Is this the right game for me?

[hardy_conrad]

Since (for once) I actually managed to beat a game in my library, thought I could justify indulging with something new. Been seeing lots of people play these sorts of survival type games recently and they seem a good fit. Question is, which one...

At first I was leaning 7 Days to Die, but for one thing it's on the pricey side and for another there are a LOT of concerns expressed about it once you dig under the surface.

Subnautica? Likely a good old game, but kinda limited and linear.

No Man's Sky? The most expensive of the bunch, and another game with mixed reviews (although not to the same extent as 7 Days).

Ark Survival Evolved? Probably one of the better games in the mix, although apparently it leans pretty heavily towards multiplayer and I'm on the fence about that.

Which leaves, Valheim. Funny thing is I first got curious about it roughly a year ago but at the time there were a lot of negative comments about it being abandonware. For whatever reason that's less of an issue now. I'll say probably the closest to a survival type game in the past I've played is Project Zomboid. I've noticed some people say Valheim is on the grindy side, but it's difficult to visualize anything more grindy than trying to level fitness in Zomboid. And, to a certain extent grindy is fun!

So what do you folks think? Yea or nay? Any suggestions or input is welcome, thanks.

[Suzaku]

I say Yea. If you're concerned about grind, there are world modifiers to boost drop rates.

There's also a strong modding scene to customize, expand, streamline, add QOL, or otherwise improve the experience for yourself in any number of ways.

[electricdawn]

People that say Valheim is "grindy" have never farmed primals in Shadowmoon valley (there's even worse stuff in Burning Crusade).

Valheim is, IMHO, one of the best survival games out there. It's still cheap at 20 bucks, and sometimes you can get it for 10. For me, probably the best spent 20 bucks ever.

I'd say go in blind. Do not mod. Do not read the Wiki. Just go in and PLAY. Don't bother about what other people say. Play the game for yourself and you see if you will like it or not.

[Almalric Elerian]

I agree with Electricdawn, go in blind and enjoy discovering things. I loved the surprises and jump scares the first time. This is a great game and has a lot of flexibility in how you play so just have fun!

[hardy_conrad]

It was actually seeing one of those Hololive vtubers play the game that brought it back into my radar. I've had pretty good success using them, in conjunction with consultation of course, as a guide for games to get. I appreciate all the help and yeah at $20 that's something even I can afford to chance.

[JimmyEatSquirrel]

I'll echo others that this is on of the best survival games out there and one of the best games I have ever played. Also concur on going in blind and non-modded and avoiding chat rooms, websites and forums. On normal settings it's decently challenging ( or brutal depending on your skill level). Certain parts of progression can be a grind ( particularly the "bronze age") but not too bad, but I like to grind.

If you are looking for state of the art graphics, fast paced play, constant intense stimulation, hand holding the entire way and "beating the game" as fast as humanly possible, this is not the game for you.

If you like an immersive vast world, exploring, base building ( one of the best aspects), figuring things out on your own and melee combat that can take some skill to master .. this will be an incredible experience. The first play through is really one to savor and because of the procedural generated world, every subsequent play through will be different and you can also play with different weapon and gear builds.

At $20 bucks its a real bargain and I've paid 3x that for far far inferior games. I do like the retro style graphics, the world is truly beautiful and there is so much to do and discover. The music is really chill and relaxing but you will have some hard core experiences with all the baddies in the game..often when you least expect it.

If you do play.. heed and read the Raven Hugin's hints carefully. Most people don't and then wonder why they aren't progressing.. My only tip.

Enjoy!!!

[A-mak]

I have all those games, of which I think Subnautica is the only one with a proper story? No man sky does have some 'stories' and it has similar building; I find NMS much better since it has underwater and above water AND space.

Here is a list of my hours in each game:
Valheim - 483.7
No Man Sky - 350.4
7 days 2 die - 30.6
subnautica - 9.4
Ark: Survival Evolved - 6.1 (a lot more than this playing split-screen on playstation)

I love building, Valheim is reaaaaly good for building and many mods that add to this. The 'rpg'/story side is very meh, you don't search for gear but gather resources and then craft the gear. Multiplayer works good, there are some active dedicated servers; friendly community. Quirky graphics, mods are mostly on thunderstore which sucks as there's no comments available; it can be confusing with what replaced what old mod or what is compatible together (even community modlists get it wrong so often); but I have been able to load up over 300 mods and play just fine.

No man sky is very RNG, a lot of time can be wasted just checking locations for weapons or ships which can get boring/tedius. Cross-platform multiplayer, there's a kinda 'matchmaking' at the anomoly (multiplayer hub). If you like space games this is up there in my top 5. Great graphics, very chill game. The 'action' is more of an annoyance if anything, the game is more about gathering stuff to be able to build up your settlements or freighter. They do community missions which it is cool to see others while doing them. Mods are more QoL and add very little to the game (just because of how the game is made).

