The Best Survival Games For Both Single-Player And Multiplayer

Key Takeaways

• Survival games offer both solo exploration and vibrant multiplayer experiences for fans.
• Titles like
  Conan Exiles, Project Zomboid,
  and
  Valheim
  cater well to solo and team play.
• Adventure and danger await in survival games, whether players choose to brave the wilderness alone or with friends.

The survival game genre is a very prolific one. The fantasy of being stranded in a hostile world and forced to carve out a life for oneself is very appealing to a lot of fans. Of course, some fans prefer the fantasy of teaming up with their friends and fighting through the inhospitable wilderness together.

Some of the best survival games on the market cater to both extremes. These games present an expansive and vibrant landscape for solo players to get lost in, while also offering robust multiplayer support for fans who want to tame the wilds together. Here are ten of the best survival games for multiplayer and single-player alike.

10 Conan Exiles

Living A Legend

Conan the Barbarian is one of the most iconic characters in pulp fantasy, and the massive fictional world the character inspired endures to this day. It’s especially prominent in Conan Exiles, an online survival game where players must endure the harsh conditions and merciless peril of the Hyborian Age.

Due to its online nature, Conan Exiles is ideal for single players and groups alike. Solo adventurers can survive on the fringes of society in isolated shelters, while groups can team up to carve out a civilization of their own in the unforgiving desert. No matter what path players choose, adventure and danger await.

9 Palworld

Creatures & Chaos

Palworld earned a lot of attention for its bizarre premise, combining elaborate survival crafting with familiar creature capture and training mechanics to create something wholly unique. This strange title gives players numerous avenues of play. Fans can forge bonds with their creatures to unleash their true potential, or use them for hard labor in the creation of elaborate factories and monuments.

This complexity is enhanced by the addition of multiplayer. Fans can share a world to build and explore together, and there are also PvP options, allowing players to battle teams of monsters for supremacy. Whether in solo or multiplayer, there’s always a lot to do.

8 Project Zomboid

Apocalyptic Stakes

Project Zomboid builds on a familiar premise, with players stranded in a zombie-infested post-apocalyptic exclusion zone, trying to survive against the endless undead for as long as they can. In co-op, players can build a base together, fortify it, and furnish it with various amenities in their quest to keep themselves alive and free of the infectious disease that has wiped out humanity around them.

The game is primarily designed around co-op, but solo players are welcome. Project Zomboid becomes much more challenging in single-player, as players no longer have safety in numbers and must carry out all the tasks required to stay alive all by themselves. This makes single-player a fundamentally different experience, and the ultimate challenge for Project Zomboid fans.

7 Starbound

Survival In The Stars

As the name suggests, Starbound‘s 2D survival experience takes fans into space, tasking them with survival on an alien world with a damaged spacecraft. The game offers several charming alien races for players to choose from, and despite the limited perspective offered by its 2D gameplay, the alien worlds of Starbound are rich with mystery and treasures to uncover. There are also adorable alien pets for players to recruit.

Solo players are more than welcome to explore the wonders of the cosmos on their own, but the title also fully supports co-op for multiple explorers to team up. The default party size is four, but with a custom server, players can extend that number as much as they’d like. Large groups who want to take part in a survival journey together will likely get a lot of playtime out of Starbound.

6 V Rising

Forming A Coven

V Rising offers fans the chance to step into the shoes of one of the most iconic horror monsters of all time. Players must rebuild their vampiric legacy after centuries of undead slumber, fleeing from the sun and feeding on mortals in an effort to regain their lost power. Along the way, they must also build up their castle, establishing a proper vampiric lair to lurk in.

The game has robust online multiplayer support as well. Teams of vampires can form a coalition to rule the shadows together, but the game also has PvP options, letting fans raid each other’s fortresses and wage war by night. Players of all preferences have the freedom to become whatever sort of creature of the night strikes their fancy.

5 Grounded

A Shrunken Saga

While many survival games take place in grand, sweeping landscapes rich with wilderness and towering creatures, Grounded is entirely focused on one backyard. The game’s protagonists, human teens shrunk down to the size of ants, must brave the unexpected dangers of this small realm in order to return to normal and resume their lives.

The game’s bizarre, science-heavy narrative can be experienced in single-player and multiplayer alike. Solo fans can travel at their own pace, solving the mysteries of their strange predicament and amassing an arsenal of bug-killing weapons as they go. Multiplayer groups can build up shared bases and lairs, swapping tools and sharing resources so that they can survive the perils of the yard together.

4 No Man’s Sky

Inherit The Stars

Very few video games are as massive in scope as No Man’s Sky. An entire universe of procedurally generated planets and solar systems awaits, offering more worlds than players could fully chart in a million lifetimes. The single-player experience of No Man’s Sky is a profoundly lonely one, forcing players to confront their tiny place in a massive universe even as they plumb the depths of the cosmos and unravel mysteries about the nature of reality itself.

The game’s robust history of post-launch support has been a major boon to the multiplayer experience. Teams of fans can group up to explore the universe together, building and sharing massive bases and even taking on specially designed multiplayer missions for an elaborate catalog of cosmetic and gameplay rewards. In a universe as vast as this, there’s no wrong way to play.

3 Terraria

A 2D Triumph

2D survival games are something of a rarity, but that hasn’t stopped Terraria from becoming a hit. This sandbox game’s deceptively simple art style hides an incredibly elaborate system of customization, exploration, and creation. Players can adventure to take down a group of imposing bosses, or simply enjoy the title’s sandbox and build to their heart’s content.

Players can take on Terraria‘s procedurally generated sandbox solo, or they can team up with several friends. Like with many other survival games, the tone shifts dramatically when other players are introduced. The game becomes less lonely, and easier as well. Both options are valid, and Terraria caters well to each one.

2 Valheim

Viking Villages

The Viking sojourn Valheim has yet to emerge from Early Access, but that hasn’t stopped fans from picking the game up and running with it. The title’s procedurally generated Norse afterlife is rich with danger and mystery, and its status as a proving ground for Viking souls looking to reach Valhalla means the game won’t be pulling any punches.

Teaming up with other players through the game’s online multiplayer support is a good way to even the odds. The game’s monstrous threats are much easier to handle if players have allies providing support. However, proud and stalwart warriors are still more than welcome to take on the challenges of Valheim all by themselves.

1 Minecraft

Endless Possibility

Few games exemplify the sandbox genre even half as well as the iconic Minecraft. This powerhouse of a game gives fans almost infinite choices about how to play, from the intense PvE experience of Survival Mode to the endless building potential of Creative. Players can tweak the settings of the world itself to create the perfect Minecraft experience for them.

Players also have endless choices about how many friends they want to bring into the experience. There are numerous avenues for multiplayer in Minecraft, from hosting local worlds to creating a bespoke server. There are countless fan-made servers to explore as well, offering their own unique experiences and proving once and for all that Minecraft is and always will be what one makes of it.