect but leaves things open-ended. If you’ve got an expansive imagination and lots of spare time, Rust is the game for you.

The game is still being developed, and the developers are adding new mechanics and items. So if you are looking for an FPP survival game, Rust might be the choice for you.

Conan Exiles

Conan Exiles made penis size a thing in gaming way before Cyberpunk 2077. Conan Exiles drops you into a harsh world of survival based on the Conan franchise. And like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you’ll use your muscles to bash in enemy faces. Just make sure you get enough protein to keep up the pummeling.

As in many other survival games, Conan Exiles, has hunger and thirst parameters to bear in mind. However, the game focuses on combat in open world, both against AI-controlled opponents and real players.

Far Cry Primal

Not strictly a “survival” game, but it definitely makes the list in my book. Sometimes, you just want the action of a survival game rather than struggle to gather enough twigs to burn to keep you from freezing to death. Ubisoft sure knows how to make the same game over and over again, but they really nailed the feeling of burying a spear into your enemy’s face.

With the prehistoric setting, there’s much more emphasis on crafting. We create new weapons from the resources we collect by hunting more or less dangerous animals. Fire is also important for survival – it will allow us, for example, to drive away the wild animals that want to have us for dinner.

1. Our Far Cry Primal game guide.

ARK: Survival Evolved

The pitch meeting for ARK must have been wild. “So, there are dinosaurs AND you can build a giant city shaped like a banana if you want.” Very much in the massive-world-with-tons-of-stuff-to-do category, there’s way more going on here than just fighting dinosaurs.

ARK is an MMO sandbox and open world, in which we’ll fight a thousand battles with blood-thirsty dinosaurs. Apart from an elaborate combat system (both in PVE and PVP), we’ll have to gather resources and keep an eye on vital stats.

1. Our Ark Survival Evolved game guide.

This War of Mine

An oldie, but goodie, showing the horrors of war from the perspective of regular people. This War of Mine combines strategy, simulation, and stealth with a survival game. In the game, we control a numer of characters – our job is gathering vital resources, building, and crafting the items needed for survival, such as foods and medicines.

This War of Mine is hard – the characters can get sick, get shot while gathering resources in the field, or succumb to depression (which leads to suicide). Released in 2014, it’s still playable as hell. In 2016, and enhanced version was released under the name of This War of Mine: The Little Ones, introducing children, among others.

1. Our This War of Mine game guide.

Raft

Minecraft spurred an entirely new video game genre, and Raft seems to have picked up the core lesson of that game: friends want to hang out and build stuff together. With nearly unlimited customization, you’ll team up with friends to build the ultimate floating home.

Our primary task in Raft is simply to survive. We float on a raft somewhere in the middle of the ocean. We can dive to explore the depths, watching out for sharks, and collect resources to use in an extensive crafting system.

RimWorld

RimWorld – an intricate strategy game by Tynan Sylvester (known for Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite, among others), based on survival. This is one of the toughest survival games on the list – high entry threshold, however, is rewarded with great gameplay possibilities and the freedom to develop your own story. In the game, we manage colonists on an alien, dangerous, and inaccessible planet. We will build shelters and houses, farm or hunt, trade and fight.

The game has only one clear goal – to survive, but RimWorld has a mechanic of random quests that we can undertake. It's up to us to decide what kind of story to tell in this bizarre "city-builder." If you want, you can even be a lone naked cannibal. The game is still supported today and the developer is still releasing more DLCs – Royalty in 2020, and Ideology in 2021.

Myth of Empires

Myth of Empires is a newcomer to the survival MMO genre. The game with an open world for thousands of players successfully launched on Steam in early access in 2021. In the game, we play as a knight, who has to recruit an army, build a country, collect resources, craft items and, above all, fight.

Myth of Empires is an unusual combination of elements of action, survival, and strategy. On the one hand, we have to survive, fight, and craft – on the other, we recruit armies and send them into large battles. Myth of Empires is a MMO, although we can play solo in PvE. However, joining a guild is recommended as it makes the progress much faster. However, if you are looking for a game without player-to-player interaction (and possibly interference), do not choose Myth of Empires, because PvP plays a major role here.

