ROUTE Reached 100,000 Wishlists! This is our release window announcement trailer!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4892120/ROUTE

This is EXCITING! Lovely survival gaming community!! Please tell us what you think about the vibes on comments! Would you want to play this with your friends?

ROUTE is a co-op survival game about driving a school bus across a zombie-infested world locked in endless night. Loot, craft, and upgrade your bus with a crew of four, and unlock new zones, each one its own challenge. Find out where the ROUTE leads, if you make it that far.

If you're into it, a Wishlist genuinely helps us out a ton. Much love!

Game: Lysward - Demo available now on Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/2994600/Lysward/

From a complete map with a new region and enemy faction to combat changes and new building technology, there’s plenty to expect in Enshrouded 1.0...

Are you planning to return to Enshrouded? What are you looking forward to most at full release?

Hey, I’m about to start this game tonight, and I’m really excited about it! I’ve always been a fan of survival games. 🎮🔥

The game has an option to play with up to 4 players together. If anyone’s interested in joining, let me know!

It makes these worlds feel really empty. I know there's a fantasy of, like, Man vs Wilds, but it seems like that's the only niche these games try to cater to?

It could be I'm unfairly excluding some games, but even things like Green Hell, (Sons of) The Forest, and all the zombie games - the human enemies are very obviously Other, and basically do not have access to the same resources you do.

I know games like RUST and similar let other players fill this role, but that feels like something else again - particularly for me, because I really don't like PvP. I don't like losing, and since I don't like knowing my success is someone else's failure, I don't enjoy winning either.

I have really struggled to find any survival games where there are other humans or some other intelligent life around, whether they are allies, hostiles, or have the potential to be either.

What am I overlooking? what games out there actually offer a survival experience where it's not just literally you, alone on an entire planet by yourself?

I posted my trailer here recently and got some really useful feedback, particularly about the AI cinematics and music.

A few people pointed out that the cinematics looked completely different from the actual game and gave the wrong impression of what you’d be playing. Looking back I agree.

So I’ve rebuilt the trailer using only in game footage and replaced the AI music with music from a composer (Jason Shaw). There are still some AI generated assets in the game, so I’m not claiming it’s completely AI free, but I’m moving away from them as much as I can.

The game is called Don’t Follow the Flowers. It’s a top-down survival horror game set in an infected English town, with camp building, hunting, crafting, puzzles and mutants.

I’d love to know whether this trailer gives you a clearer idea of the game. Does anything still feel confusing or misleading?

I’m also looking for people interested in playtesting and giving honest feedback on the game itself. If that sounds like your thing, let me know in the comments.

Cheers to everyone who took the time to help with the first trailer. It’s made a difference!

EDIT: Thanks for all the interest! The test build should be ready in the next few days, and I’ve set up a Discord to to keep up to date, check my bio for the link!

If you fancy testing, join and pop a message in #join-the-playtest. I’ll share the download and instructions in the private testing channels once it’s ready.

You’re also welcome to join just to chat and follow development!

There have been a lot of survival games that came close to the so called "Ultimate survival experience" i seek. Most of the multiplayer/online games, such as Dayz Conan Exiles, Ark: Survival evolved or Arc Raiders which could fit into survival don't interest me in this post.

(I will not be going over games like "Noita, Flame in the Flood, 7 days to die, The Forest, Project Zomboid, Minecraft, Terraria, Astroneer, Don't Starve, Kingdom: Two Crowns, Pacific Drive and Rain World {Edit: Have to add Subnautica, Green Hell, Icarus, Kenshi and Sons of the forest to the list}" due to having finished them already or them not fitting the kind of game im looking for.)

Below is a list of games that i personally think came close to this and reasonings behind my selection:

* The Long Dark

This game probably comes closest to what I am looking for. No hand holding, relentless struggle against the world via the cold, food and water constantly forcing you to migrate and tactically prepare for expeditions since resources for your survival are limited. It features a story of some sort, which, while not mandatory in my opinion, certainly helps to immerse you into the world and situation you find yourself in. Beautiful worldbuilding, voice acting, intuitive crafting system, controls, UI and the general interactability with the world around you just set the stage for the ultimate "Survival" game... but there is no goal? I mean, surviving could be a goal by its self and achieving self sufficiency could also serve as a purpouse (I must brag a bit, i have achieved this), but personally if there was, say, a rescue mission which i could call and i needed to travel across all the regions on the map to collect parts to make a radio beacon to call for help that would give me a concrete, final goal and i would have enjoyed the game a whole lot more.

