Survival games,by their very nature, start you off with next to nothing, offer you next to no context or hand-holding, and then proceed to teach you a series of harsh lessons until you adapt to your brutal surroundings. That’s the quintessential survival experience we sadistic gamers all know and love.
The Alters Interview: Mastering Survival Storytelling One Jan At A Time
In a sea of infinite base builders with minimal narrative, The Alters dares to be different.
However, most of the time, there is a slow and steady progression that allows you to overcome adversity and gather the resources needed to turn the tide in your favor. Then, by the end of the game, you’ll be walking around like you own the place with the power to kill monumental bosses with ease.
But, there are some survival games that don’t award you this means of progression, and instead keep you in that state of powerlessness all the way until the bitter end.
So, if you’re on the hunt for a survival game that never gives you an inch, then these are titles you need to play and suffer through.
We will also be consideringSurvival Horrorand other genres where survival mechanics are employed but perhaps are not the focus.
Seeking Asylum
As a journalist myself, I can appreciate the rigor and effort that goes into getting a juicy scoop. But nothing would warrant heading to an abandoned asylum in the dead of night.
Yet, due to some weird mental defect, or just astounding lack of judgment, that’s exactly what you’ll be doing in Outlast, which goes about as well for your protagonist as you might imagine.
Seeing as you are a journalist and not a super-soldier, you’ll only have a flashlight to hand and little else. Meaning you’ll need to sneak around in the dark, use stealth and cunning to get around hulking patients, and even then, you’ll have toengage in a chase scene or two.
It’s nerve-wracking, intense, and because you never get a way to fight back, it remains that way right until the credits roll. So, if you want a pulse-raising time, this game is a great one to try out.
9The Long Dark
Nature Is The Enemy
The Long Dark
When faced with another human enemy holding you at gunpoint or when pitted against a gruesome monster, the odds may be stacked against you, but there is always a slim chance you can fight back and win.
However, in The Long Dark, you can’t fight back, because in this episodic survival smash hit, nature is your enemy,and Mother Nature doesn’t play.
You’re always fighting against the elements, and no matter how experienced you are with this game, and how long the adventure plays out. You’ll always be just one degraded medicine or dwindling resource away from taking a permanent nap in the snow.
You are always at the mercy of the world around you, and all you can do is make difficult, educated choices and hope for the best. But even then, you could still get mauled by a grizzly bear.
8Papers, Please
The Booth Is A Prison
Papers, Please
Papers, Please is a bit of a weird case when it comes to a sense of power, because for a small portion of the game, right at the beginning, you do feel a weird sense of power.
You’re the law, and you get to decide who is allowed to enter, and who must sling their hook and fins somewhere else to lay their head as a war rages on.
However, this is really just a facade, as you soon come to realize that you have no power at all. You’re an office droid, a pencil-pusher who must adhere to strict guidelines or face your pay being docked, getting fired, and your family suffering for your screw-up.
In this game, to survive is to adhere to the strict processes at play, and this often means leaving your emotions at the door and signing various people’s death warrants in a bid to survive yourself. You might be the person in the north with the stamp of approval, but you’re just as powerless as the rest of them.
7Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Powerless Peasant
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Fextralife Wiki
While Kingdom Come: Deliverance isn’t strictly a survival game, due to the fact that this game sets its stall out as a hyper-realistic RPG, it might as well be.
You start as a lowly peasant. The son of a blacksmith with no discernible skills, and from there you’re dropped in the deep end and asked to survive and thrive in a hostile medieval setting, while also maintaining your sleep, hunger, and hygiene levels.
Then, sure, over time you do gain an understanding of combat, get better gear, learn new skills, and acquire friends in high places. But, even still, you are only one bandit attack, or one poorly planned excursion with no rations away from an untimely death.
This is probably the most forgiving of the games on this list, as there is a genuine sense of progression here. But no matter how long you spend powering up Henry, you’re still a flimsy little dude, and the world will eat you up if you let it.
6Pacific Drive
It’s a Fixer Upper
Pacific Drive
Pacific Drive is a pretty out-there concept, both because this game’s narrative firmlyresides in the New Weird genreand because of the novel design choices it makes regarding survival.
This isn’t a game where you need to craft bases or use stone and grass to somehow craft a weapon. In this game, you’re trapped in a weird parallel universe within the American Midwest, and to survive these otherworldly threats the Olympic Peninsula has to offer, all you have is a beat-up old station wagon.
This is how Pacific Drive makes you feel powerless. Your car is your shield, and without your shield, you are effectively a sitting duck.
