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Top Ten Survival Games (PC)

Survival games are the ones where you need to build shelter, eat, sleep etc. (But Minecraft isn't going to make this list, sorry not sorry).

By Ajax the PoetPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
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Rust

Today I'm going to write about the top ten survival games on PC that I think are the top ones. I know a bunch of other people would put Minecraft in this category, but it really isn't that hard of a game and really isn't considered a survival game in my opinion. I know a bunch of people will hate that I said, so sue me.

10. Rust: I have already wrote about Rust on here multiple times and for good reason. This is a very unforgiving game though. You wake up on a shoreline; naked and afraid, to only get murdered by a full kit guy who then T-bags your corpse after the fact. It's in last place on this list just because the survival aspect of this game is not that intricate. Any food you find or harvest from animals stays fresh indefinitely. You do have to build a shelter to survive, but you also need to eat and drink as well. The thing that I don't like about that is that when you do eat food, it also heals you as well. So if I get mauled by a bear and run away somehow, all I have to do is eat some food and my wounds will magically heal themselves.

9. Grounded: You may have heard or saw this game on Youtube or Steam. Pretty much it's a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids game (If you do not know those movies, please go watch them.) You can play with friends in multiplayer or even play offline and experience this game solo. You have to survive in a backyard with all kinds of insects that can and will attack you. You will need to build a shelter to keep those insects out, but even then they will attack your base and try to kill you. You will need to find lifesaving resources, like dew off leaves for your water intake. There is a story-line quest you can follow or you can just skip that and explore the backyard that you are in, if you decide to explore, be prepared to encounter spiders and other insects that will attack you on site.

8. Ark: Survival Evolved: Now this game right here is almost just as unforgiving as Rust, but I would say this one is a bit harder to get used to. The UI is one of the issues with this game, it's just a mess. The dinosaurs and other creatures in here will kill you with no thought about it. You do have to eat and drink in this game as well, but on top of that your character will defecate from time to time and you can pick it up and use it later. Any berries or meat you get will expire if you don't cook it and consume it right away. You can build a fridge later on down the game, but that only keeps the food fresh for a bit longer. I love that aspect so you don't just stock up on meat and keep them in a box and have them for a long time. But, If you do go online to play with others, be prepared to die a lot as well. Online players are just as toxic as the Rust players.

7 Days To Die

7. 7 Days To Die: This early access game is a very good game, but still does have it's bugs. This is actually a mix between a bunch of genres of games, including survival, horror survival and tower defense type games. You can play alone or with friends and other players as well. The main focus of this game is to survive the invading zombies. Every 7 in-game days a horde of zombies will attack your base so you will want to have a base built or you need to take over an already established building and set traps and chokepoints up in that area so you don't get eaten by the zombies. It's a vast open-world that you can explore freely, but be wary of the zombies that are wandering and inside of buildings. You can terraform the land anyway you want, but be careful not to get stuck in that deep hole that you made.

6. Don't Starve/Don't Starve Together: This top-down survival game is a cartoonish but pretty brutal type of game. You are on an island that is just full of all kinds of creatures that want to kill you where you stand. You can play solo or with friends (with the Don't Starve Together game) and just try to survive. You can have babies in the game as well, but if you "accidently" miss-click you can eat your baby! It can be brutal, but this game would probably be my first choice game if someone new wanted to explore survival games. Yes it can be hard, but its not has hard as the other games and you won't have toxic players killing you over and over again.

5. Darkwood: This is also a top-down survival game like Don't Starve, but hell of a lot more brutal and dark. This game does not hand hold you and you will have to learn how to survive on your own. If you decide you want to be reckless or don't prepare for the night, than you will die. This game has a perfect choices and consequences that will be permanent for the whole playthrough of the game. This game is great, but you will die a lot if you do not prepare. Not a game for someone that is new to survival games.

4. Green Hell: This game is very harsh and unforgiving as well. You can play story mode or survival. In story mode you are in the Amazon Rainforest looking for a cure for your wife from a previously unknown tribe of natives. (Not going to go much farther than that since it could contain spoilers which I will not do.) In survival you just survive by any means. You will sometimes get attacked by the natives right in your camp when you are not careful or they will appear and ambush you when you are out looking for supplies and resources. What I will tell you though, DO NOT eat the colorful frogs. May help someone in their gameplay if they just follow that one rule.

3. The Forest: The Forest is an amazing game that I absolutely love. You can play solo or with friends. You are on a plane with your son and the plane somehow crashes into the forest. You finally wake up to find your son missing and not in the plane. You later find out that your son was abducted by a man and you can tell that because you can find drawings from your son in various caves. Other than finding your son, you have to survive from cannibalistic creatures any way you can. Cutting down a tree is more dangerous in this game than any other. If you are chopping down the tree and someone or something in on the falling end of the tree, they will die or the structure will be destroyed. The building is pretty cool as you will place a blueprint down first and than you just have to put the required resources into the blueprint to complete the build. This is a hardcore survival, but not as hardcore as Green Hell.

2. DayZ: I played this game back when it was a mod for Arma 2, but since than it is now a standalone game that is brutal and realistic just like the Arma series. Most people do not like this game for some reason, but by the way the reviews were it's because they are mad that they cannot kill the other players. This is just a survival game with PvE and PvP aspects of the game. You can hunt down and kill zombies or other players, or you can try to stay off the grid and stay away from cities and just hunt the animals in the wild or take out any zombies that may be wandering alone. Be wary that this game does not hold your hand much either. If you get hit by a zombie or another player, you need to bandage quickly or risk bleeding out and dying. This game is amazing and should only be played if you don't mind getting murdered a lot.

1. Scum: This game is the ultimate survival game. Unlike other games where you have to eat and drink food, in Scum you do have to eat, but you need to eat both meats and veggies. You need to keep track of your calories, vitamins, minerals etc. Keep in mind that the way you create your character will affect the way you play the game as well. So if you decide to make a super skinny guy, you will than have the advantage of less eating and faster and more agile, but you will be weak as heck with any type of melee weapon. Vice verse if you make a bigger guy, you will have a stronger hit, but you will need to eat more and be much more slower. So be careful when you are creating your character and keep those in mind. The only thing that I don't like about this game is that its not a permadeath game. If you get killed in scum and you have a lot of fame points than you just respawn right back in the area you want, but you will lose your gear unless you can get back to your body and get it. I guess that's to keep the fanbase happy, but I'd personally like it to be permadeath so you have to make a choice if you really can trust the random guy that asked for help or the people you just found and asked to join them. Don't get me wrong, I have backstabbed people and been backstabbed before and it's not fun, but it would make those choices a little bit more challenging if you would permanently die and have to start new again.

Well this is my own list of the top survival games on PC. I know some of these games are on console as well, but I don't care for the consoles since you can't really get the best graphical settings from a console. (Oh I can hear the console fans now...) These games are my own opinion of the best survival games and yours will be different than mine. There are tons of survival games out there and it was hard narrowing down the list to just 10, but I did it and I hope you enjoyed this little article. Thank you for reading.

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About the Creator

Ajax the Poet

Canada/United States

Father

Horror Stories/Poems

Poems

Love the outdoors and nature

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