There's a ton of love for survival games. It's about keeping your vitals in check, like making sure your character is healthy while venturing into the unknown. If you're looking for some great survival games to enjoy right now on PlayStation 4, check out our list below. There is certainly no definitive list as we all have our own personal opinions so of course we want to know your favorite survival games on the platform as well.
#15 Winter Impact
Impact Winter immerses players in an alternate reality where Earth has been struck by an asteroid and forced the planet into a new glacial-style winter. With most of humanity destroyed and few resources around, our game follows a scrappy little band. Fortunately, they discover that help is on the way, but they will have thirty days to go before they reach the group. It's up to the player to keep the party alive and healthy until help arrives.
Overall, throughout the game, players will venture out into the open and secure resources. From there, he manages the party and the items in hopes of making the necessary last while continuing to demand more items and gear. The game had mixed reviews at launch and since its release the title has been pulled from select retailers and markets. So depending on your region, you might not be able to dive into this game right now.
#14 Fallout Shelter
Fallout has been such an iconic RPG franchise for Bethesda. During the year, we saw the release of several episodes that offered players a new vision of this post-apocalyptic wasteland after the nuclear war that reached the whole world. However, Bethesda surprised fans by bringing a new kind of Fallout experience to players with Fallout Shelter. This video game immerses players in gameplay where you play as an overseer, who is basically the ruler of a vault. Set up like a management style of a video game, players constantly update their vault with new inhabitants and rooms. However, the more you add to the vault, the more power and resources it takes to not only power the vault, but also to ensure that the inhabitants are taken care of.
However, there is even more to worry about than making sure the power is running and resources such as water or food are under control. Some hostile enemies may attack the safe and break in to steal your belongings. This means you'll need to make sure your dwellers are building up the heat to deal with any enemies that make their way through the group. Similarly, players can send their dwellers to search for other resources to bring back to the vault, but this is also risky as you may run into a hostile enemy who may overpower your character.
#13 The Survivors
Team17 is perhaps best known right now for its franchise, The Escapists. Picking up this style of graphics and game mechanics, this studio released a survival game called The Survivalists. This game focuses on single-player or working with friends online where your protagonist is dropped on an island and forced to survive, which is done by exploring, collecting resources, and building necessary equipment or shelters. From there, you'll need to manage your resources and explore more, fight enemies, and collect goods. The more you progress, the more you can expand the makeshift city you have created.
This game has also had packs to add more content into the mix such as The Survivalists Monkey Business which adds more in-game items. This is a fairly new game at the time of writing this description as well as The Survivalists which will hit the market in 2022. That said, because this game is so new and updates are coming out, the developers are making various adjustments, some of which have been more popular than others. It's worth talking about because you'll probably find plenty of updates to further improve the gaming experience. For example, the latest update gave players the ability to farm, upgrade structures and even new items such as a Fast Raft.
#12 Don’t starve
Don't Starve is a pretty iconic survival game, as it has been around since 2022. In the game, players take on the role of a scientist forced to live in a dark world. It's about keeping your vital signs and mentality stable. However, what has kept gamers enjoying this game is the number of updates that keep coming out. For example, one of the biggest updates that is still loved and talked about online today is Don't Starve Together. As the name suggests, you have the standard feel of the game, but have been developed to allow multiple players to join in and attempt to survive together.
# 11 DayZ
DayZ has been around for ages now and was very successful when it first launched in the market. This is an MMO that places players in a post-Soviet republic during a zombie pandemic. Fallen on the map, all you have to do is gather supplies and try to survive in the difficult world of the various hostilities that could break out. Just like other survival games, it's all about keeping your vitals up and making sure you have enough resources to spend your time.
However, what really made this game popular was the other players that could be found randomly. Being on a big map, finding another person can be tense. You never know what kind of player you will meet. Maybe it will be friendly, or you might find yourself trying to take the opponent for their resources. That said, you also can't rely on the player being truly alone and not having a nearby caravan to help them when it's time to strike.
# 10 Ark: Survival Evolved
Ark: Survival Evolved is quite a popular game and one you might have heard of before if not played. It is an online action-adventure game where you are left on the shores with nothing and no real objective. Instead, the game focuses on players' ability to survive and gather resources on the island with other players as well as hostile dinosaurs. You'll need to keep your health, stamina, oxygen, hunger, and thirst in check while picking up goods. These products are made to make and build your own bases to live in.
It's a mix of keeping your vitals, basics in order while having the ability to tame the dinosaurs that roam the area. You will, of course, have other players to interact with, but for the most part he mostly survives the elements with Ark: Survival Evolved. A game that is a bit more PvP based and has somewhat similar attributes found in this game is Rust if you are after more than one player battle.
