30 Best Realistic Survival Video Games To Entertain Your Inner Prepper

Think you’re ready for the end of the world? Try these apocalyptic survival games

Get ready to fight off a doomsday cult rising in Montana, survive in a post-collapse New York with roving gangs and pick yourself up from a crash-landing in a freezing Canadian wilderness after a global crisis, because we are digging into some of the best survival games that will test your wits and fill your apocalyptic thirst.

Prepping and survival has seen a huge growth recently, and coupled with that is the booming interest in survival games. Everyone these days wants to throw themselves into the roleplay of a post-apocalyptic world where they fight off gangs of raiders using whatever you can get your hands on or scaring off wolves with fire. We see it in books, we see it in movies and we are seeing it a lot more in games.

When it comes to a lot of these games, it’s not just about saving mankind, it’s about surviving every day and managing to get through the night. This differs from other games that focus on shooting or leveling with experience. Instead, we enjoy everything about survivalism, and these games are no exception. In this list of survival games you can expect to find wilderness survival games, realistic survival games, apocalyptic games, and of course zombie survival games.

 30 Best Survival Games To Test Your Survival Skills

Get some wood, a lighter and a coffee. It’s time start a fire and make your way through this list of the best survival games.

1. The Long Dark

If you came here because you’re sick of bulk shooting games and want something that will really test your survival knowledge in a post-collapse world wilderness survival game, then The Long Dark is one you should be looking at.

Published by Hinterland Studios and funded through a wildly successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, this game is said to be one of the hardest survival games you will ever play. Your role is to survive in a freezing Canadian wilderness as a pilot after you crash your plane in the middle of a regional area.

The developers designed the game to test the real elements of survival in a “simulation that accounts for body temperature, caloric intake, hunger, thirst, fatigue, wind-chill, wildlife, and a host of other environmental factors”. This is definitely for those of you who want to get your survival hat on in your own living room and tuck into a realistic survival game. I would go so far as to say The Long Dark is one of the best survival games on Steam.

2. Fallout: New Vegas

If you have ever played a post-apocalyptic survival game, you are most likely well aware of the Fallout games. There are a few of the Fallout series that feature in this survival games list, and for good reason too, they are the biggest and best for apocalyptic survival games. In this specific version, Fallout: New Vegas, we are in a region consisting of parts of Nevada, California, and Arizona.  The main story of Fallout: New Vegas takes place in the year 2281, four years after the events of Fallout 3.

You play as a character known as the Courier. While transporting a package across the Mojave Desert to the city of New Vegas, the Courier is ambushed, robbed of the package, shot in the head, and left for dead. After surviving, the Courier begins a journey to find their would-be killer and recover the package, makes friends and enemies among various factions, and ultimately becomes caught up in a conflict that determines who will control New Vegas and the Mojave Wasteland.

This Fallout has the same power as its predecessors of the series at drawing you in with its deep storylines, plots and subquests as well as character alignment, judgment and skill in a post-apocalyptic gameplay world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_-6ymuk9i4

3. The Division (Survival)

The Division is one of the titles most people refer to as one of the top survival games, and for a good reason, this one is very realistic, action-packed and has a lot of what we want to see in a good post-apocalyptic survival game.

As far as storylines go, The Division wins hands down. It is based in New York City where the aftermath of a smallpox epidemic has turned the city into a no-go zone with contamination rife and where chaotic gangs pick off the remaining survivors and battle for strength.

The virus in this game was planted on banknotes, and was dubbed the ‘dollar flu’. Since its outbreak, Manhatten has lost the ability to maintain order, so sleeper agents, otherwise known as ‘The Divison’ are the task force designed to restore order to the crumbling city. The Division (Survival) is an added addition to the game which bases the player on the will to survive in the city and live long enough to find antiviral drugs. The aim of survival mode is to start players with no gear and no weapons on the outskirts of a chaotic city and let them survive.

Not only do you have the gangs of Manhattan trying to kill you, but you’ve also got your sickness, thirst, cold and hunger. If you fail to keep these in check, you’re dead.

4. Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5 is great. And as far as real sh-t hits the fan scenarios go, it doesn’t get any better than this. For this survival game, we are set in Hope County, Montana. What’s going on? A preacher with a convincing touch and crazy views has risen as a powerful leader with a huge follower base to protect the people of Hope County from inevitable collapse with his religion called Eden’s Gate. Anyone that doesn’t join his violent doomsday cult is met with violence and death.

