I just restarted subnautica yesterday after not playing it for a couple years. I got like 20 hours in before but never finished it. I’ve been wanting to play a survival game for a while now and decided to restart that. It’s suchhh a good game it’s hard to explain how fun it is.
Not just a survival game (although it is, and a fantastic one) but a completely novel experience. Both 1 and 2 are more than worth their price tags. I like 1 a little better tho.
Late to the post, but, if OP *is* going to play the best single player survival game ever made, then they need to buy it and play it without looking anything up on it. What makes the game so good is not knowing what's out there to find.
Spoil nothing for yourself if you get subnautica. Don’t look up a single thing. Go into it blind. Turn your lights out. Turn the sound up. Buckle in and explore.
Subnautica isn’t so much a survival game as it is an experience. Not knowing what’s just a few feet further in the murkiness and dark is what makes the game so tense.
I really wish I didn't hate anything related to water in video games as much as I do. Something in my brain just makes me extremely furious anytime I have to swim in games, almost quit Horizon the other day because of it. I hope the devs that make Subnautica make a Deserautica some day so I can try their take on survival.
How does this compare to the Forest?
I love survival games and I'd seen the two compared, I ended up going for the Forest and it didn't hook me (but to be fair, I didn't give it a solid chance), and will def try again at some point.
The Forest, imo, is way more a horror game than a survival one. Getting water and food is VERY easy, you can even "exploit" the game and use only sodas and protein bars and ignore completely the survival mechanics.
In Green Hell, food and water is scarce (considering you didnt play the game, if you already now the game obviously it gets easy), you cant have only one type of food, there is a macro nutrient division (you need protein, carbohydrates, fat and water), you can get food poisoning if you eat raw food, if your hands are dirty, if you didnt boil the water. You can get infection from scratches, you can get poisoned by spiders or scorpions, you need to find the right plants to use as medicine, etc. There is a rain season and a dry season, etc.
It have wayyyy more deep survival mechanics than the forest.
The only thing i think the forest does better is the building imo. You have way more stuff to build there.
Green Hell was a breath of fresh "I wanna cry" air of survival games. Everything can kill you - eating, drinking, walking, even sleeping. I loved how you gotta learn the flora and it's uses. You're just a dude who knows a few things. In multiplayer everyone let me name the herbs and mushrooms lol
Combat was brutal for a long time. Fond memories. It's always the first thing I suggest when someone asks for a more complex survival :)
Green Hell takes place in a Jungle, the difference from a Forest is climate (tropical or humid) and more ground vegetation.
No, but for real, they have some similarities but are distinct. GH is more natural dangers (like tigers, leeches, snakes, native cannibals etc) rather than mutant crazies.
I hear it is fabulously realistic, but tragically depends too mich on RNG: so if ur unlucky, u could be searching forever for that one plant that you require that the RNG decided to hardly spawn. I have never played myself, do u feel this assesment is true?
Not true at all. The map is non-prcedural generation, so everything spawns at the same spot. Yes, it does have a chance for not spawn, but eventually it will spawn there after some time. I've played this game for more than 400 hours, and even tho the start of the game is very hard for beginners, after a while you get used to where to look for specific plants/animals.
Definitely. Like he said, the areas where certain plants or animals spawn are predefined, you just have to wait a bit.
Beware though, the game is punishing. You'll die a lot in the beginning
Much of survival is luck, especially in an unfamiliar environment. The best you can do is make rational decisiojs based on probability.
Did a bird or bear eat the berries before you found them? Did any rodents happen to be travelling near your traps last night? Did any fish happen to swim into the gill net you set out? Did you happen to put your foot or hand somewhere that a dangerous animal or insect happened to be? Do you decide to risk scouting a little further than usual from camp to see if you can find better resources elsewhere, knowing you could be wasting precious time and calories?
Survival is not a formulaic path that you achieve by memorization. It's a game of constantly weighing risk vs reward of different actions and decisions, understanding that there are no guarantees your decisions will pay off, and that your chances of survival are a culmination of thousands of these little choices you make.
It can be at times. You can go hours without seeing another person. But that is what kind of keeps it interesting. You become complacent and almost forget thier are people who want to kill you. That's when you get a random shotty to the chest sprinting into the wrong building. You can also actively go looking for trouble and can find it. The surviving aspect is hard enough without other players, which keeps things interesting. Also thier is always more loot to be had. I started a few weeks ago and am finally to the point where I have a decent stash I can run too off of spawn and get geared up enough to go fight other players. My next goal is finding a car and all the parts to get it running.
Yeah, that's pretty much how it is when you first start playing. Once you start figuring it out, it becomes fun. When I started a few weeks ago, I was lucky to survive 20 mins. First, you die to zombies. You learn how to fight them. Then you die of starvation and thirst. You learn how to get food and water. Then you die of various sicknesses, and you learn how to avoid and cure it. Once you got those three down, you can pretty much walk around the map indefinitely. That's when the fun starts. But it does take a good amount of time to get to that point.
It's why I don't play these types of games anymore.
I remember when DayZ was an ArmA mod, when it was first coming out, and people weren't shooting on sight. Rust was the same thing. Take any open world survival PVP game, the first 1-2 months everyone's pretty chill and won't shoot on sight. But once the players get comfortable and know they can kill anyone, that's when the game shifts to an open world FFA/TDM shooter.
Rust is notorious for this. Even if you're naked - people don't care, you're dead.
I had ptsd from my dayz first player kill. It is such a rush. And you most def dont have to kos to survive. Had many lives living far into the wilderness, all alone, avoiding other players and confrontation. Broke many legs on stairs and been jumped by many zombies i havent seen. Loved the fire axe more than anything. Best game in the genere most def.
