Survival Games With Unique Environmental Hazards

Key Takeaways

• Survival games offer diverse environments and mechanics for a challenging experience.
• Unique environmental hazards keep players on their toes in their struggle for survival.
• From sharks to psychological sanity, survival games offer a variety of challenges beyond just staying alive.

There are an ever-growing number of options for fans of survival games to dig into. Whether players are looking for man-versus-environment survival or more action-based survival games, there’s something to suit any taste. What’s more, these games take place in a wide variety of environments, from deserts to jungles to oceans.

With so many games incorporating survival aspects, developers have had to get creative with their settings and mechanics to stand out in the genre. The games here all have a knack for using the environment against the player in unique ways, adding an extra level of challenge in their struggle for survival.

8 Stranded Deep

Shark Infested Waters

The survival gameplay in Stranded Deep leans towards man-versus-environment. Despite the idyllic visuals of the tropical seas where players are stranded, it’s one of the more hostile environments in survival gaming. The sun can burn and cause heat stroke, there are random poisonous starfish strewn like landmines in the sand — and that’s all before players even venture into the water.

The tropical waters are teeming with menacing sharks, waiting to jumpscare players in their dinghy or attack them in the open water. For much of the game, players will be relatively defenseless against these threats, making them genuinely terrifying. The game also forces players to go between islands and even underwater to find resources, so the sharks can’t be ignored.

7 7 Days To Die

Countdown To Extinction

7 Days To Die is geared more towards combat than most survival games, with the zombie threat being ever present. Despite the game having regular environmental mechanics like heat and cold, and standard hazards like fire, the unique environmental hazards are the ones players can build themselves.

Base building is a big part of 7 Days To Die. Defending oneself from the titular seventh day horde is a large part of the gameplay loop. This, of course, includes building automated defenses to keep the zombies out. From spike pits to whirring blade traps, players can get creative with their home-defense systems. The only thing to remember is that these traps are just as deadly to the player if they get careless.

6 Grounded

Tiny Heroes, Big hazards

Grounded doesn’t have much in the way of static environmental effects. There’s a toxic gas that players have to figure out how to navigate, but that’s not new in survival games. What is unique, is how the perspective of the game turns everyday garden fixtures into deadly threats. The game’s hook of the player being shrunken down to insect size makes a big difference to how they interact with their environment.

There are plenty of moments, especially in the early game, where the threat of spiders is so great that they become more like environmental fixtures that players will navigate around than enemies they could reasonably fight. Similarly, a player can take down a few ants, but a nest of them is a true environmental hazard that must be dealt with. Being the size of a snack certainly makes survival a different prospect.

5 Don’t Starve

Psychological Damage

Don’t Starve takes a uniquely disturbing approach to the survival genre. Hazards and dangers in Don’t Starve don’t only damage players physically, they also affect their sanity. The sanity meter is a central mechanic that players will need to manage throughout the game.

This adds an extra thing to think about, as simple things like getting wet in the rain can be hazardous to a character’s mental health. Sanity is not just a countdown to death meter, either. There are all kinds of increasingly harsh effects that happen both visually and mechanically as sanity gets lower. It’s a unique approach to handling hostile environments in survival games.

4 Pacific Drive

Anomaly Detected

The drive-to-survive gameplay of Pacific Drive is unique on its own, blending extraction-style looting with vehicle maintenance. Where Pacific Drive sets itself apart, though, is in the creative design of its anomalous environmental hazards.

The nice thing about the game’s design is that players will discover these anomalies organically as they progress, and will have to work out how they function from context and clues scattered around the world. There’s everything from semi-sentient bollards to radioactive clouds to worry about, and a whole host of threats that can harm or hinder both the player and their vehicle. It’s a refreshing approach to the survival genre that keeps players on their toes at every turn.

3 Green Hell

The Jungle Is The Enemy

Thinking about real-life survival environments, the jungle is a threatening place. There are creatures that want to kill, creatures that can kill without even trying, poisonous plants, parasites, the list goes on. Green Hell takes this hostile environment seriously. The jungle here is even more inhospitable than its average real-life counterpart.

There are threatening creatures and natives, for sure, but players are just as likely to die a slow and ignoble death from illness or poisoning, until they learn to identify the jungle’s many dangers. There’s hunger, tiredness, thirst and sanity to consider at any given time, and a granular detail to the survival aspects that make Green Hell a unique survival experience.

2 No Man’s Sky

A Universe Of Harsh Environments

No Man’s Sky has introduced so much variety to the game over its years of development, that the number of environmental hazards is huge. From aggressive flora, to raging nuclear storms, what players will have to deal with varies from planet to planet.

There is some streamlining of the way hazards are dealt with in gameplay terms, which means that each planetary hazard doesn’t feel too different to the next. However, the visual effects alone can make them worth experiencing. The swirling embers of a firestorm buffeting a players’ ship, or sitting above the eerie green glow of a nuclear storm over a planet’s surface, can provide some nice vistas.

Add to that the giant worms that erupt from some planet’s surfaces as players explore, derelict freighters with their own hazards to deal with in space, and corrupted planets with their own dangers. No Man’s Sky has an impressive collection of environmental hazards that players won’t find elsewhere.

1 Subnautica

The Pressing Need For Oxygen

Subnautica‘s main hook is the unique environment of an alien ocean, and it certainly provides the otherworldly hazards players might imagine in that kind of setting. The most pressing concern for the player from the get-go is how to manage their oxygen levels. Being underwater for extended lengths, and being able to go deeper, are essential to the player’s progress.

• Oxygen management is just the surface of Subnautica‘s hazards though. Players will need to shield themselves from radiation, fight fires, and deal with harmful creatures and substances in their environment, too. One clever aspect to how Subnautica uses this is that each hazard tends to offer a unique risk/reward proposition. The suicidal blowfish that rush the player have resources waiting in their nests. Navigating the radiation lets players hunt for more advanced technology, and so on. The deeper players get in the game, the more complex the threats and their solutions get.