Your role is as a sheriff’s deputy sent to Hope County to arrest the preacher. When you go from town to town battling the doomsday religion followers you’re also met with level-headed locals who think the religion is crazy and join your side to help you take out the Eden’s Gate cult following.

The backdrop of this game runs on a very political issue of religious fanaticism, doomsday cult religions and the extremity of patriotic beliefs and ideologies, so it’s generally awesome.

You should probably play this game if you want to see a hypothetical situation of a doomsday cult in a regional American area.

5. Miscreated

If you ever liked that movie I Am Legend, you would probably like the game Miscreated. It is another online open-world game that involves teamwork (and a lot of trust) from other players to survive against a super strong zombie race that seems to be able to pop out of nowhere. This game also has the great world of modifications, so you can build your own base, design the way your own redneck zombie killing character might look, and you can do it all with a team of others. What’s best is that if you don’t like other players, you kill them too.

This game also has the great world of modifications, so you can build your own base, design the way your own redneck zombie killing character might look, and you can do it all with a team of others. What’s best is that if you don’t like other players, you kill them too.

6. State of Decay 2

State of Decay 2 is the ultimate in the fantasy of realistic zombie survival games. Its prequel in 2013 was a raging success as it went beyond just the usual zombie mowing with endless ammunition scenarios and delved more into zombie survival aspects such as team leadership, gathering resources, group trust, morale, your home base defenses and going on group scavenges.

It seems this is becoming the trend with zombie games and State of Decay was one of the first to really implement the micromanagement of what it would actually take to survive in a zombie apocalypse. If you are into The Walking Dead, then this is a pretty good game adaptation of the life of a leader in that scenario.

7. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds

What a game. This is a messy game where a person in a suit with a welding mask can shoot a character with no pants. Welcome to PUBG, or PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. This is basically an online battle royale which was initially developed out of modifications made for other games. The scene grew so big that it turned into a standalone game.

So what is it exactly? Picture this, at the start of a game, up to 100 players parachute onto a map which is eight square kilometres and has places to scavenge for weapons, explosives and armour. The last person left standing wins the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0Tnp-3W3z4

8. How To Survive

How To Survive is the story of how survivors meet Kovac, who is self-proclaimed master of zombie survival. Through his field manual of how to survive a zombie apocalypse, the survivors rely on Kovac’s Rules to live. Some of the rules the game is based on are pretty comedic, which is something that seems to go hand-in-hand with zombie survival games.

You can see all of Kovac’s Rules on the How To Survive site.

9. The Forest

The Forest is an open-world realistic wilderness survival game where you are the survivor of a plane crash on a deserted island. The survival is easy enough, you hunt, get food, collect wood and build your own shelter. The problem is the island is inhabited with a cannibal tribe and you are made aware of this by seeing your son dragged away from the plane crash by one of them.

The cannibals in this game are intelligent players, and react with inquisitive looks at first by trying to communicate with the survivor. They get hostile at night and are afraid of fire. Give this game a go as it is simple and survival based mode but adds a very interesting element of the outsider effect to a remote cannibal village.

10. Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead

This one is a little bit more of a different playing style to your regular smooth looking interfaces. While Cataclysm looks like a plain game it is far from it and has a huge underground following for its open source free-to-edit playability.

Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead, or DDA, follows a storyline with the backdrop of a near-future New England where a catastrophic event has wiped out most of mankind and has spawned various scenarios, dangers and of course zombies and monsters.

There is no end-all goal to this game, instead, the player is able to explore the generated map and work with NPCs, build shelters, vehicles and fight off hordes of monsters. This is of course, while keeping yourself alive through the elements of survival where your character will stay alive if you keep your thirst, hunger, temperature and health in check.

11. Survive the Nights

Survive The Nights is a highly detailed zombie survival game that was crowdfunded by thousands of backers to be a contender in survival video games. There are a lot of basics to this survival game, such as food, thirst, regulating your temperature, keeping your mental health and building your own skills through trial and error. All of this, and at night time you have a high zombie population that wants to eat you.

You should definitely check this game out as it was created with the purpose of being a real survival apocalypse game, and it has certainly hit that mark. It looks beautiful with its stunning graphics, interactions with other players and perfect day/night changes and weather pattern system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rGSgc59Hg0

12. Escape From Tarkov

Escape From Tarkov is a very realistic multi-online role-playing game set in a city where the local population has fled due to chaos and the locals who choose to stay in Tarkov are bloodthirsty gangs battling to control the city.