Surviving Mars

Surviving Mars is another city-builder, this time set on Mars. It's easy to predict that our goal – in addition to colonizing the Red Planet, we will simply have to survive in extreme conditions. Taking care of oxygen and energy reserves is essential for your colonists to survive at all. We'll be putting up solar cells or glazed domes. We will take care of learning and developing science by inventing new, more complex buildings, so that our fledgling base will soon turn into a large, modern city. In later stages, we will start terraforming Mars, for example.

Several minor and two major expansions have been released for Surviving Mars as to date. In Space Race, we'll be competing against opponents who are also trying to colonize the planet, while in Green Planet, we'll be dealing with the aforementioned transformation of the Red Planet into... a green and liveable one.

Terraria

Game of Legend – or Minecraft 2D, as Terraria is sometimes called. Produced in 2011 and later released on multiple platforms, including mobile platforms, Terraria is actually... a platformer with very elaborate mechanics of building and changing the world around you. It's also a sandbox with survival elements. During the game, we will collect resources and build houses, shelters or bases to protect us from the night. For at night, the monsters awake.

Over time, in Terraria, we will dig and mine resources that will allow us to upgrade armor, equipment, and tools. We will also deal with a very extensive crafting, recruitment of new inhabitants to our base, fighting with monsters and, above all, exploration. The content in this game suffices not so much hours as for months. While it may not look very pretty, it is one of the most playable survival games ever.

Oxygen Not Included

Oxygen Not Included is an interesting 2D game, in which we manage three colonists (called duplicants) who are trying to survive on an asteroid. The main problem will be, as the title says, taking care of the ever-expiring oxygen. But not only that, as we will also have to take care of food, health or such mundane-yet-essential things as an outhouse.

Each game is procedurally generated from several climate regions available in the game. Interestingly, the game implements a system of atmosphere and gas circulation. In addition, we will deal with the usual set of difficulties known from survival games – gathering resources, food, and exploration. The game is held in cartoonish, eye-pleasing graphics.

Frostpunk

A well-known and loved, this extraordinary city-builder makes the main goal to survive a new ice age. The plot of the game takes us to a world, where temperatures dropped to -70 degrees and everyday survival depends entirely on the ability to generate enough heat. In Frostpunk, we have a very limited space for expansion – we build everything around the reactor, which we first have to launch in order to save our people from freezing. We will also collect resources, gather food, and send out rescue expeditions.

The game – just like the other work of 11 bit studios, This War of Mine – will also put our morality to the test – while playing in Frostpunk, we will have to make difficult decisions, such as how to proceed with sick people or working children. It's also worth remembering that the second installment of the game was announced. Frostpunk 2 has no release date yet, though.

1. Our guide to Frostpunk.

Astroneer

Astroneer is an indie game that has proven to be a great and unexpected competitor to games like No Man's Sky, although its premise is decidedly more modest. The planets and other celestial bodies in the game are procedurally generated here, so each game looks different. Interestingly, the game's graphics were built from voxels, which makes Astroneer look very unique. Beyond that, we do what we do in every other game – explore hostile environment, collect resources, build bases and use the extensive crafting. We will have to maintain the necessary oxygen or power supply in space.

The procedurally-generated world – much like in No Man's Sky – makes each planet look different, but also introduces different resources and dangers. During our travels in Astroneer, we will have to watch out for a variety of hostile flora (various carnivorous plants) and hazardous objects, such as geysers. The game is still being developed and more mechanics are added as you progress.

1. Our guide to Astroneer.

Last Oasis

Last Oasis is another survival MMO on our list. Developed by Donkey Crew, the game stands out primarily with its setting – it's post-apocalypse. We end up in a world that has ended, or is ending, and it will be up to our skills and luck to survive. The concept of the game itself seems extremely interesting – after a cataclysmic event, one half of the Earth is covered in ice, while the other is scorched by merciless sun. Only a narrow strip between these two zones allows survival. The problem is that the zone shifts as the Earth moves in space. We'll be forced not only to collect resources – take them by force (there's PVP in the game), trade, or simply find them – but also to build a kind of a mobile base (the so-called walkers) which can move our odd caravan to a new, survivable location.