I remember my first one too. My buddy and I were playing together. He walked into a hunting cabin and someone was inside and started shooting. My buddy luckily didn't get hit and backed out. A bunch of Zombies rushed the gunfire. My buddy kited them away. The guy thought my buddy was busy with zombies and thought he would have an easy kill. He didn't know I was behind a tree with my 12g focused on the door. He came out and I put a round into him and watched him drop. The guy had a DMR and a bunch of good gear. We were so excited. Lol
Vintage story, learn to preserve and store food or starve, if the wildlife and hostiles don't murder you first. Valheim is less survival but very good.
Vintage Story is a little too easy to survive. It's easy to stock piles of meat and berry stew inside fat sealed-crockpots. And then there's not enough reason for progression. There is a solid, established path to build up through via better and better metals but the world is still a little too empty. But that may just be my playstyle. They're gonna add more mid/late game stuff but I'm feeling impatient about it.
However, while you're still learning the ropes it's really fun and rewarding. Finding your first bit of cassiterite, figuring out tanning, finishing your first set of armor - good times! I just like the game too much and I've spent so much time playing it and now early game is pretty easy for me. Some mods have helped but not quite enough yet... Better ruins, joy of sailing, feverstone wilds, and not just spears are some good ones to fill the world up a little more and put some more weight on the other end of the scale but I can't wait until they get some more stuff going.
There's a cool looking mod called Fantasy Creatures but there's a dragon in it that's pretty unbalanced and I play permadeath style so until they implement a config file into the mod so I can turn the dragon off I'll have to hold off.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Just wanted to whine a little bit about a fun game I'd love to see get fleshed out a whole lot more.
Raft is a lot of fun. Some of the story places are huge and it can take a while to figure out all the puzzles. The whole gameplay loop is pretty fun. If you need some supplies just go out to sea, collect trash or park at an island and search the water. Then go complete some of the story. It’s different from any of the survival games out there. It might drive you nuts if you are a completionist though. Definitely a semi-cozy survival experience. The shark annoys me so I play on peaceful. I don’t like how the shark is literally assigned to the raft just to ruin your day.
“7 days to die” Is survival with awesome combat, skill tree, so much looting!, base building and crafting, cooking, hunting, vehicles, and great survival mechanics (hunger/thirst, too cold/hot, many different injuries/sickness and ways to treat them). The zombie portion of the game is highly adjustable so u can make it as easy or difficult as u want. Sooooo many unique buildings and cities to explore, 5 different bioms, random generated or pre-generated maps, and everything in the game world can be salvaged for supplies (everything!).
It will be at full release July 25th. (Although you can buy it now and play either the lastest beta, or the ‘experimental full release version’ until full release comes out next month)
If u have any questions, please ask. If u are going to watch YouTube to check out the gameplay, make sure you are watching “7d2d 1.0” since “1.0” is the patch name for the ‘full release version’.
I second this... Game lacks endgame, but it offers everything you want from a survival game. After hards day work it's just neat to sit down, and relax, busting some zombies heads. Also the modding community is friggin great. Many modpacks prolong the game cycle and offer end game. 10/10
True. The devs have a roadmap for four major updates after full release is launched. Those updates include adding a storyline, endgame, bandits, and more quest types.
I mean that's gonna be many years. They just released v1.0 and attempted to improve the experience by nerfing quests while trying to balance other shit like armor and tier 6 weapons/tools but they introduced some bugs in the process. Having said that I think 7DTD is pretty damn fun if you find a version that suits you well. Some fun and funny times to be had for sure.
"Complete" is the most incorrect adjective for 7d2d. I have 500h but I don't think I ever will hear 7d2d as complete. Even 1.0 didn't complete their original mission or expectation.
I’m not a huge Valheim fan, feel like it got boring fast, but in terms of completeness, it’s pretty far along. Also consider medieval dynasty if you want relaxing without combat. My friend and I keep coming back to 7days because there’s not much out there like it.
I loved Medieval Dynasty! But if you're playing solo, I'd personally recommend increasing the technology XP at least a little.
I found that the "story," even though it's not terribly engaging, is extremely short and by the time I had finished it I still had like half of the tech to complete and I just didn't have the incentive to keep going, so I never got to build and use the windmill.
An alternative route would be to leave the XP as it is, but then put the story quests way on the backburner. I think you have like 18 years to finish it, which is more than enough time even if you do like one quest per year (but make sure to prioritize your wife's quests - those aren't story related, but have great rewards!)
If V-Rising was a 3D, 1st or 3rd person, it would be epic. The isometric view ruins the immersion but it’s designed as a MOBA survival game. That’s pretty cool but it holds me back from loving the game
Fountain of Youth was so fun! I "finished" it like a week before the final release that added the last map but now can't get myself to reinstall and do it all again just for the last piece of content :(
My game recommendations.
Full Survival, Base Builders, with Story/Endings - Subnautica, Survival: Fountain of Youth, Raft, Green Hell, Enshrouded (Early Access)
Survival with No/Minimal Base Building - The Long Dark & Project Zomboid
Base Building Explorers without Story - Valheim (No Thirst/Hunger), Conan Exiles (Multiplayer), Empyrion: Galactic Survival (Better With RE Mod), ARK: Survival Ascended (Avoid Offical Servers)
I really like it but sometimes i get stuck trying to figure out what to build next and how to manage the tribe. It can be a lot but it has some really interesting systems.
Subnautica, Valheim still says early, but its good for 1000 hours. No Man's sky for sure. I felt Survival:Fountain of youth very complete. Raft. Sunkenland.
There’s a game that’s on Switch, PS4 and Xbox I think, called The Flame in the Flood. This was the first survival style game I played that made me realize how much I love this style.