You’ll gradually improve the state of your car, and you’ll be able to better handle the elements. But, because of the surreal anomalies that call the Olympic Peninsula home, you’re only one wrong turn away from a critical fault with your car’s electrical system, or one engine failure away from waiting for the radiation to engulf you.
It takes the motto ‘drive to survive’ very seriously, and if you’re not behind the wheel, it’s curtains for you.
5Rain World
Bottom Of The Food Chain
Rain World
If there was ever a game that made you feel like an insignificant speck playing your tiny role in something much grander, it’s Rain World.
From the outside looking in, this game might lull you into a false sense of security thanks to itscute pixel art style and Slugcat protagonist. However, this game is unrelentingly punishing, and barely scraping by is the best outcome you can hope for.
You’re constantly being hunted and need to use your cunning to outwit the much more powerful entities in the ecosystem, and you’re given next to no tutorial on how anything works within the game, leading to a lot of harsh learning moments.
This game will have you die in the most unfair fashion. Dwindling time will always play a factor in all of your decisions, and it’s very unlikely you’ll have fun. But survival isn’t about having fun; it’s about doing what is necessary.
A Sadistic Survival Sandbox
Many games allow players to be in the driving seat and effectively map out their experience as they see fit. After all, having the autonomy to make game-changing decisions usually leads to some pretty fun moments.
Kenshi is a game that allows you to play any role you want in a huge survival sandbox. But, you’ll soon come to realize that you are very much at the mercy of the world you inhabit, and it’s not so much a case of bending the world to your will as it is just rolling with the punches.
You might be on top of the world at one point, only to be kidnapped, sold into the slave trade, and mutilated, meaning you need to spend the rest of your playthrough roaming around with just one arm.
It’s a game that provides absolute freedom, but that freedom often comeswith a gruesome, unwanted caveat,which you’ll just have to grin and bear.
3This War of Mine
Another Perspective Of War
War games tend to be a great way to put yourself in the shoes of a powerful supe-soldier hellbent on saving the world from the onslaught of baddies that would threaten to destroy the world you know and love. But, you know who rarely gets referenced in those war epics? The humble civilians.
This War Of Mine allows you to witness the role a civilian plays in the midst of a harrowing war, and let me tell you, it ain’t a pleasant one.
You’ll need to hide in a makeshift shelter, ration whatever scraps of food you can find, and you’ll need to risk life and limb as you head out into the war-torn horrorscape outside to try and scavenge anything that will keep your crew safe and keep morale high.
No matter how well-stocked you are, you’re one mental breakdown away from everything falling apart like a house of cards. You’re just a regular person trying to survive against all odds, and if I were a betting man, I would bet against you every single time.
2Alien: Isolation
An Ever-Evolving Threat
Alien: Isolation
Being on a desolate space station is already a situation that constitutes pure nightmare fuel. But, there are few worse things you’re able to do with reference to someone’s survival chances than add a Xenomorph into the mix.
That’s what Alien Isolation does, and it’s not just a standard game of cat and mouse like in other horror games of this ilk. This is one that employs some of the most stellar AI ever crafted to sniff you out.
The Xenomorph that serves as this game’s equivalent of Mr. X starts out rather easy to evade. But, over time, the AI is fed information on your behavior patterns and your vague whereabouts, allowing it to hone in on your location and ensure it doesn’t fall for the same tricks that helped you evade it earlier in your run.
Watching this terrifying beast get smarter with each passing hour is equal parts interesting and horrifying, and that’s why you’ll never feel at ease for a second when you play this stellar interstellar epic.
1Pathologic 2
Just Plain Unenjoyable
Pathologic 2
Despite their punishing nature and difficulty, all of the games on this list are games where you can extract some moments of enjoyment and fun. But, that simply cannot be said of Pathologic 2.
This game takes great pleasure in making you suffer. It casts you in the role of a humble doctor with the uphill task of stopping the plague from irradiating the town. But, unlike some games, Pathologic doesn’t shy away from just how much of an impossible task this is.
The game will throw you curveball after curveball with a fluctuating economy, very little time to tend to each quest, and cumbersome combat that feels like a roll of the dice with each encounter. Which really is only a drop in the ocean as far as oppressive mechanics go in this game.
You are always at a disadvantage and chasing your own tail. Which leads to moments of anguish, hopelessness, and, unless you are damn-near perfect throughout, the death of everyone and everything.
It’s about as bleak as it gets, but weirdly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
10 Best Open World Survival Games
How can I survive off of grass and dropped frames?