Tarkov is meant to be the gateway between Russia and Europe and as such there are various political and social themes at play. Not only does the background of the game have the sense of political realism, but the experience of this game gives a much more virtual sense of being involved. Weapons in this game can jam, overheat and need reloading. There are real-life ballistics and bullet physics. The customisations allow for no weapon to be the same which provides a much deeper level of gear and kits to be used by characters as everyone creates their version of ‘the perfect’ setup.

13. Next Day: Survival

Next Day: Survival is a role-playing multiplayer survival game. The whole thing takes place in a post-Soviet state, most of whose territory is contaminated by toxic fog.

The main task of the player is to survive while improving their character using skills, interaction with the outside world, other players, and non-player characters (NPC). As the game progresses, the character earns a reputation, thanks to which he/she has the option to join various factions of survivors, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

14. Days Gone

Days Gone is an open-world zombie survival game set in the Pacific Northwest where you play a drifting bounty hunter who lives on the open road and avoids staying with the ‘safe’ encampments of survivors.

Your character was a former outlaw biker, but now he’s turned good as the rest of society crumbles and gangs take advantage of survivors amidst the walking dead.

This is one of the most exciting zombie survival games to get your hands on. It’s a Hollywood movie in a game, but don’t expect the game to be out any time soon. We have been teased with plenty of sneak gameplay previews for Days Gone but the projected release date is some time in 2019.

15. Fallout 4

Fallout 4 has been the winner of more than 200 “Best Of” awards – including the 2016 BAFTA and 2016 D.I.C.E. Game of the Year. I know we’ve mentioned a few of the Fallout series before but this is the developer’s most ambitious game yet.

As the sole survivor of Vault 111, you enter a world destroyed by nuclear war. Every second is a fight for survival, and every choice is yours. Only you can rebuild and determine the fate of the Wasteland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE2BkLqMef4

16. NEO Scavenger

NEO Scavenger is a role-playing where the player controls a character that awakes in a laboratory in a ruined, post-apocalyptic world. The immediate objective of the game is to keep the character alive by finding food, clothing, and shelter, and caring for any illnesses that may befall him. Ruined towns can be scavenged for supplies, but doing so may draw the attention of nearby looters and raiders. Fighting for survival includes fending off attackers, and other beasts that may be hiding in the wastes.

17. S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is a survival horror game set in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Zone after a widespread impact of radiation from nuclear disasters cause strange changes in the area around it. The player assumes the identity of an amnesiac “Stalker”, an illegal explorer/artefact scavenger in “The Zone”. “Stalker” in the context of the video game refers to the older meaning of the word as a tracker and hunter of game or guide.

18. Project Zomboid

Project Zomboid is an open world survival horror video game. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested world where the player is challenged to survive for as long as possible before inevitably dying.

19. 7 Days to Die

7Days To Die has is one of the tops in the survival genre. The backdrop of the game is set in a brutal, unforgiving, post-apocalyptic world overrun by the undead. It is an open-world game that is a unique combination of first-person shooter, survival horror, tower defense, and role-playing survival games.

The character, weapon and defense customisation in this game is something to be admired and is definitely a reason to check it out. Again, another one of the great micro-management zombie survival games.

20. The Walking Dead: Our World

This one could be marking the future of survival games as it is an augmented reality-based team-based zombie survival game. In this role, you are looking through your phone, and what will eventually be augmented reality glasses, to shoot through hordes of zombies, much like The Walking Dead TV Series.

This one is similar to Pokémon Go, only it involves shooting, not catching.

21. Minecraft

Minecraft, whoever you are you have probably heard of this one. While it might seem like a kids game the theme of Minecraft is still exactly the same, there’s zombies, a few other monsters, and you’re not going to live if you don’t make shelter and light and eat food.

You’re in a block-shaped game with physics that don’t abide by normal laws of gravity. Still, this game has become one of the most played games in the world and for a good reason, it’s a simple challenge of the basics of construction, farming, mining and survival.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq_Q77bJ3H0

22. Don’t Starve

Don’t Starve is an open world, survival game. You are a scientist in a dark, dreary world and must survive as long as possible. To survive you must remain healthy, fed, and mentally stable as you avoid a variety of surreal and supernatural enemies that will try to kill and devour you.

23. This War of Mine

This War of Mine is a war survival video game inspired by the 1992–95 Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War. It differs from most war-themed survival games by focusing on the civilian experience of war rather than frontline combat. Characters have to make many difficult decisions in order to survive everyday dangers.