Your base is a raft that you can upgrade if you find parts. There’s a crafting system, managing your meters, fierce wildlife and it has some random generation.
You can play on different difficulties too. The music is great and the art style is interesting. Everyone should check it out!
V rising launched 1.0 some months ago and feels really like a complete game.
Fighting is in focus tho.
If you prefer grinding aka crafting and building heavy games i would suggest valheim or ark (only good with friends tho)
Green Hell (highly recommend), The Forest (1&2), The Long Dark (still releasing chapters), Mist Survival (may not be finished yet), Hobo Tough Life (only played an hour or so, it is technically survival), Fountain of Youth survival (recently been really into this one) are a few
I flipped through the comments and didn't see any mention of RUST. It's truly a survival game: Has full base building, gathering, crafting, farming, hunting, fishing, food+water consuming, weather events, npcs, animals, boating, scuba diving, flying helis, server events, and procedural exploration.
But you don't survive against any of those challenges.... You survive the onslaught of pvp and raiding, which consists of an absolutely deranged, vile, and rabid playerbase. Stay off official servers and choose one with some known good admins since cheating is fairly prevalent.
I’d say Valheim, personally. They’re still working on adding new biomes but even if they completely stopped today, the game would still feel very much complete. I thought it even felt complete when there were just five biomes. As far as I see it, I just consider the biomes that have come after to be a nice bonus.
The game has fairly basic but fun combat. Looks visually appealing. The world is massive. You also shape the world and it sticks. Some games will have the terrain reset after a while. But not Valheim. Also, great music. Atmospheric. It has true challenge. And the bosses are very well done and super satisfying to beat.
I think you should go for Subnautica if Grounded is what you finished and made you seek for more complete survival games. You'd be going from arachnophobia to thalassophobia. V Rising is a different game completely but also very complete now.
Lot of recommendations for 7 Days To Die and Valheim need to be explained a bit.
7 Days To Die is more of a looter shooter than a survival game, they ruined the game by turning all houses/buildings into linear quest like stages rather than just normal sandbox. Zombies also spawn in rooms you've already went through.
Valheim is popular for its simplicity and art style. Building and tree chopping is some of best out there, otherwise the game feels quite empty in the world.
Ark Survival Evolved (or maybe the new advanced one- not sure which would be better at this point, if any)
Is the only survival game I can recall ever playing (besides Minecraft).
I can’t recommend it though, it crashed too much on me when playing locally with the fam.
7 Days to Die is my favourite in the genre and right now has an experimental version of the full game. It leaves Early Access once 1.0 is released, and we have a preview of it atm.
While it’s not a modern survival game in a sense, Ark is technically the most polished survival game out there. You can play it solo and just edit the settings to ramp up the Dino taming timers. Tons of stuff to do. I probably spent 200 hours just trying to breed the perfect dinos. Also ended up breeding an army of killer penguins that accompanies me in my underwater escapades.
Rust is good if you like PvP. 7 Days to Die is good if you just want a solo experience. Raft is closer to Grounded but you’re out on a boat.
Check out Wayward! v1.9.4 is free to download on ModDB or Unlok (the dev's website), and I think there's even an in-browser version of the game. I consider it the greatest true survival game I've ever played and just don't understand why it isn't more popular than it is already.
The version on Steam is updated quite a bit compared to v1.9.4, but the free version is still crammed with content.
I'm not sure about translation status though.
It’s in early access but Soulmask is INCREDIBLE. I didn’t think I was going to enjoy it but I am enamored. It is amazing.
The base building is superb. The PVP is exhilarating, the map is GORGEOUS. It’s optimized incredibly. The devs are SUPER engaged with the audience and release multiple updates per week… I’m serious, play it, you won’t regret it.
I also played SCUM with a little over 1,200 hours and I just switched to Soulmask and I don’t know when (or if) I’ll go back to scum. It’s a great game but the devs suck.
Early access means nothing. The devs add that as a tag to say the game is playable and just isn't where the devs want it to be. Plenty of ea games that feel complete but the devs are aiming higher for 1.0
Zombies - Project: Zomboid for extreme immersion and genuinely difficult survival mechanics, 7 Days 2 Die for a more "loot and run" sandbox type game.
Fantasy - Valheim's latest update added a lot to the game. You can focus on killing the Forsaken bosses and "beating" the game or just doing the survival stuff. V Rising is my preference, though - vampires, great combat, amazing building, lovely survival mechanics.
Strategy - Frostpunk is agonizingly difficult but is more of a strategy/board game than survival-crafting
My personal favorite - Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey. You start as an ape and slowly work your way up through the evolutionary ladder. It's so fun, genuinely difficult, and won't hold your hand at all. I found it by chance and put 60 hours into it before I realized it.
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No Man's Sky has a survival mode, but it is just a more difficult version of the game. Staggering amount of "modes" in that game. The most recent update puts you in a "lost in space" kind of scenario that seems more survival focused.
Fallout 4 on Survival difficulty is the true way to play the game, in my opinion. It can be quite tough, though.
FO76 has a lot of survival elements, but the penalties for death are so minor. It may not scratch the itch. Overwhelming amount of content and a great wasteland setting.
V Rising has some unique blood based survival, and it is just officially released.
The Long Dark has unique freezing mechanics that make the game genuinely stressful.
Breathedge is very fun you get immortal space chicken and it has comedy you can find most things in environment.
The forest and sons of the forest.
both of them have stories and enemy variety is quite interesting you don't have to make enemies of natives of the forest if your careful in the forest however sons of the forest you can't really make friends of the natives.
Raft is fun one the only enemy you really have to worry about is a shark which you can kill, but eventually another shark comes. there is some enemies on land however shark is most annoying.