Similar to other games on this list, Ark: Survival Evolved also offers expansions for players, which add more creatures, resources, and even locations. However, what you may also find interesting is that Ark: Survival Evolved even managed to get two spin-off games. Ark: Park is a virtual reality game that allows players to push back a base of the different dinosaurs while PixARK is a survival game with similar elements to the original installment, but this time with a voxel-style world. Both spin-off games are also available on PlayStation 4, but with Ark: Park you'll need PSVR access.
#9 7 Days To Die
7 Days To Die is a game that seems to be coming a bit for survival fans. It is a game that mixes traditional survival elements with horror gameplay. In 7 Days To Die, the world has been hit by nuclear war, leaving most of humanity to turn into mindless zombies. From there, the remaining survivors try to get by day by day. Throughout the game you will have to find shelter, food, water, not to mention resources that would be good to use against the enemies that are heading your way.
As the name suggests, on the seventh day a massive mass of zombies will invade your area and it's a battle to keep your structure fortified as you try to survive the night. At the start of the week, you focus on gathering resources and crafting to help build structures used to help defend against attacks. It may be a trial and error procedure for a little while until you manage to find a way to keep your walls solid and ready for a brute force fight.
There is also a multiplayer component that you might be interested in. It allows players to create their own games hosted on a server where groups can connect, communicate and interact with each other. You will also have the option of going through the game in a survival game mode or in a mode that aims to be creative.
# 8 Conan Exiles
Although the title of the game is named after Conan, this MMO does not put players in the role of Conan the Barbarian but you are thrown into his world. Players managed to get saved by Conan at the start of the game and from there you are left alone. Being an exile, life is hard and you are left to your own choices. The scorching wasteland is no place to roam and there are creatures and other exiles to worry about when exploring.
Overall, in this game, you will have many areas to explore and stories to tell about how this world works. In terms of gameplay, it's still a survival game where players have to deal with things like hunger and thirst. You will need to gather resources, craft goods, and fight enemies, whether in PvP or PvE. It is also a game that emphasizes progression with experience points. The more crafts and battles you complete, the more experience points you will have to unlock attribute customizations or different crafting recipes.
# 7 Frostpunk
Frostpunk is the latest game, as of this writing, from 11 Bit Studios. This independent development team released This War of Mine and followed Frostpunk, a somewhat similar game release. It's another survival game for players to endure much like This War of Mine, but instead of taking control of a small group stuck in a siege of war, this game puts players under the control of a massive group trying to find a safe haven after a massive winter. the apocalypse strikes. The only way the groups survive is to build shelters around a massive coal-powered generator. In this frozen tundra, players will set up camp around a generator and start putting their civilians to work.
To keep everyone alive and healthy, the group is forced to work in several areas. You have hunters to collect food, medical teams to treat the sick, explorers to find other survivors or resources, and laborers to help mine coal, collect wood, among other useful materials that can help the community to grow. As mentioned, this generator requires fuel, ensuring you not only have enough coal to keep the machine running, but also that the heat reaches the needed areas around the camp.
As more survivors find the area, there are more mouths to feed, houses to build, personnel to add to the job, and the constant threat of low morale. If you can't keep everyone happy, fed, warm, and ultimately alive, you risk being kicked out of the small colony farm in the ground. Just like This War of Mine, this studio has also developed DLCs to add more content for players to go through which adds a new storyline and in-game resources.
# 6 Minecraft
It's hard to find someone who doesn't know what Minecraft is. This game exploded and became a global phenomenon and for good reason. It is a solid exploration and survival adventure video game that players of all ages can enjoy. Players are dropped into a procedurally generated world that is full of resources to gather. Although there is an endgame, most players will find some fun just exploring the open world and gathering resources to survive as long as possible. This includes collecting basics early on, including food, wood to craft different tools, and creating a structure to protect you from hostile enemies that pop up during the night.
As you progress, you will eventually acquire enough resources to gather better tools and equipment to take advantage of any global challenges in the game that may come your way. Players can also get creative in this game with the ability to create unique structures or equipment. It doesn't take long before your simple hut structure turns into a mansion, whether you've laid out fields to grow crops, or set up a solid mine shaft to gather more resources. precious. You will even find fans throwing seeds or necessary settings to select when creating a new world to bring out other unique worlds full of challenges or benefits.
Likewise, although the Minecraft video game has been around for years now, it's still heavily supported with new content added to the title through a series of updates. As a result, Minecraft can feel a bit fresh on a regular basis with developers adjusting the game world, whether it's new biomes for in-game items.
