My Top 15 Survival Games for 2019 What's your favorite? Why are the Survival genre so popular?

[Elvenkind]

https://youtu.be/iCs61ZUwkuA

These are all games with a very positive reception on Steam, and I've really been digging through the year to find Good Looking, Open-World, Sandbox, Beginning with nothing, Grinding and then...

I just wanted to share a video I've spent all the evening on making, and specially the 15 games I got in my "Favorites" in the library, in case others are looking for good survival, open world, crafting, base-building, sandbox, farming, animal husbandry. What's your favorite? I'm still looking for good games, but seems like I've been into all of them and still I haven't found exactly what I'm craving.

Thats another question, why are this genre so popular? What is it with beginning with nothing and not only surviving, but evolving in diverse post-apocalyptic or wilderness scenarios, while living off the grid as the ultimate doomsday prepper.

Raft isn't the classic survival game, it's more RTS, balancing time, to not use too much time building stuff, to end up lacking something important, and not using too much time throwing the hook, or else one starve/thirst to death, and it isn't really a game to relax with.

Just a simple hunter/farmer game, with some dangers, and choosing from different real world wilderness, would be interesting I think.

[Just a dude]

From one survivor to another, good work. Also should join me in rust, maybe change your mind on it.

[Elvenkind]

Wow, thanks. I just had to defend myself in "The Forest" forum, because I posted it in 3-4 forums or so, and only got answer there, here and one more. Then getting attacked by besserwissers (better-then-though's) that said what a gruesome rule-breaking I had done, and also that only Dayz and Scum was worth mentioning, and the games I've used about a year testing (minus conan), almost 10 years Minecraft before I stopped with the pandas and bees... and since their game was lacking from the list, the video was worthless, because only when wounds, infections, poison etc. was added it was realistic. Unknown to me, THAT'S the litmus-test for a survival versus a non-survival.......... ........... etc.

So I had to divide the post in two, since I wrote so much about how wrong he was, argumenting that actually even Force of Nature got deadly heat and cold.

Thank so much for the offer, I'm sending you a friend invite, it would be interesting to hang on to someone that know the rules and how to survive and give a helping hand. I'm a black guy with a huge *thing* in the game, so my last memory was being called n**ger and killed because of that. A clan offered me protection if I spent time grinding for them. People are so deceitful, that they would probably trap me inside a jail or something after I had been friendly and helped them grind. Would be sweet to kill some real a-holes there, and be cool to the nice ones.

[Elvenkind]

Originally posted by Deecord:

From one survivor to another, good work. Also should join me in rust, maybe change your mind on it.

Hiya, thanks for the friend request. Check out all the games we got in common:

Rust

The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt (+ ALL DLC), but just like Kingdom Come: Deliverance I don't want to play it until I'm bored with everything else, because the games are so beautiful.

Grand Theft Auto V (With Criminal Enterprise)

American Truck Simulator

Euro Truck Simulator 2 These Truck Simulators are cool, since you can see so many places, but missing more realism.

No Man's Sky

Mudrunner (I want the Chernobyl DLC)

Next Day: Survival

Prison Architect

Cities: Skylines (+All DLC except a couple of music DLC's that isn't worth money, as long as I got Mars Radio and Syntetic Dawn)

Conan Exiles

Subnautica (plus Below Zero)

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (I played a bit CS Source, but I really suck in shooters)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Not on Steam, but played for hundreds of hours. Have played TES 2, 3, 4, 5 for unknown hours and got TES Online. I played TES2 Daggerfall unknown hundreds of hours, and remember the bug where one could fill unlimited loot if buying a wagon for the horse.

The same with Civilization 4, maybe 1000 hours. Preferring Marathon Speed on Singleplayer. I played ladder in a clan in Civ 3 Play the World when we could fight against each other on unstable connections. Was fun to be able to beat virtually anyone. Now that I got new PC and can play the new ones, I've lost interest.

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare - Just bought it and I'm actually quite good, probably BC of 2 Years HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts with dull weapons and lots of protection) training in RL.

American Truck Simulator - Arizona

American Truck Simulator - Wheel Tuning Pack

Conan Exiles - Testlive Client

Euro Truck Simulator 2 - Going East!

Euro Truck Simulator 2 - High Power Cargo Pack

Euro Truck Simulator 2 - Wheel Tuning Pack

Rust - Staging Branch

Hitman (with All DLC)

I see you have Subsistence and Raft on the wishlist and they are worth the price! Raft coop would be really cool, because I can't multitask, and can't stop throwing that hook and miss anything, get to late to food and water and just managed the game a couple of times.

[Rewaron]

good.

[Just a dude]

I'm trying to figure out between raft and subsistence. Rust is fun, have you tried a modded server? Survival can be tough in official servers. There is alot to do and the building is pretty good.