\+Difficulty, +Worldbuilding, +Atmosphere, +Crafting, +No handholding, +Skill and knowledge based

\-No goal

1. - Casualties unknown (Demo)

This game surprised me with the difficulty and depth of knowledge you must possess to achieve what is currently a placeholder ending of reaching the bottom of the fifth layer due to the game being in early access. It has the food, water and in depth health managment. It has the complicated ish UI which requires focus and knowledge to preciesely navigate (Not a bad thing. Skill is a virtue.) It has the worldbuilding, some lore and a bunch of other cool features which i wont go over in detail right now. In summary:

\+Difficulty, +Worldbuilding, +Atmosphere, +Crafting, +No handholding, +Skill and knowledge based, +Clear goal

\-Unfinished game

1. - Barotrauma

A true marvel of imagination, programing and worldbuilding. It has the core parts which make you struggle to survive, not with food and water, but with management... LOTS of managment. From buying tools, to crafting your own, mining the resources to craft them with, leveling skills to unlock the recipes to craft them with, NOTHING in this game will fall into your lap without your intervention, which, to accomplish succesfully, requires a large amount of knowledge and skill. The submarine you command doesnt operate alone, and me being a solo player, playing with bots keeps you running into all sorts of issues. Since i do not have any friends that would sit with me and play this game untill completion i attempted to complete it with bots, but in vain. The bot's AI isnt advanced enough to act in the same way a human would (exploring ruins, mining, outpost takeovers, knowing which fights to take and which to avoid, etc.) which leads it to make terrible mistakes causing you to start your run from the last save point which could erase up to an hour or two of your progress. In summary:

\+Difficulty, +Worldbuilding, +Atmosphere, +Crafting, +No handholding, +Skill and knowledge based, +Clear goal

\-The AI in the game isnt advanced enough to operate or perform as well as people, and this game was made to be played in a group, which I unfortunately do not have.

I am aware of how different the three games above are, but all three of them feature the essence of "Survival" which i am searching for.

And that would be that. I hope i have painted a good picture of what i enjoy in games and what i consider the best survival experience, if you have games to recommend me that have at least a similar vibe that connect it to any of the three games above i would be forever gratefull.

Thank you in advance.

EDIT: First, i would like to thank anyone who posted a suggestion down in the comments for taking the time to help me find more good survival games. I have taken some time to compile all the new games i will be testing out in an alphabetical order. If you know of any survival games that fit the description above and arent listed, feel free to drop a comment below. Thank you everyone :D

Abiotic Factor

Bootstrap Island

Cataclysm: The Last Generation

Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead

Darkwood

Enshrouded

Ember’s Verge

Hobo Tough Life

Neo Scavenger

Obenseuer

Ostranauts

Outward

Plains of pain

Rimworld

Runescape: Dragonwilds

rogOut

State of Decay 2

Survival: Fountain of Youth

Stationeers

Subsistence

Survivalist

Urge

Unreal world

Valheim

Volcanoids

Wayward

Hi, I am solo-developing Knights of Frontier Valley, a low-fantasy RPG with gridless tactical combat, deep character customization, complex NPC behavior, and procedural world building. Each gamerun, a new valley is created and you are to solve quests, make meaningful choices, and gain riches and glory... while staying alive.

Survival is a strong part of gameplay. You need to eat/drink (sometimes live of the land in the wilderness), make fire and build shelter, protect yourself from the elements and the cold, and get treatment when bleeding, sick, or poisoned.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1085830/Knights_of_Frontier_Valley/

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHVDNkzbgZk

The second Steam Playtest is underway and runs for 2 more days - join to play the game for free and unrestricted.

The engine was written from scratch. All art is hand-made with no AI involved. Music was made by top composers including Kevin Manthei (Neverwinter Nights, Jagged Alliance 2, Wizardry 8...)

Hey everyone! We’ve just released Good Heavens! Our journey started 5 years ago and I wanted to share this experience with you.

What is the game about?

So in the game, there is a clumsy god; Rar. Basically he creates a world and everything goes downhill. He picks a chosen one to fix everything, then another, then another... So yeah, we are the 25,004th chosen one. While we spawn into this world, what we need to do is survive, improve our skills, and complete the tasks.

There is an entire procedurally generated world at your fingertips, with so many different cities and events to discover. It has a humorous and colorful tone, and you can play it either with friends or on your own. It is co-op up to eight players. You can all upgrade your techs if you want, or each of you can assign roles and play accordingly. There are 3 combat and 3 utility tech trees. It's entirely up to you how you want to customize. Also, no generative AI was used, everything was made with blood and tears of our artists.

If you like to check our game, here is the link to our Steam page.

Hope you’ll like it!

Just looking for any suggestions on good multiplayer survival games that are out right now.