#5 The Long Darkness
The Long Dark is an episodic adventure through a game that you can enjoy right now. In this title, players take on the role of a pilot named Will Mackenzie. The power is gone and it has left much of humanity on the run for safe havens if they didn't perish trying. In this adventure, Will works with a woman named Dr. Astrid Greenwood in hopes of transporting something of great value. You will of course have to play the game to find out what it is.
In this harsh tundra of Canada, the plane falls leaving our duo stranded and lost to each other. In hopes of surviving, Will must monitor several vital signs such as keeping warm and gathering resources. You'll need to make fires, keep them lit, and even purify snow water to make sure it's safe. It's also a pretty hostile world now with nature taking over the cities. You may find yourself facing a hungry wolf if you don't check your surroundings carefully.
# 4 No Man’s Sky
When No Man's Sky was announced, it was incredibly packed. The features and content promised by Hello Games sounded too good to be true. Players could basically take on the role of a space explorer who can travel to any planet and make discoveries. However, what makes things even more unique is the large amount of planets available and within them the different biomes, creatures and plants. It was something so big that the chances were practically non-existent for two players to discover the same planet. As a result, this was going to allow players to plot locations for others to see.
That said, the game came out for disappointed fans. There were a lot of missing features and attributes that players had hoped for which caused the game to be abandoned. It took a long time for Hello Games to bring out the promised content and it's basically a bit different today in what the title proposes. You'll often hear online gamers recommend trying the game again, especially if you only played it when No Man's Sky was released.
There's definitely a bit more content to chew on now than before, but it's also a fun survival game. While you mostly move through space from planet to planet, the focus is on gathering resources to keep traveling. You'll need all kinds of resources to keep your ship running, but there's no telling what the planet will look like when you land. It could be incredibly poisonous, hot, cold, in addition to being home to several hostile creatures. For this reason, you'll need to make sure your suit is capable of withstanding the elements to stay alive. Otherwise, you'll need to find the best time of day to get out of your ship or base to scavenge for resources to leave.
#3 This war of mine
When you think of war-based games, you mostly think of FPS, strategy games, and third-person action titles. However, there is one iconic survival title that really left an impact on the genre and it's a game people still highly recommend trying today. In This War Of Mine, players take control of a group of civilians, trying to survive the harshness of being pinned down during a siege. With snipers surveying the area during the day, the main time to go out and search for resources to keep your party healthy, fed, and comfortable happens at night.
It's a different world during the siege as people grow desperate. Your morality will be on the line as you make difficult and sometimes heartbreaking decisions. Meanwhile, there is always the threat of a stranger or a group showing up at your doorstep. Have you fortified the area well enough, is the group likely to be trusted, or will you see them as prey for cargo to steal?
This war of mine certainly puts you in a position that you don't often think about during wars and that you hope never becomes a reality that you have to face. However, in a video game world, you are allowed to tempt fate and see how things may turn out. There are even DLCs that have been put in place to give players more storylines to go through. Currently, it doesn't look like the development team at 11 Bit Studios is producing any additional DLC, they even created another survival title known as Frostpunk which mainly focuses on city building.
#2 The Forest
The Forest puts players in the role of Eric LeBlanc who travels with his son. While flying over a wooded area, the plane crashed and Eric set out to find his son Timmy, but it's clear he's not alone. In this forest there is a tribe of cannibalistic mutants with whom you will have to deal even if their tactics are not always aggressive. You will have to create a base and deal with the hostilities that occur. It's certainly an interesting AI in this game, as the tribes feel like they're studying you in hopes of finding the best way to deal with this new threat. They can try to attack, run away, stay away from you, even find where you stay at night to create different structural threats, keeping you on the lookout.
As always, in survival games, it's all about keeping your character healthy. You'll have a variety of featured stats such as hunger, hydration, energy, stamina, and overall health. You will need to make sure everything is ready in the green in order to stay alive and ready for the next barrage of attacks you may face.
# 1 Subnautica
Subnautica is a futuristic survival game. Players take on the role of an astronaut, tasked with finding other planets to colonize. However, something goes wrong and your ship crashes into a mostly aquatic world. Being the sole survivor of this ship, players are forced to venture into the deep blue depths in hopes of gathering resources to survive and potentially escape.
It's a somewhat tense game that takes place in the oceans below. There's the constant threat of losing oxygen, not to mention taking care of your other health vitals along the way, like hydration and nutrition. Plus, there's the threat of hostile creatures that not only live in the water, but are perfectly suited to fast maneuvering, keeping you on your toes of what may be lurking.
However, if you are looking for a challenge, you may find interest in the hardcore mode. In hardcore mode players are forced to have only one life and this means that if you die during gameplay you cannot load a checkpoint or save a state. Instead, you are simply forced to replay the entire game again.
Overall, the game is all about escaping the planet, which will end the game, though you can just see how long you're able to stay alive without leaving outright.