Check this one out if you are after something very different to normal survival or war games.

24. Frost Punk

Frost Punk is a different type of survival game to the others, it is a sim game, or simulation where you take control of a community, town or city trying to survive in a frozen, arctic future where humanity is barely able to survive.

Again runs the theme of a cold and dark backdrop, which makes me feel like blizzards and snow are the trends in survival games. In this one, rather than the usual monitoring of your own temperature and health, you are monitoring that of your population. The levels of the game and the depth to which you have control over your environment are great. You are trying to sustain your community to ensure its existence, so you are faced with having to have children in the population work, or creating laws to prohibit certain acts or working hours.

As you progress through the game, you branch out into other fields of societal evolution, such as laws to prohibit children working, corpse disposal, food additives and supplements, entertainment and everything else a community needs to survive.

This is a great one if you are one of those people that wants to play a Sim City post-apocalypse style of survival game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSyDcBMjbVQ

25. DayZ

DayZ is another mod game that has taken off into a huge following of more than two million players. Whatever it is about games being situated in or around Russia must be something for a common concern about Russian violence, but DayZ is another game that is built on the backbone of a violent free-for-all Russian backdrop. This one is set in the post-Soviet-Republic of Chernarus.

Of course, your landscape wouldn’t be complete without a plagued zombie-like local community, which we have here. As a survivor of this landscape, the player must scavenge the area for food, water, weapons, and medicine, while killing or avoiding zombies, and killing, avoiding, or cooperating with other players in an effort to survive the outbreak.

The player begins equipped with only simple clothes, a road flare and a rag, and must begin exploring the large landscape to investigate locations such as houses, barns, and apartments to scavenge supplies. These supplies include food and water, which are basic keys to prolonging the player’s life. Beyond the bare bones of survival, players can find various forms of clothing, weapons, extra storage space and armour.

26. Rust

You start with a rock and a torch. The rest of Rust is up to you, just survive. There is only a multiplayer mode and a prevalent concept in Rust is to form and join clans with other players. Raiding is a very common action, usually done in large clans.

If you’re someone that likes to work with people and build a bigger base than your neighbours, only to go and torch theirs down, you should probably check this one out.

27. The Last Of Us

I will admit that even though I tried to remain unbias here, out of all of these games my favourite storyline was from The Last Of Us. The depth of every character and the transition from movie cutscene to actual gameplay was completely flawless. The relationship between the two main characters of this game, Joel, a smuggler, and the teenage girl he is escorting, Ellie, is just amazing.

The game itself is great too. The mechanics of improvised weaponry, dynamic cover systems, combat engines and heightened game senses make this one pretty epic to play. If you haven’t heard of this yet, check out the trailer. You will be hooked.

28. Fallout 2

While this game is practically a collector’s item because of its age (1998) Fallout has been considered one of history’s best post-apocalyptic survival games and is responsible for the success of the rest of the Fallout series which also appear in this list.

What is it about Fallout that fans loved so much to keep them playing through from Fallout 1 to Fallout 4? It is the setting of an overly developed post-nuclear world where radiation is responsible for mutations in humans and animals, a new currency of bottle caps exist, and everyone seems to be part of a gang. Oh, and sex, drugs and alcohol play a consistent theme throughout the game. What’s not to love about that?

That, and the game has a lot of post-apocalyptic humour embedded into the storyline which is a large part of why the Fallout series has had such a succesful cult following.

29. Sheltered

Preppers and doomsday survivalists would love this game. You are in charge of keeping your family safe in this post-apocalyptic survival game where you start in your well-designed underground bunker and need to fight off any would-be enemies that come your way. But on top of that, you need to keep track of your family’s food and water rations, their mental being, and their general fatigue and sickness levels.

Check it out, as this one is a simple yet strategic game for anyone looking for an emerging out of the bunker-style survival games.

30. Last Of Us II

This is said to be the most anticipated sequels in gaming history, and for good reason, its predecessor was a box office game hit. Last Of Us II is said to be better than the first and the story was left on such a continuation that fans will be rushing to buy this one.

This sequel is one we still have to wait for, as it is expected to be released in 2019.

Do you have any favorite survival games that should be on the list? Let me know in the comment section below.

Top 30 Survival Games That Will Test Your Wits
Top 30 Survival Games That Will Test Your Wits
Top 30 Survival Games That Will Test Your Wits
Top 30 Survival Games That Will Test Your Wits
Top 30 Survival Games That Will Test Your Wits

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