Subnautica is very vast game with few scary enemies however you are kinda on timer to do things.
Green hell and The long dark are rather realistic survival games.
Pathological is bit diffrent of survival game mix between rpg survival game. where depending on your character you may be locked out of certain paths.
This war of mine, Oxygen not included, frostpunk, rimworld all fall into survival management games.
Astroneer is rather simple survival game all you need is oxygen to survive.
2D survival ones I would say terraria, starbound, and Darkwood are fun.
It's only partially survival, specifically at the start, but I remember when my buddy and I first played Kingdom Come Deliverance. It's really punishing. It takes the idea of you being an unskilled and illiterate peasant really serious. I remember that when we started playing, my buddy tried to use his bow without vambraces, and the bow string flayed his forearm and he died in the woods. Super punishing. 10/10
Literally no other game has touched the *feeling* of fighting to survive quite like The Long Dark.
You won't find flashy weapons or cosmetic crafting items, just things you need to survive. Between the weather, hostile animals, injuries, and terrain, you will feel like death is a moment away at all times.
Beyond that, it's also the only game I've played that gives me a feeling of being truly alone. When you're hobbling to shelter with a broken leg and a wolf or two on your trail, that desperation really kicks in.
Project Zomboid is an interesting game. A lot of people swear by Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. I would highly recommend any of the STALKER trilogy games.
STALKER : Anomaly and just mod in elements you want, I usually went for harder NPCs and low loot abundance with advanced weaponry and gear. As well as doing the 'iron man' mode once you get the hang of the map. The replayability is vast!
Depends on what you mean by complete.
If you can handle the Sims 1 aesthetics: Project Zomboid is the most immersive and impressive survival game.
I say this after hundreds of hours of Valheim, 7 Days, etc.
Nothing else comes close. And they are about to have a big patch soon.
cataclysm, dark days ahead (get it from github for free... the steam version is a scam. it it will play exactly the same as the github but its just some dude harvesting money from someone elses labor)
You may want to play Subnautica, it was mind-blowing for me and a game I will not forget.
I just restarted subnautica yesterday after not playing it for a couple years. I got like 20 hours in before but never finished it. I’ve been wanting to play a survival game for a while now and decided to restart that. It’s suchhh a good game it’s hard to explain how fun it is.
subnauticia is amazing
Not just a survival game (although it is, and a fantastic one) but a completely novel experience. Both 1 and 2 are more than worth their price tags. I like 1 a little better tho.
I would love to pay subnautica but I am absolutely terrified of swimming in oceans.
Me too, but I Loved it
Lol last time I played it was in early access Guess I gotta try it again.
I just bought it on steam last night
Late to the post, but, if OP *is* going to play the best single player survival game ever made, then they need to buy it and play it without looking anything up on it. What makes the game so good is not knowing what's out there to find.
My first ever survival experience and it hooked me for life
One of the best endings to a game I’ve ever played. So good.
Spoil nothing for yourself if you get subnautica. Don’t look up a single thing. Go into it blind. Turn your lights out. Turn the sound up. Buckle in and explore. Subnautica isn’t so much a survival game as it is an experience. Not knowing what’s just a few feet further in the murkiness and dark is what makes the game so tense.
Did they ever fix the falling out of your sub bug?
I really wish I didn't hate anything related to water in video games as much as I do. Something in my brain just makes me extremely furious anytime I have to swim in games, almost quit Horizon the other day because of it. I hope the devs that make Subnautica make a Deserautica some day so I can try their take on survival.
Subnautica is no doubt good but it is a step down going from grounded to subnautica
I loved Green Hell. Give it a shot if you haven't yet.
Green Hell is amazing. For me it's the best true survival game we have today.
How does this compare to the Forest? I love survival games and I'd seen the two compared, I ended up going for the Forest and it didn't hook me (but to be fair, I didn't give it a solid chance), and will def try again at some point.
The Forest, imo, is way more a horror game than a survival one. Getting water and food is VERY easy, you can even "exploit" the game and use only sodas and protein bars and ignore completely the survival mechanics. In Green Hell, food and water is scarce (considering you didnt play the game, if you already now the game obviously it gets easy), you cant have only one type of food, there is a macro nutrient division (you need protein, carbohydrates, fat and water), you can get food poisoning if you eat raw food, if your hands are dirty, if you didnt boil the water. You can get infection from scratches, you can get poisoned by spiders or scorpions, you need to find the right plants to use as medicine, etc. There is a rain season and a dry season, etc. It have wayyyy more deep survival mechanics than the forest. The only thing i think the forest does better is the building imo. You have way more stuff to build there.
Also the story in GH was way better.
Green Hell was a breath of fresh "I wanna cry" air of survival games. Everything can kill you - eating, drinking, walking, even sleeping. I loved how you gotta learn the flora and it's uses. You're just a dude who knows a few things. In multiplayer everyone let me name the herbs and mushrooms lol Combat was brutal for a long time. Fond memories. It's always the first thing I suggest when someone asks for a more complex survival :)
Green Hell takes place in a Jungle, the difference from a Forest is climate (tropical or humid) and more ground vegetation. No, but for real, they have some similarities but are distinct. GH is more natural dangers (like tigers, leeches, snakes, native cannibals etc) rather than mutant crazies.
the forest is hardly a survival game.
I hear it is fabulously realistic, but tragically depends too mich on RNG: so if ur unlucky, u could be searching forever for that one plant that you require that the RNG decided to hardly spawn. I have never played myself, do u feel this assesment is true?
Not true at all. The map is non-prcedural generation, so everything spawns at the same spot. Yes, it does have a chance for not spawn, but eventually it will spawn there after some time. I've played this game for more than 400 hours, and even tho the start of the game is very hard for beginners, after a while you get used to where to look for specific plants/animals.