Last Oasis has a lot of elaborate mechanics. So, we fight duels both in person and through the machines we build. Build yourself a house, join a clan, or just spend time wandering alone. The powerful sandworms akin to Frank Herbert's Dune monsters have also been added to the game. Unfortunately, the game – still in early access – suffers from many technical problems and bugs, which prevent it from gaining real momentum. Keep this game on the radar though, as it could turn out to be a great item in the future.

No Man’s Sky

Here’s a game that possibly used to be the most-hated game in the world, just to – step by step – reclaim its lost glory and fulfil the promises it had made. Currently, No Man’s Sky is among the most complex games focused on space exploration. And in space, just like in space – oxygen is scarce, gamma rays bounce around trying to split your proteins, and things tend to want to kill you.

You need materials not only to create air and items – you can also build a base, repair and upgrade your ship, and head out to conquer the cosmos. The game uses procedurally-generated planets – currently, they’re way more detailed, and the game brings enough content to last you a few months. No Man’s Sky is one of the best survival games.

1. Our No Man’s Sky game guide.

Minecraft

A list of the best survival games could not exist without Minecraft. An iconic game that defined its gaming era. A game that raised a whole generation of players. So much has already been written about Minecraft that it's actually hard to write anything except... recommending this game. It’s based on a simple concept – the world consists of cubes that we collect and then build with – and it’s so playable that today, hundreds of thousands of players are nearing addiction.

Each new world is randomly generated – we collect resources and build our houses, watching out for zombies or creepers creeping towards us. To play Minecraft, you basically need two things – lots of time and imagination.

There you have it, a fairly comprehensive guide to the world of survival gaming. Hopefully you take some valuable life lessons away from these games, but don’t go thinking you’re Bear Grylls just because you manage to not die right away in a game. Let’s face it: most of us can barely do without air-con, and survival.

Best co-op survival games 2021

A separate category of survival games are co-op survival games. After all, enduring suffering, hunger, and fear seems much easier with friends. That's why we have prepared a separate list of the best co-op survival games 2021 for you to play with your friends. You should be able to quickly find a new favorite game. The best co-op survival games for 2021 are:

1. Raft
2. Rust
3. Forest
4. No Man's Sky
5. Dead By Daylight
6. Don’t Starve Together
7. 7 Days to Die
8. Conan Exiles
9. SCUM
10. Terraria
11. Minecraft
12. Outward

Best upcoming survival games 2021

There are also new survival games coming in 2021, many of which will be multiplayer co-op games, while others will be MMOs. There is also no shortage of sequels to well-known hits from years ago. Some upcoming survival games to look out for in 2021 and 2022 can be found below.

Little Devil Inside – action adventure game with emphasis on survival, combat and exploration. The game sports an interesting visual setting inspired by steampunk.

The Day Before is reminiscent of games like The Division or The Last of Us; The Day Before is an open-world MMO with zombies and emphasis on survival. It is supposed to have a weather system, extensive crafting, and lots of co-op fun. The game already looks great – it's one of the more interesting survival games announced for 2021.

Dead Matter – an upcoming open-world zombie game project. We find ourselves in a post-apocalyptic world in the Canadian Rockies, where we have to fight hordes of zombies. This zombie sandbox was funded in a crowdfunding campaign, and that's where the biggest risk comes from, because we basically don't know if the game will ever leave the early alpha stage...

Icarus – announced on December 4, 2021 on Steam, Icarus is expected to be a graphical breakthrough when it comes to survival games. Icarus will be an open-world survival PVE co-op game. Unfortunately, the game's requirements are huge - it is said that Icarus will need as much as 32 GB of RAM. The game will have support for the latest Nvidia technologies and RTX cards, including ray-tracing.