[Elvenkind]

Generally I'm a person that prefer to stay vanilla as much as possible, like in Cities Skylines I'm only using a mod that allow me to use mods and not loose achivements. Then a 25 tile mod for buying as much as I please of the land after Megalopolis. And Move it, a very helpful little tool. In Minecraft I used to have anything that made the graphics more lifelike. I know there's lots of mods for those hosting servers, to prevent cheating, something the game companies really should have had in order before realeasing a game. But sometimes it's not merely mods to avoid cheating, but that make it seem like a different game, as I saw countless examples at in Minecraft. Way over the top. But how is a modded server like in Rust, do everyone need the mods the server got?

Subsistence is survival gaming for potentionally thousands of hours. Raft is a totally different kind of game. I've been playing it the whole evening, and annoyingly got killed with lots of goodies in the inventory just when I started to understand what to do. I lost a Steel Axe and Upgraded Hook and was running out of good seeds to plant. And annoyingly it's not possible to go to an earlier place in the autosaves, even if you delete the bad ones. So I quit after having visited 5-6 islands and finally had started to add nets in the front and had a couple of walls with a huge trophy plate with a shark head :( I am determined to do better next time, learning from the errors I made. It's really a hard game and absolutely no rest. Like if someone call me on the phone I have to save and exit the game, to not have seagulls eat my seeds and the shark my Raft. Still it's great fun, with tons of things to do, it's intense action non-stop, really hard to stay alive, unless you work really hard.

However be warned with Subsistence, it's - as people usually say - not a race, but a marathon. It can often be reduced to hours of grinding. Things take a lot of time. Loot is not organized in any way, but found in 3 types of crates that spawn randomly around the area that is closed in by barbed wire and 1 goodie crate that is really rare and need a lockpick to open. You need Mass and Energy for everything that you really want to build, and it take a long, long time for the levels of this to rise beyond what you need for a for example lockpick. It's a ridiculous amount of bears and wolves, and you'll soon get tired of the snarling and growling if you happen to get close to the aggro-circle of one of them, and having to be prepared to run for minutes if you piss one or several off. Even Moose is really dangerous, when starting to loose health it charges at you and impale you on the horns swing you around in the air and dump you on the ground. And then it's the hunters and bandits - the former spawn with armor, all weapons and unlimited ammo. So normal is really hard, and it take 100+ hours in my experience, to just get to where you really get started with body-armor, powerful weapons and a base that is really safe. You have to learn everything about the game, I asked dozens of questions in the forum for the game. But gladly it's a great community, and the game is made by just one Dev. I haven't played it since the season cycle update, something that is bound to make everything not easier, and it's already the most difficult Survival game I've played, needing extreme amounts of grinding to get everything you need. So prepare to be stubborn if you happen to choose it. The good thing though is that you can bring a friend or 4 into a game, someone that might have tons of something you are lacking and vice versa.

The former nr.2 and the latter nr1 in difficulty. At least I think Raft is difficult to handle.

[Just a dude]

I think I might end up picking up raft. I love to be on a ship. If I happen to play some rust I will find a vanilla server and out you down a sleeping bag and we can share a base. Rust is also a very hard game to survive. Higher population server is impossible unless 15+ people in your clan. But solo life can be done. I love survival games. Glad to see others who do aswell

[Elvenkind]

Sounds great to have someone to follow in Rust and see if we can survive, or at least learn more.

I hope I didn't talk you out of Subsistence. It got an incredible nice community in their forum, ready to help anyone.

Raft didn't use to be that popular, but now everyone know about it. And it got people that try to cash in on their success. Such as "Survive on a Raft" I think it's called and virtually identical only with crappy, soul-less graphics, and perhaps also to a degree "Floatsam".

I don't doubt though that Subsistence will be an inspiration to other games again. It got a beautiful landscape, but I doubt anyone playing it will deny the grinding. I've seen people with several thousands of hours in the game that still haven't beaten it. It got no story, no goal, and the crafting system IS strange. Having to build several tanks to store Mass and Energy for the most costly items, such as double-shotgun and recurve bow. There's only one Dev, he's good and the Seasons update was amazing, but still he's a long way from making it "mainstream" I think.

Please watch some videos of both games, so I won't feel I might have robbed you of Subsistence, and perhaps you hate Raft and would love Subsistence... :\

I do love managment games in general, that's a word that fit for both city builders, games like prison architect, but also most survival games - managing a life and the surroundings.

Let me know if you want company in a survival game with multiplayer.

[Just a dude]

I'm very picky when it comes to survival games. Been burnt many times.(survive the nights, h1z1) But I do like subsistence. I haven't played a game in along time. I keep trying to chase the feeling of a good survival. Hurt world was very good in the beggining and I try to find games that get me hooked. Rust was good. Was in a big clan for awhile it was fun. I enjoy playing it every now and then in low-population servers there's always something to do.

I look forward to playing sometime!

[Elvenkind]

Perhaps Mist Survival. Perhaps Rising World. Perhaps Stranded Deep. These are some of the most perfect survival games I've found, yet none of them are really well known this far.