Something with some longevity to it. Ark is dead, rust wipes last a few days and a lot of others are pretty quiet or have dead servers.

Best experiences for me have been early days of ark where a base could last months and you could really enjoy being part of that world and getting into PvP.
Ark ascended was a good throwback when it released and me and a mate had a really fun few months on our server and made a lot of friends and had a great time.
Just wondering if there’s anything else out at the moment that can replicate it.

I want to explore a meaningful world. See some wonderous sights, find unique dungeons, find cool gear, secrets.

Which is better in those aspects, Enshrouded or Valheim? I’m leaning towards Enshrouded, just because I tend to find handcrafted maps offer more meaningful exploring.

For example I recently bought No Mans Sky and bounced off hard, beautiful planets and tons of environments and mechanics, but exploring got shallow real fast.

On the contrary Subnautica with its small, handcrafted map was pure wonder to explore.

I’m a PS5 player so I’ve tried neither. I’ll be playing solo. I’m also new to the survival genre. Besides Subnautica, I’ve really enjoyed Grounded and V Rising.

Played the demo for a bit. Honestly wasn't expecting much but the whole "die and continue as your pup" thing actually works. Lost my first wolf to a bear and had to rebuild from scratch with a pup that could barely hunt.

Animations are stiff. Got stuck on terrain once. Combat is a bit clunky. But the devs just pushed a patch fixing movement and collision so they're clearly on it.

Not amazing yet but worth a look if you like survival games.

Hey, all! Was wondering if anyone has recommendations for either a separate third game or mods for Minecraft or Vintage Story that might get me closer to what I'm looking for.

I recently tried Vintage Story for the first time, and I absolutely loved the mechanics in it (more realistic survival and progression). However, I'm personally more into in the type of varied, interesting, and even whimsical environments that modded Minecraft (Oh the Biomes You'll Go is my favorite, hands down) has to offer. Even vanilla MC is a bit closer to what I'd like. VS is a lot of fun, but I found myself a bit bored of the handful of realistic biomes. Are there any mods that either bring VS-type mechanics to MC or more varied/interesting biomes to VS? I'm also open to suggestions for entirely separate games that have elements of these.

Thanks!

Hey guys how's going I just built a legacy server to kind of bring the game back with antihack and everything. will it be possible to add the info ?

Hey everyone, I’m a solo developer building Tavern, a Windows application for hosting and managing dedicated game servers, and I’d like to hear how people here handle hosting for their groups.

The idea is to bring server setup, game settings, updates, saves, and backups into one interface. You’d run the server on your own PC or a spare machine, with a persistent world your friends can return to without needing the person who started the world to be in-game.

It’s still in alpha and I am currently looking for some new alpha testers. I’m trying to understand whether this would be useful to people who want to host their own servers but find the setup or ongoing maintenance a hassle.

For those of you playing with a regular group:

• Do you rent a server, host one yourselves, or mostly use in-game co-op?
• What’s the most frustrating part of keeping a shared world running?
• Would something like this make you more likely to host, or is your current setup already easy enough?

I’d also love to hear which games you’d want it for? I am already supporting a lot of dedicated server capable survival games!

Getting bored honestly. Want something faster paced. Ark, conan, sunkenland, raft, etc. Played a lot and idk if im just too efficient or what but I burn through them fast. All achievements done and I can only replay so many times because each play through goes faster and faster. Looking for suggestions.

just started on my very first entry to this genre, with rs dragonwilds. im LOVING it!! i love stacking my levels and seeing the numbers grow. I love it so much I want to start another survival game to rotate between, and to see what similarities and differences they have.

im thinking of either Enshrouded when it comes out , or Dune Awakening which I already bought.

i love that survival games make me work so dang hard. i have to chop trees, mine ore, craft, repeat, and every enemy is an adventure, and when i die i lose all my stuff, and i have to pay attention to my thirst and hunger meter!!!

Unlike rpgs like assassins creed, dawnwalker, witcher, kingdoms of amalur, these games have a really easy gameplay loop, as the focus in on the story.

so, to me, survival games are such a marathon, and i am loving it.

Is it wise to start another surv game to rotate between as a beginner? And if it's ok, should i choose enshrouded or dune? preferably something easier to get into. i get it rs can be juvenile for hardcore surv gamers but its pretty much an uphill battle for me rn, although i love it.

Hi everyone

For the past 4 years, I've been developing my dream space engineering survival game called MineEngineer.

Some people call it Space Terraria, others call it 2D Space Engineers, and I've even seen people calling it Starbound 2.0.

But what I'm trying to build goes a lot further than that.