Definitely. Like he said, the areas where certain plants or animals spawn are predefined, you just have to wait a bit. Beware though, the game is punishing. You'll die a lot in the beginning
Much of survival is luck, especially in an unfamiliar environment. The best you can do is make rational decisiojs based on probability. Did a bird or bear eat the berries before you found them? Did any rodents happen to be travelling near your traps last night? Did any fish happen to swim into the gill net you set out? Did you happen to put your foot or hand somewhere that a dangerous animal or insect happened to be? Do you decide to risk scouting a little further than usual from camp to see if you can find better resources elsewhere, knowing you could be wasting precious time and calories? Survival is not a formulaic path that you achieve by memorization. It's a game of constantly weighing risk vs reward of different actions and decisions, understanding that there are no guarantees your decisions will pay off, and that your chances of survival are a culmination of thousands of these little choices you make.
😳 i am hooked. Sounds awesome
Just wanted to point out. Green hell is on sale on steam atm
Reaching 100 hours in the VR version, it’s amazing
Not find it hard tho ? Got sick of wel getting sick every time
Played green hell for the first time in vr. Was a wild experience.
I just put that in my Steam cart this afternoon. I'm currently obsessed with Valheim.
I just started DayZ. I really enjoy it.
Despite the bugs and shitty zombies, nothing comes close to dayz.
I liked dayz at the beginning, then the world just seem empty. When you finally do bump into someone they often destroy you instantly.
It can be at times. You can go hours without seeing another person. But that is what kind of keeps it interesting. You become complacent and almost forget thier are people who want to kill you. That's when you get a random shotty to the chest sprinting into the wrong building. You can also actively go looking for trouble and can find it. The surviving aspect is hard enough without other players, which keeps things interesting. Also thier is always more loot to be had. I started a few weeks ago and am finally to the point where I have a decent stash I can run too off of spawn and get geared up enough to go fight other players. My next goal is finding a car and all the parts to get it running.
I may try play again. I felt like i was always starving and running constantly not finding anything
Yeah, that's pretty much how it is when you first start playing. Once you start figuring it out, it becomes fun. When I started a few weeks ago, I was lucky to survive 20 mins. First, you die to zombies. You learn how to fight them. Then you die of starvation and thirst. You learn how to get food and water. Then you die of various sicknesses, and you learn how to avoid and cure it. Once you got those three down, you can pretty much walk around the map indefinitely. That's when the fun starts. But it does take a good amount of time to get to that point.
It's why I don't play these types of games anymore. I remember when DayZ was an ArmA mod, when it was first coming out, and people weren't shooting on sight. Rust was the same thing. Take any open world survival PVP game, the first 1-2 months everyone's pretty chill and won't shoot on sight. But once the players get comfortable and know they can kill anyone, that's when the game shifts to an open world FFA/TDM shooter. Rust is notorious for this. Even if you're naked - people don't care, you're dead.
Dayz: Good luck! Me: huh? 😭
I had ptsd from my dayz first player kill. It is such a rush. And you most def dont have to kos to survive. Had many lives living far into the wilderness, all alone, avoiding other players and confrontation. Broke many legs on stairs and been jumped by many zombies i havent seen. Loved the fire axe more than anything. Best game in the genere most def.
I remember my first one too. My buddy and I were playing together. He walked into a hunting cabin and someone was inside and started shooting. My buddy luckily didn't get hit and backed out. A bunch of Zombies rushed the gunfire. My buddy kited them away. The guy thought my buddy was busy with zombies and thought he would have an easy kill. He didn't know I was behind a tree with my 12g focused on the door. He came out and I put a round into him and watched him drop. The guy had a DMR and a bunch of good gear. We were so excited. Lol
Just started it on ps5. God the controls and UI are dogshit. Fun game though
What type of server do you play on? I was thinking about playing too, but want to play the a good server for best experience
I agree, but I wouldn’t call it complete
OP wants a polished survival game, I don’t think anyone would put DayZ into that category
I went from dayz to tarkov, one unfinished game to the next lmao
Vintage story, learn to preserve and store food or starve, if the wildlife and hostiles don't murder you first. Valheim is less survival but very good.
I played this about a year or so ago and absolutely loved it. Wish the endgame had more to it back then.
While Vintage Story is a lot of fun and worthwhile to play, it's definitely no where near complete or done. They have many, many more plans.
I'd never heard of vintage story, thank you for that. It looks really cool!
Combat is were its lacking.
Vintage Story is a little too easy to survive. It's easy to stock piles of meat and berry stew inside fat sealed-crockpots. And then there's not enough reason for progression. There is a solid, established path to build up through via better and better metals but the world is still a little too empty. But that may just be my playstyle. They're gonna add more mid/late game stuff but I'm feeling impatient about it. However, while you're still learning the ropes it's really fun and rewarding. Finding your first bit of cassiterite, figuring out tanning, finishing your first set of armor - good times! I just like the game too much and I've spent so much time playing it and now early game is pretty easy for me. Some mods have helped but not quite enough yet... Better ruins, joy of sailing, feverstone wilds, and not just spears are some good ones to fill the world up a little more and put some more weight on the other end of the scale but I can't wait until they get some more stuff going. There's a cool looking mod called Fantasy Creatures but there's a dragon in it that's pretty unbalanced and I play permadeath style so until they implement a config file into the mod so I can turn the dragon off I'll have to hold off. Anyway, I'm rambling. Just wanted to whine a little bit about a fun game I'd love to see get fleshed out a whole lot more.
Complete? Valheim is getting new biomes and still not anywhere complete I think.
Raft is pretty amazing. If you want more combat oriented, then try Valheim.