Mist Survival had one one developer, with a whole lots of good ideas, and now he got a team helping. The last time I played it an update came that made the old map obsolete and with really lots of new things. It got elements of horror. You are immune, while a Mist that appeared years ago turned most of the people on the planet into infected, living dead, zombie-looking creatures. The can't take light, but once a day a heavy fog decend over the landscape and they start walking around in the forests and everywhere. At night they remain where they are at daytime, only then they don't run back inside once the sun burn them, but chase you until you or them are dead. Night time used to be safe, but they added some creatures that like the night and move around. It's a post-apocalyptic area on the countryside in the US or Europe. Everywhere there's sign people left in a hurry. The roads are filled with cars. And this is a thing I loved with this game: You can search for car-parts and a gas-can, because many cars also have a liter or two of unused fuel. Then you need to find a SUV or a Pickup-Truck (there's been talks about Motorcycles, I don't know how far they have come there). The SUV got a big baggage room and the Pickup car you can place lockers, lightpoles, heavy tools etc and it stay's there, so the best choice for loot-o-mobile. And it sure feels great when you are inside a car with the engine humming, feeling safe for the first time. Everywhere there's houses and a couple of motels, a gas station, etc. But also deep forests, moutains, lakes. where you can find loot from the people that left it all or turned into Infected. Such as ammo, weapons, tools, coke, tin food, and all sorts of things. The best loot however is usually at the places where they previous occupants still haven't left, but remain. You need a gun for this, shoot them in the head. And the ultimate loot is in bandit-camps with other immune people. You have to be the worst bandit and kill them all, and each camp got a PVP hostage that you can free and invite home and they work for you, doing mundane tasks, while you get all their loot, like machineguns and sniper-rifles. There's a huge variety of things to craft. You can hunt and fry the meat, dry it or cure it with salt. The guts can be used for bowstrings, the fat can be boiled and used in a generator, also with a lovelt humming, safe sound that give life to lightbulbs, oven, fridge etc. You can dry skins and use the leather. You can also build traps to lure animals in. Even bear-traps. You need a water tank to fill with lake-water, a apparatus to sterilize the water and another 50 liter tank to fill the clean water into with a bucket. You can occupy huts or houses, or build your own ready made hut. Make a palisade wall around. Add stairs on the inside, to stand on top of the wall. Install flood-lights. Fireplace got both grill and pot to cook food or boil fat. I really loved this game, and have really just been waiting for bugs to settle, and play it again.

The same with Rising World. I played it a lot, I fell asleep while playing. It's like Minecraft, only realistic, and the most safe game on my list I think. You can build all sorts of things. It's smart to start by a little pool of (pure) water, if you find apple or cherry trees and cut them down, then they drop saplings, so you can plant them at your base. You can also use all sorts of plants you find while exploring and plant at home. There's lots of animals with meat around. So food and water is absolutely no problem. The tools for building is simple, and limited, but you can make anything, realistic looking by it. To make really useful things, such as a musket that shoots metal balls, you need to dig deep after various metals. When I stopped playing they just had added a new update with enemies other then predators, like gangs of bandits lurking around and skeleton warriors in old tombs underground. You need wool from sheep and skins from animals generally to make clothes that protect and warm, also leather is needed to make a saddle, to ride around. It's a virtually endless virth various biomes.

Then it's Stranded Deep, hugely inspired by Tom Hanks in Cast Away - perhaps the most beautiful of all the games when it comes to scenery. Here survival is challenging again. Beginning on a small island, starting to collect water and fish to eat and drink. Making a fireplace and a placed to sleep. The islands got lots of crafting materials, while the really good loot are in shipwrecks out in the ocean with several poisonous creatures and several species of man-eating shark, where just one attack might make you bleed slowly to death. You can break your leg. You can suffer from heatstroke. But generally it's a really comfortable life, with good base-building tools. You can build rafts to travel to other islands when you have depleted the surface of one of them. There's 3 bosses. You can get both sail, rudder and motor on the rafts, and even get all you need for a little helicopter, or a Gyrocopter.

Of all of them I reccommend Mist Survival though. There's still no end to that game, like as in none of these, but an incredible fascinating story line, and it's the most challenging and most life-like. Also there you can just jump down from a bit too high rock and sprain your anckle, probably the worst injury. Even if you die and respawn, the injuries continue to where you have to go back to get much of the gear you loose on the ground when dying. If the foot is damaged and you run, then you rip open wounds and make the healing slower. Just like the torso and arms get potentionally seriously damaged if you start chopping wood. You can slowly build up gear such as high quality archery able to kill with one shot. The American Eagle machete. Various guns and you need to mine ores and make a blacksmith place to create the best stuff, like the machete and hunting arrow tips. It used to lack agriculture, but now you can plant crops, and still there's the chicken coop. And as with trapping I think there's also fishing. There's wolves, bear, deer, and I don't know what else they have added since I last checked it.

You won't feel completely safe before you are protected behind walls, armed to the teeth and I really reccommend having a look at it, and also the other 2 mentioned.

[traykey]

Thanks for the detailed post Elvenkind.

That was a fascinating read, and I think you explain those three games very well.