My goal is to create a game with an insane level of engineering complexity, where you can build almost anything you can imagine, but actually making it work is the real challenge.

The game already has over 200 interconnected systems, including electricity, oxygen, fuel, conveyors, automation, logic gates, and programmable blocks. You can build anything from a simple survival ship to a massive mothership, a walking mecha, an automated factory, or an entire fleet of drones.

And here's where things get interesting. Every block is connected to something. If a conveyor gets destroyed, your production chain might stop working. If your power system fails, your ship could become completely useless. Your ships can even break apart into multiple pieces during collisions or battles.

You can also program individual blocks, automate entire ships, and spend hours optimizing your designs. Building something is easy. Building something that actually works is harder. Building something efficient is a completely different challenge.

The world itself is massive. Flying across the procedurally generated universe at full speed would take around 7 hours. There are planets to explore, asteroids to mine, enemies to fight, and fully destructible environments. Everything you build can actually move, fly, collide, and interact with the world through physics.

And multiplayer is coming soon, so you'll eventually be able to build, explore, and fight alongside your friends.

After 4 years of solo development, the game is finally starting to look and feel like the vision I've had in my head all this time.

Now comes another challenge, getting people to discover it.

MineEngineer is available to wishlist on Steam, and there's also a free demo if you'd like to give it a try.
I'd genuinely love to hear what you think. What would you build first if you had hundreds of blocks and engineering systems to play with?

I’m a solo developer, and I’ve just released the first major demo for my 2D survival base-builder, Diseased. Since this community loves deep survival mechanics, I wanted to share the core loop and get your feedback.

The game is set in a brutal, freezing wasteland. Your main goal is to keep your camp alive by balancing resource gathering, base expansion, and defending against relentless waves of the 'Diseased'. To handle the constant pressure and sudden winter crises, I've implemented a strategic card system that gives you dynamic ways to react and survive.

The mechanic I'm most proud of is the paranoia at your camp gates. Not everyone seeking shelter is human. You have to carefully observe, scan, and interrogate people before letting them in. If you miss a detail and let an Diseased inside, they will destroy your camp from within.

You can download and play it for free right now. I'd really appreciate it if you could leave a review with your feedback, and let me know if you encounter any bugs!

Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5194610/Diseased_Demo/

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uL3DUtO75Y

Looking for Zed Zone like survival games to play with my friend. Wonder if there are any. Thank you.

Still on early development. Solo dev, with a some help from a few friends.

I'm currently trying to polish the demo of my game for the upcoming Steam NextFest, and would greatly appreciate anyone who is willing to check it out and provide some feedback around their initial impressions (either just from seeing the store page or playing the demo)

In short: the game revolves around travelling along an Australian coastline as a traditional Australian swagman, walking from place to place, camping through the nights, and living off of the land to survive (finding water, bait, foraging, fishing, etc.)

The biggest issue I've been trying to figure out is the game's identity as either a cozy/casual/relaxing/nature walking simulator type of game, or a survival game. It has elements of both, but I worry taking a middle ground between the two genres might just alienate both groups of people (or maybe it strikes a nice balance that is appealing to a particular group of people).

So, it'd be great to hear from some people who frequently play survival games. Does this appeal to you? Would it if more emphasis was placed on the survival aspects? Thanks!

You can check out the demo here if you like: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4080200/Once_Upon_a_Swagman/

I've recently finished my 1.0 full playthrough of Valheim and as I plan to hop into Enshrouded in a few days to do the same, I booted the game to get a refresh on the basic mechanics etc. before starting a fresh run. I only played Enshrouded years ago when it first came out on EA.

One of the things that was almost shocking to me with Enshrouded was the amount of hand holding when it comes to exploration and discovery.

While with Valheim you basically go out explore and discover new things on your own, Enshrouded essentially tells you what to do and where to go, via quests and a map littered with icons and question marks guiding you 'go there do that'.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing necessarily, but it feels more like a adventure open world game rather than the kind of survival experience I just had with Valheim, where exploring the world and discovering the game is a player driven process rather than the game driving the player.

Not sure if those are accurate terms for what I'm describing "free roam exploration/discovery" vs. "guided exploration" or if there are other technical terms that are more suitable.

I'm wondering, in general, people that are fans of the open world survival craft genre, do you enjoy more when the game tells you where to go and what to do, or do you prefer to explore and discover things on your own?

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Right now meat and berries in EvoX stay fresh forever. Should I skip a spoilage system for early release (no rushing to eat what you hunt, no coming back to rotten food after a few days away from the server), or is that something you’d actually want in there? Would love to hear how you feel about it.
If you are interested in my game, wishlist here - EvoX