7 Days 2 die - no clue what it is like now, but when I played it; it was janky and stupid. Project Zomboid absolutely craps on it (I have over 1khours on pz), TBH I'd put 7days on the bottom of my list.

Subnautica - it's a singleplayer story (there is a mod to play co-op with friends but no servers). It has nice visuals, cool mysteries but not much replay-ability and it's only under da sea.

Ark - It is a good game, nice visuals. I've never gotten far in it but have seen some nice builds on dedicated servers. It has a HUGE filesize (like 200gb+) which you can lzx compress down to 90gb. To me, everything is just 'ok' in the game. If you like dinos you'll like it. Probably the most similar to Valheim in this list, but valheims building is far superior. It is still a very popular game with over 35k players weekly.

Right now No Man Sky has its largest discount ever of 60% off ( AUD$ 35.18 ) or it can be had from King (uin) (get rid of brackets) for $30AUD (or probably any other grey key website).

Valheim is not on special at $28.95AUD but does often go on sale for -50% or $14.47AUD. It's currently $18.78 on said grey website.

Ark is $22.95AUD and has not gone on special for over a year (specials were 75% off or $7.23AUD).

Subnautica routinely has -67% off or $14.84AUD sales.

I'd say, if you want a space game defo grab no man sky. Then wait for the other (Valheim) games to go on special. But that's just me.

[Lorska]

It depends on what you value most.
If you want sheer time for money valheim is gonna win against most other survival games hands down.

If you are fine with a shorter experience but want high quality per money subnautica is gonna be your best bet. It's a game that absolutely oozes with atmosphere.

It's sounds like you are looking for strict 3D games so I'll just not mention any top-down/2D survival games.

Enshrouded is another option if you are more leaning towards the RPG aspect but it does have some hiccups in the combat.

[hardy_conrad]

I'm not too picky about stuff like graphics so long as a game has heart. It was only this year that I invested in a new desktop after perhaps 20 years of relying on laptops of increasingly questionable function...

[Feralcritter]

Originally posted by hardy_conrad:

Since (for once) I actually managed to beat a game in my library, thought I could justify indulging with something new. Been seeing lots of people play these sorts of survival type games recently and they seem a good fit. Question is, which one...

At first I was leaning 7 Days to Die, but for one thing it's on the pricey side and for another there are a LOT of concerns expressed about it once you dig under the surface.

Subnautica? Likely a good old game, but kinda limited and linear.

No Man's Sky? The most expensive of the bunch, and another game with mixed reviews (although not to the same extent as 7 Days).

Ark Survival Evolved? Probably one of the better games in the mix, although apparently it leans pretty heavily towards multiplayer and I'm on the fence about that.

Which leaves, Valheim. Funny thing is I first got curious about it roughly a year ago but at the time there were a lot of negative comments about it being abandonware. For whatever reason that's less of an issue now. I'll say probably the closest to a survival type game in the past I've played is Project Zomboid. I've noticed some people say Valheim is on the grindy side, but it's difficult to visualize anything more grindy than trying to level fitness in Zomboid. And, to a certain extent grindy is fun!

So what do you folks think? Yea or nay? Any suggestions or input is welcome, thanks.

Ark in any rendition sucks IMO and it seems Irongate is following the hype train of merch vs actual product. I am so annoyed at the fact that Valheim has been broken, then fixed, then broken again over the last 3? maybe goin on 4 years now. They've lost sight of the ida of 'early access' and instead indulged in ridiculous nonsense like board games and plushies. we paid for a video game, not a nonsensical pile of broken software.

Mobs no longer spawn x meters from your location but rather right behind you and you're expected to just deal with it. Campfires don't work, nor do Workbenches. but nobody says anything.

-Regards, an angry 3 year supporter.

[electricdawn]

Not sure what game you are playing, but it is not the Valheim I'm playing. My campfires work, as do the workbenches. Oh, and enemies do not spawn right behind me.

Also, as far as I can tell, Valheim was never "broken". I've been playing since Hearth and Home, and I've had maybe two to three hard crashes the whole time. And I play a LOT.

Also, do you REALLY think that the developers of Valheim design a board game and plushies THEMSELVES? No, they have OTHER people doing that for them. You probably also have a beef with the horse, the cartoon trailers and the fabled roadmap from four years ago.

Because... reasons. ;)

[locusofthought]

I've played every game that the OP mentioned.
I'll admit I've not played the Release version of 7 Days much, partly due to the Release version not cooperating with pre-existing worlds. I have ~800 in 7 Days for earlier versions and modded 7 Days. (~700 hours in Valheim.)
Anyway, I'm not sure whether 7 Days or Valheim has a worse grind. I do know that Valheim has higher potential death spiral (since enough deaths will reset all skills to 0) compared to 7 Days, which will only drop XP, not levels. Raids/Bloodmoon can be disabled in both games, and both have good options for base-building (though I prefer Valheim's for speed of construction).