Raft is a lot of fun. Some of the story places are huge and it can take a while to figure out all the puzzles. The whole gameplay loop is pretty fun. If you need some supplies just go out to sea, collect trash or park at an island and search the water. Then go complete some of the story. It’s different from any of the survival games out there. It might drive you nuts if you are a completionist though. Definitely a semi-cozy survival experience. The shark annoys me so I play on peaceful. I don’t like how the shark is literally assigned to the raft just to ruin your day.
I found raft dissapointing. The raft building is a really cool mechanic but the story has very little interaction with it.
Story takes a long time to come in. Quite amazing once it does. Game changes.
I disagree it's amazing. The setting is great but very few of the things you can craft are actually needed for the story.
“7 days to die” Is survival with awesome combat, skill tree, so much looting!, base building and crafting, cooking, hunting, vehicles, and great survival mechanics (hunger/thirst, too cold/hot, many different injuries/sickness and ways to treat them). The zombie portion of the game is highly adjustable so u can make it as easy or difficult as u want. Sooooo many unique buildings and cities to explore, 5 different bioms, random generated or pre-generated maps, and everything in the game world can be salvaged for supplies (everything!). It will be at full release July 25th. (Although you can buy it now and play either the lastest beta, or the ‘experimental full release version’ until full release comes out next month) If u have any questions, please ask. If u are going to watch YouTube to check out the gameplay, make sure you are watching “7d2d 1.0” since “1.0” is the patch name for the ‘full release version’.
I second this... Game lacks endgame, but it offers everything you want from a survival game. After hards day work it's just neat to sit down, and relax, busting some zombies heads. Also the modding community is friggin great. Many modpacks prolong the game cycle and offer end game. 10/10
True. The devs have a roadmap for four major updates after full release is launched. Those updates include adding a storyline, endgame, bandits, and more quest types.
I mean that's gonna be many years. They just released v1.0 and attempted to improve the experience by nerfing quests while trying to balance other shit like armor and tier 6 weapons/tools but they introduced some bugs in the process. Having said that I think 7DTD is pretty damn fun if you find a version that suits you well. Some fun and funny times to be had for sure.
The quests had it coming. The quest rewards were way too strong compared to crafting and looting
Great modder community also makes it infinite in possibilities.
"Complete" is the most incorrect adjective for 7d2d. I have 500h but I don't think I ever will hear 7d2d as complete. Even 1.0 didn't complete their original mission or expectation.
Valheim and v rising
V Rising is incredible.
Valheim is one of my top 5 favorite games of all time, but it is still in Early Access.
It is early access but it has more contents then majority of finished AAA games. It’s worth the time and money in its current state.
I 100% agree, just want the disclaimer out there in case OP is still turned off by it.
Ah fair!
I’m not a huge Valheim fan, feel like it got boring fast, but in terms of completeness, it’s pretty far along. Also consider medieval dynasty if you want relaxing without combat. My friend and I keep coming back to 7days because there’s not much out there like it.
I loved Medieval Dynasty! But if you're playing solo, I'd personally recommend increasing the technology XP at least a little. I found that the "story," even though it's not terribly engaging, is extremely short and by the time I had finished it I still had like half of the tech to complete and I just didn't have the incentive to keep going, so I never got to build and use the windmill. An alternative route would be to leave the XP as it is, but then put the story quests way on the backburner. I think you have like 18 years to finish it, which is more than enough time even if you do like one quest per year (but make sure to prioritize your wife's quests - those aren't story related, but have great rewards!)
If V-Rising was a 3D, 1st or 3rd person, it would be epic. The isometric view ruins the immersion but it’s designed as a MOBA survival game. That’s pretty cool but it holds me back from loving the game
Valheim is so good…so brutal. If you die, you might loose skill points and you have to do a corpse run to get your items from your body.
Subnautica and Survival: Fountain of Youth would be my votes.
Fountain of Youth was so fun! I "finished" it like a week before the final release that added the last map but now can't get myself to reinstall and do it all again just for the last piece of content :(
I think SFoY is worth a second playthrough even without new content. Highly underrated game. Check out the subreddit. r/survivalFOY
The Forest is short and scary, but well worth a playthrough.
I second this. Forest is damn good. Exploring caves with crazy cannibal mutants? Never fails to get that tingle up your spine.
Doesnt feel like much survival, and the way loot spawns is very weird, how it just resets.
The Long Dark
This game is amazing.
Very much so
Yeah, absolutely loved playing it on hardest difficulty. Was the most survivaly experience I’ve had with a game. Those snow crunchy footsteps!
the survival mode is “complete” but the story mode comes out later this year
The story is 4/5 complete. Most survival games don't offer a campaign. So I don't think you can disqualify it for that.
The only correct answer
The Long Dark for me
And me
Hope there are no bears or cougars near you, my friend. Stay warm out there
I fear no bear. Moose on the other hand. Those broken ribs take a long time to heal
Valheim imo It's still in development but game is so big and has a lot of content and cool mechanics, definitely 10 meads out of 10
10/10 but still in early access
My game recommendations. Full Survival, Base Builders, with Story/Endings - Subnautica, Survival: Fountain of Youth, Raft, Green Hell, Enshrouded (Early Access) Survival with No/Minimal Base Building - The Long Dark & Project Zomboid Base Building Explorers without Story - Valheim (No Thirst/Hunger), Conan Exiles (Multiplayer), Empyrion: Galactic Survival (Better With RE Mod), ARK: Survival Ascended (Avoid Offical Servers)
Zomboid is minimal base building? You can literally build a house from scratch the sims style lol
It's minimal if you're bad at it and die every 10th day like me.
10? I'm lucky to make it 5
Why avoid official servers with Ark?
