The Best Survival Games That Let You Play Your Own Way

Part of the great appeal of survival games is that the player is thrown into a dangerous world, and it’s up to them to survive and thrive. That means playing whatever way suits the player best. Maybe that means playing aggressively and hunting down threats, or playing as the peaceable trader. It’s all up to the player.

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Luckily, there are plenty of great survival games that let players play whatever way they so desire. This list is ranked not just by the quality of the games covered, but by how much freedom they give the player to play their own way.

8

Sons Of The Forest

Cannibals And Mutants Make Interesting Neighbors

Survival

Open-World

Survival Horror

Systems

Released

February 22, 2024

During the early and mid-2010s, when open-world survival games from indie studios were dominating the gaming world, The Forest stood out from the crowd by injecting the genre with a much-needed dose of procedural horror gameplay, where the player is forced to survive on an abandoned island full of horrific beasties.

Sons of the Forest, the sequel, was released in 2024, and it was worth the wait. Improving on almost every single element of the original game, Sons of the Forest refines the fantasy of making a player survive against horrors however they like, whether that’s avoidance, gathering a strong backpack of items, or going to war with their cannibal and mutant neighbors.

7

DayZ

Zombie Survival Incarnate

Released

December 13, 2018

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood, Strong Language, Violence

In the early 2010s’ indie open-world survival game boom, none defined the period more than DayZ, once a mod for ARMA 2, then an infamously buggy but widely beloved standalone game. DayZ plops the player into a massive open world with no guidance. The map is full of zombies and players willing to make their day hellish.

Survival in the world of DayZ is all about tactics, risk, and reward. Going into cities means better loot, but also other players who could be aggressive. Players are free to choose whether to stick to the countryside or head into the thick of the action and even forge friendships or start clan wars if diplomacy is really (or really not) their thing. And that’s saying nothing about the game’s vibrant mod scene, further increasing player agency.

6

Subnautica

Deep Sea Terror

Survival

Horror

Open-World

Science Fiction

Released

January 23, 2018

ESRB

E10+ for Everyone 10+: Fantasy Violence, Mild Language

Somehow, it took until the tail end of the survival game boom of the 2010s for a dev studio to commit fully to rendering the open-world survival game formula in an entirely underwater setting. Subnautica became one of the smash hits of the year, and one of the most unexpectedly terrifying survival games ever made.

Players are forced to fend for themselves on a hostile ocean world after they crash-land there, but after that, it’s up to them what to do. If they’re a builder, they can spend loads of time building the perfect mega-base, or if they want some thrills, they can try exploring Reaper-infested waters for rare loot. It’s entirely up to them.

5

Valheim

Norse Neverending

Systems

Released

February 2, 2021

ESRB

r

Every indie game developer dreams of the reception that Valheim had when it first released. Capturing the zeitgeist perfectly with a unique setting and visual style, Valheim stormed the gaming world and brought many players back into the survival genre that had reached peak saturation some years before.

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One major reason Valheim works is the freedom it offers players. While the game is ostensibly about hunting down massive God-like creatures, building, hunting, and PvE elements mean players are free to do whatever they like in the beautiful voxel-based world.

4

Terraria

The Great Competitor

Released

May 16, 2011

ESRB

T for Teen: Blood and Gore, Cartoon Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol

It’s hard not to feel bad for Terraria. Despite having a massive fanbase all its own and being successful in almost every way, it hurts to imagine what Terraria could have been like if it hadn’t been released directly in the shadow of Minecraft, which was beginning to reach truly massive levels of popularity in 2011 for the first time.

In the modern day, many players have returned to Terraria and love the level of freedom the game gives with the truly massive amount of content to work through. People tend to put hundreds of hours into a single save file, meaning that survival game fans will find something fulfilling to do no matter how they want to play.

3

RimWorld

Sole Survivors

Released

October 17, 2018

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ due to Blood, Use of Drugs, Violence

In the world of base management simulations, player freedom is absolutely key and a major expectation for any game in the genre. While some players want to min-max their bases, others want to cause utter chaos and have their weirdest dreams come to life.

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RimWorld, the modern successor to the isometric base-building game Eclipse Colony, is one of the best places to find that kind of freedom today. Though its art style is basic, it offers unparalleled freedom and emergent gameplay that adapts to whatever the player finds fun to do.

2

Dwarf Fortress

The Great Chaos Simulator

Roguelike

Strategy

Simulation

Systems

Released

August 8, 2006

ESRB

t

In the world of emergent survival base-builders, no game is more legendary than Dwarf Fortress. Infamous for its incredibly difficult gameplay and the almost inevitable disaster that faces the poor dwarves under the player’s stead, few games offer as much freedom as Dwarf Fortress does.

Even better, a modern re-release of the game has done away with the classic ASC2-style graphics in favor of a more simple and immediately readable style that’s far more inviting to new players. This is one of the best games ever made, and the new version makes a great game even better and much more approachable for newcomers.

1

Minecraft

The Ultimate Sandbox

Released

November 18, 2011

ESRB

E10+ For Everyone 10+ Due To Fantasy Violence

It is truly difficult to imagine any other game that gives the player as much freedom as Minecraft does. Providing procedurally generated and functionally infinite worlds, the player can do almost anything they like, whether that’s building massive towns, going on emergent adventures, or reaching The End and the end credits of the game.

That’s saying nothing about the near countless custom servers and mods that make an infinite game ever more expansive. There are story servers, RP servers, servers that replicate The Hunger Games, and so much more. Minecraft is the ultimate survival sandbox that lets the player play however they please.

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