Ark Survival Evolved is the most configurable without mods, which, despite how little time I've put into it, gives a good impression. (With mods, the winner is 7 Days.) Taming is a huge part of Ark and a lesser part of Valheim. Taming can be considered the meat of Ark's grind, and losing one's tames can be painful. Ark doesn't really have bosses or raids, but like Valheim it has lore scattered across the map (but more than Valheim does).

In addition to the OP's description, Subnautica is low combat compared to the rest of the list, and offers the least base-building control. It does have cuttlefish.

No Man's Sky is exploration-sandbox game and can compete with Ark for least plot. No man's Sky's survival component is also arguable the weakest in that a determined player can make it irrelevant in only a few hours of gameplay. It does have the largest map. There is virtually no grind from which one can't opt out. Honestly, it's hard to say it even shares the same genre as Valheim.

Valheim can be hard to solo and probably has the highest difficulty of the whole set (if every game uses standard settings). Unlike 7 Days to Die, Valheim doesn't get harder over time or by level, only harder by biome and by raid-difficulty. Valheim is decently configurable, especially with mods. Valheim has the most interesting food set-up of all the listed games, and on a related note, the highest penalty for not paying attention. Skills in Valheim are reflective both of time spent and actual skill; however, they aren't strictly necessary to complete the game. Of the listed set, Valheim arguably has the best sailing, reminiscent of Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, though only 7 Days to Die has no sailing whatsoever of the listed games.

I've never played Project Zomboid, so I've no basis of comparison. I will say that, if you have a rested bonus all the time, skills can be raised fairly quickly to a decent level. Attaining 100 in all skills is quite unnecessary and probably the single grindiest thing you could do in Valheim. Even on my current multiplayer world, I've only maintained a run skill of ~80 even in the Ashlands, and that's the easiest skill to level unless you never sprint.

Honestly, I could recommend all of them, but I've played 7 Days and Valheim the most. I'll give the edge to Valheim at this time.

[hardy_conrad]

I have a lot of respect for Zomboid, although I haven't played it in a while. It does pretty much need mods to make it truly enjoyable in my opinion, and it seems as if for a lot of people the real fun is downloading hundreds of incompatible mods then blaming the (very small) development team for what ensues.

It's actually useful to get a contrary opinion on Valheim, so I do appreciate that. Nothing's perfect after all. I'm not a complete stranger to games that can be, ahem, "challenging" shall we say. It isn't necessarily a bad thing! I'm only really aggravated if it's a game like Civilization where adjusting the difficulty simply alters the extent to the which the computer cheats rather than making it intelligent, and that doesn't apply here.

[Soma]

Originally posted by hardy_conrad:

Since (for once) I actually managed to beat a game in my library, thought I could justify indulging with something new. Been seeing lots of people play these sorts of survival type games recently and they seem a good fit. Question is, which one...

At first I was leaning 7 Days to Die, but for one thing it's on the pricey side and for another there are a LOT of concerns expressed about it once you dig under the surface.

Subnautica? Likely a good old game, but kinda limited and linear.

No Man's Sky? The most expensive of the bunch, and another game with mixed reviews (although not to the same extent as 7 Days).

Ark Survival Evolved? Probably one of the better games in the mix, although apparently it leans pretty heavily towards multiplayer and I'm on the fence about that.

Which leaves, Valheim. Funny thing is I first got curious about it roughly a year ago but at the time there were a lot of negative comments about it being abandonware. For whatever reason that's less of an issue now. I'll say probably the closest to a survival type game in the past I've played is Project Zomboid. I've noticed some people say Valheim is on the grindy side, but it's difficult to visualize anything more grindy than trying to level fitness in Zomboid. And, to a certain extent grindy is fun!

So what do you folks think? Yea or nay? Any suggestions or input is welcome, thanks.

Someday you HAVE to get Subnautica off that list. :+)

[Faceplant]

No Man's Sky has very positive review, at least recently. All time is skewed by the initial hatred. It's also currently $24, which is cheap IMO.

That said, if you're looking for something to "win", it's probably not the game for you. I don't know how you "win" in NMS, and those that try tend to rush through all the content and don't get much out of it.

[Sabaithal]

Valheim has a loop of "freeform build and explore" sort of thing going on. Its not the only game that does this now, but it is the most space efficient. There is also Enshrouded for those more used to soulslikes (though its not quite a soulslike), and I think another one called Aska.

There's also a few alternatives to No Mans Sky. Namely, Emyrion: Galactic Survival, if building spaceships while exploring space (and raiding dungeons) is more of your thing. The main distinction is that Empyrion lets you build your base and craft from scratch.