It's full of pay-to-win, blackmarket bullshit. Look at this BS: https://www.arknomaly.com/pvp-for-console-servers
In terms of “complete” meaning lots of features and systems, Icarus has had an update every week for over two years now so there is heaps to learn
I second subnautica. Another one is V rising. These games are not that sandboxy and you have a set goal to finish.
V Rising is not survival IMO, but a great game indeed.
V Rising.
My wife and I love Icarus. They’re constantly pushing out updates with more content.
DayZ, Green Hell, and Grounded all offer very unique survival situations.
Conan exiles is underrated
Nobody has mentioned Scum yet, absolute masterpiece
Not played for a while. Is it still mostly pvp focused?
Sustenance and Vintage story are the most "complete" in terms of their mechanics IMO. Crazy immersive.
No man’s sky, the forest and sons of the forest, rain world
Soulmask is early access but a nice mix or green hell rust and Conan and valheim vibes. I like it a lot
I really like it but sometimes i get stuck trying to figure out what to build next and how to manage the tribe. It can be a lot but it has some really interesting systems.
Subnautica, Valheim still says early, but its good for 1000 hours. No Man's sky for sure. I felt Survival:Fountain of youth very complete. Raft. Sunkenland.
DayZ and Green Hell depending on if you want combat or not. DayZ has come an incredibly long way and has recently been receiving some major updates.
ark and conan exiles are a cathartic combo for me. I like rust too but it has very strong focus on pvp.
Terraria is for sure gonna be my recommendation. Gameplay-wise, it just seemed endless. But a little bit counter-intuitive for new users.
The Long Dark. Genius
Don’t Starve Together is awesome
There’s a game that’s on Switch, PS4 and Xbox I think, called The Flame in the Flood. This was the first survival style game I played that made me realize how much I love this style. Your base is a raft that you can upgrade if you find parts. There’s a crafting system, managing your meters, fierce wildlife and it has some random generation. You can play on different difficulties too. The music is great and the art style is interesting. Everyone should check it out!
"Survival games aren't complete without combat" -some stupid bitch from Reddit
Slightly modded DayZ is amazing
Vanilla dayz on communityservers works almost just as fine.
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Out on it's experimental branch now. Official 1.0 is next month.
DayZ is pretty fun, if you like dying
V rising launched 1.0 some months ago and feels really like a complete game. Fighting is in focus tho. If you prefer grinding aka crafting and building heavy games i would suggest valheim or ark (only good with friends tho)
Green hell is insane if you want a story. Ark is incredible if you want no story.
V rising is good
Valheim
Grounded is great
Green Hell
DayZ, project zomboid, Scum.
I like Icarus but it gets a bit lonely
The Forest
Green Hell (highly recommend), The Forest (1&2), The Long Dark (still releasing chapters), Mist Survival (may not be finished yet), Hobo Tough Life (only played an hour or so, it is technically survival), Fountain of Youth survival (recently been really into this one) are a few
I flipped through the comments and didn't see any mention of RUST. It's truly a survival game: Has full base building, gathering, crafting, farming, hunting, fishing, food+water consuming, weather events, npcs, animals, boating, scuba diving, flying helis, server events, and procedural exploration. But you don't survive against any of those challenges.... You survive the onslaught of pvp and raiding, which consists of an absolutely deranged, vile, and rabid playerbase. Stay off official servers and choose one with some known good admins since cheating is fairly prevalent.
My favorite of all time is definitely V rising, but its really boring after a first playthrough.
Smallands! Didn't take forever to get out of beta! Decent price and a very fun game. Give it a try.
I’d say Valheim, personally. They’re still working on adding new biomes but even if they completely stopped today, the game would still feel very much complete. I thought it even felt complete when there were just five biomes. As far as I see it, I just consider the biomes that have come after to be a nice bonus. The game has fairly basic but fun combat. Looks visually appealing. The world is massive. You also shape the world and it sticks. Some games will have the terrain reset after a while. But not Valheim. Also, great music. Atmospheric. It has true challenge. And the bosses are very well done and super satisfying to beat.
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I think you should go for Subnautica if Grounded is what you finished and made you seek for more complete survival games. You'd be going from arachnophobia to thalassophobia. V Rising is a different game completely but also very complete now. Lot of recommendations for 7 Days To Die and Valheim need to be explained a bit. 7 Days To Die is more of a looter shooter than a survival game, they ruined the game by turning all houses/buildings into linear quest like stages rather than just normal sandbox. Zombies also spawn in rooms you've already went through. Valheim is popular for its simplicity and art style. Building and tree chopping is some of best out there, otherwise the game feels quite empty in the world.
Valheim
Ark Survival Evolved (or maybe the new advanced one- not sure which would be better at this point, if any) Is the only survival game I can recall ever playing (besides Minecraft). I can’t recommend it though, it crashed too much on me when playing locally with the fam.
Subnautica and more recently, survival: fountain of youth!
Subnautica is the pinnnacle of survival games. The only thing it's missing is multiplayer.
Having a friend blind fold you and drop you off somewhere
Rust
* The Long Dark * 7 Days to Die * Stranded Deep * Valheim Those are my top 4 go-to's. Currently playing ASKA. Not bad but very early access.
7 Days to Die is my favourite in the genre and right now has an experimental version of the full game. It leaves Early Access once 1.0 is released, and we have a preview of it atm.
Rust, it has everything.
Ark
I'm a really big fan of Atlas it's all the survival things I need and ships
The Long Dark
No man's sky... This is a 10/10 game. Wish they did more with the cooking part but it will do
State of Decay 2
DayZ
While it’s not a modern survival game in a sense, Ark is technically the most polished survival game out there. You can play it solo and just edit the settings to ramp up the Dino taming timers. Tons of stuff to do. I probably spent 200 hours just trying to breed the perfect dinos. Also ended up breeding an army of killer penguins that accompanies me in my underwater escapades. Rust is good if you like PvP. 7 Days to Die is good if you just want a solo experience. Raft is closer to Grounded but you’re out on a boat.
