The immense popularity of survival games is easy to understand: fighting to stay alive is hard-coded into our DNA, so it makes sense that we'd become engrossed in experiencing it in games. The best survival games on PC push players to their limits, presenting them with difficult problems and challenging them to find creative solutions.
In such a popular genre, which games provide the best survival experiences? In the list below you'll find our favorite examples of simulated survival on PC, whether it's among the stars, deep underground, and in other dangerous environments packed with monsters, mutants, zombies, dinosaurs, or the deadliest enemy of all: other players. Here are the best survival games on PC.
Frostpunk
In a sentence: Survival, city-building, and crisis management in a frozen world.
Status: Released April 24, 2018
Frostpunk is a blend of city-building, society simulation, and survival in a grim and frozen world. With a handful of cold, hungry, unhappy people, you'll need to construct a working city inside a snow-filled crater heated only by a massive coal furnace. Gather resources, hunt for food, and manage your citizens by giving them hope for the future. It's a harsh and beautiful survival game that confronts you with difficult choices at every turn.
The Long Dark
In a sentence: Atmospheric survival in a Canadian post-apocalypse.
Status: Released August 1, 2017
With a focus on atmosphere and environmental survival, The Long Dark stands out in an increasingly crowded genre. You play as a bush pilot stranded in the frozen wilderness after a mysterious global calamity. There are no zombies, no mutants, and no other players: it's just you fighting against the elements, the wildlife, and your own human fragility.
Subnautica
In a sentence: Survival, crafting, and building—underwater.
Status: Released January 23, 2018
Explore an alien, underwater world while piloting your hand-crafted submarine through mysterious submerged landscapes. From beautiful coral reefs to deep-sea caves and trenches, you'll gather resources and sustenance, build habitats and a fleet of subs, and craft new tech to help you survive the depths. It's hard not to compare it to Minecraft, yet developer Unknown Worlds has put their own unique stamp on the survival genre.
Oxygen Not Included
In a sentence: Keep a handful of 3D-printed colonists alive in a dangerous and expanding underground colony
The best games are those that are easy to learn and difficult to master. Oxygen Not Included fits that bill: jumping into it and learning the basics is a snap, but fully understanding it takes a lot of time and effort. While it's adorable, the colony-builder is also deep and complex as it simulates its harsh subterranean environment. You'll need to manage your colonists hunger, happiness, cleanliness, and naturally their clean and breathable oxygen as they dig out caverns, gather resources, build machinery, and try to turn a harsh environment into a comfortable underground home.