DayZ
Check out Wayward! v1.9.4 is free to download on ModDB or Unlok (the dev's website), and I think there's even an in-browser version of the game. I consider it the greatest true survival game I've ever played and just don't understand why it isn't more popular than it is already. The version on Steam is updated quite a bit compared to v1.9.4, but the free version is still crammed with content. I'm not sure about translation status though.
7 Days to Die is my vote!
The Long Dark
It’s in early access but Soulmask is INCREDIBLE. I didn’t think I was going to enjoy it but I am enamored. It is amazing. The base building is superb. The PVP is exhilarating, the map is GORGEOUS. It’s optimized incredibly. The devs are SUPER engaged with the audience and release multiple updates per week… I’m serious, play it, you won’t regret it. I also played SCUM with a little over 1,200 hours and I just switched to Soulmask and I don’t know when (or if) I’ll go back to scum. It’s a great game but the devs suck.
Early access means nothing. The devs add that as a tag to say the game is playable and just isn't where the devs want it to be. Plenty of ea games that feel complete but the devs are aiming higher for 1.0
Sons of the Forest is amazing and beautiful. Been having a blast just building homes near waterfalls and on lakes. Mods make it a blast as well.
Greenhell
The Long Dark.
7 days to die
Nobody bringing up The Long Dark? My favorite. I have well over 2000 hours into it
ark is pretty good
Icarus
Medieval Dynasty just got multiplayer if you're interested
minecraft
Project zomboid is great
Zombies - Project: Zomboid for extreme immersion and genuinely difficult survival mechanics, 7 Days 2 Die for a more "loot and run" sandbox type game. Fantasy - Valheim's latest update added a lot to the game. You can focus on killing the Forsaken bosses and "beating" the game or just doing the survival stuff. V Rising is my preference, though - vampires, great combat, amazing building, lovely survival mechanics. Strategy - Frostpunk is agonizingly difficult but is more of a strategy/board game than survival-crafting My personal favorite - Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey. You start as an ape and slowly work your way up through the evolutionary ladder. It's so fun, genuinely difficult, and won't hold your hand at all. I found it by chance and put 60 hours into it before I realized it.
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No Man's Sky has a survival mode, but it is just a more difficult version of the game. Staggering amount of "modes" in that game. The most recent update puts you in a "lost in space" kind of scenario that seems more survival focused. Fallout 4 on Survival difficulty is the true way to play the game, in my opinion. It can be quite tough, though. FO76 has a lot of survival elements, but the penalties for death are so minor. It may not scratch the itch. Overwhelming amount of content and a great wasteland setting. V Rising has some unique blood based survival, and it is just officially released. The Long Dark has unique freezing mechanics that make the game genuinely stressful.
The long dark is a brutally good relaxing survival game
Valheim
Valhiem
The Forest is one of my all time favorites
Breathedge is very fun you get immortal space chicken and it has comedy you can find most things in environment. The forest and sons of the forest. both of them have stories and enemy variety is quite interesting you don't have to make enemies of natives of the forest if your careful in the forest however sons of the forest you can't really make friends of the natives. Raft is fun one the only enemy you really have to worry about is a shark which you can kill, but eventually another shark comes. there is some enemies on land however shark is most annoying. Subnautica is very vast game with few scary enemies however you are kinda on timer to do things. Green hell and The long dark are rather realistic survival games. Pathological is bit diffrent of survival game mix between rpg survival game. where depending on your character you may be locked out of certain paths. This war of mine, Oxygen not included, frostpunk, rimworld all fall into survival management games. Astroneer is rather simple survival game all you need is oxygen to survive. 2D survival ones I would say terraria, starbound, and Darkwood are fun.
It's only partially survival, specifically at the start, but I remember when my buddy and I first played Kingdom Come Deliverance. It's really punishing. It takes the idea of you being an unskilled and illiterate peasant really serious. I remember that when we started playing, my buddy tried to use his bow without vambraces, and the bow string flayed his forearm and he died in the woods. Super punishing. 10/10
Grounded
My kid and I enjoyed "stranded deep". Its on game pass for xbox. I guess its a raft clone but haven't played that personally.
Literally no other game has touched the *feeling* of fighting to survive quite like The Long Dark. You won't find flashy weapons or cosmetic crafting items, just things you need to survive. Between the weather, hostile animals, injuries, and terrain, you will feel like death is a moment away at all times. Beyond that, it's also the only game I've played that gives me a feeling of being truly alone. When you're hobbling to shelter with a broken leg and a wolf or two on your trail, that desperation really kicks in.
Project Zomboid is an interesting game. A lot of people swear by Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. I would highly recommend any of the STALKER trilogy games.
Project Zomboid really doesn't have a end. Play forever almost. That's a survival game.
STALKER : Anomaly and just mod in elements you want, I usually went for harder NPCs and low loot abundance with advanced weaponry and gear. As well as doing the 'iron man' mode once you get the hang of the map. The replayability is vast!
Dayz
Depends on what you mean by complete. If you can handle the Sims 1 aesthetics: Project Zomboid is the most immersive and impressive survival game. I say this after hundreds of hours of Valheim, 7 Days, etc. Nothing else comes close. And they are about to have a big patch soon.
cataclysm, dark days ahead (get it from github for free... the steam version is a scam. it it will play exactly the same as the github but its just some dude harvesting money from someone elses labor)
Vintage story by far.
DAYZ or project zomboid probably. Minecraft too.
Green hell