The Best Survival Games on Steam According to Users

The open-world crafting and survival genre continues to be one of gaming’s fastest-growing avenues, and it’s easy to see why. Once games like Minecraft had taken off and inspired an entire generation of gamers to seek open-world sandbox experiences where they could flex their creativity, there was no going back, and those same players have been chasing that thrill ever since, from one survival game to the next. The following 10 survival games are some of the best available on Steam according to the players themselves, who continue to prop these titles up as exemplars of the genre thanks to their satisfying gameplay loops and immersive worlds that continually beg to be explored — whether solo or with a friend.

• Release Date — February 2, 2021
• Developer — Iron Gate AB
• Publisher — Coffee Stain Publishing
• Steam User Score — 94% (Very Positive)

Iron Gate’s Valheim got off to a strong start and never slowed down. Taking the elements and mechanics of an open-world survival and crafting game and melding them with the combat of an action RPG, setting it in a beautiful, dreamlike version of Norse mythology, and adding in some co-op for good measure, Valheim is a game that was poised to be a success right from the get-go. Accordingly, Valheim remains one of the most popular games in the survival genre on Steam, still boasting an impressive 15-20,000 daily player count and holding a 94% “Very Positive” average across nearly 500,000 reviews.

• Release Date — January 19, 2024
• Developer — Pocketpair
• Publisher — Pocketpair
• Steam User Score — 94% (Very Positive)

Another game in the survival genre whose premise was a recipe for instant success, Palworld was practically a global phenomenon when it launched. What else would you expect from a game that players jokingly referred to as “Pokémon with guns”? In reality, Palworld is much more than that, merging the addictive monster collecting and training of the Pokémon series with the base-building and combat of an open-world survival game, delivering what many players wish the actual Pokémon series could be. It seems like the lawsuits against Palworld filed by Nintendo have done little to slow it down, too, with the game still hitting between 40-50,000 daily players.

• Release Date — December 6, 2018
• Developer — Lo-Fi Games
• Publisher — Lo-Fi Games
• Steam User Score — 95% (Overwhelmingly Positive)

The survival genre can be hard to break into for newcomers, which is only further exacerbated by how brutally difficult some of the games in the genre can be at first. One of the most notoriously challenging, but also most-loved, games in the genre is Kenshi, which takes the “survival” moniker very literally in its first few hours. What’s amazing about Kenshi is how players can evolve from being an absolute nobody with a near-zero chance of survival to an enigmatic post-apocalyptic warlord, but don’t expect the path to get there to be smooth.

• Release Date — April 30, 2018
• Developer — Endnight Games
• Publisher — Endnight Games
• Steam User Score — 95% (Overwhelmingly Positive)

Along with games like Subnautica, The Forest would end up being one of a handful of titles to help popularize the survival and crafting genres and bring thousands of new players into the fold. And it remains one of the more beloved titles in the genre, thanks to it being many fans’ on-ramp to the mechanics and gameplay loop of survival games. As the sole survivor of a plane crash, you have to fend for supplies and build a makeshift shelter, all while digging into the mystery of the island you’re on and avoiding conflict with bloodthirsty mutants. But The Forest manages to make all of it fun to play, which is why it remains one of the more popular games in the genre.

• Release Date — July 22, 2025
• Developer — Deep Field Games
• Publisher — Playstack
• Steam User Score — 96% (Overwhelmingly Positive)

The fastest rising star in the survival genre is undoubtedly Deep Field Games’ Abiotic Factor. One part survival game and one part co-op Half-Life, Abiotic Factor already had a strong showing in Early Release before exploding in popularity following its launch into 1.0 last month. And like some of the other best games in the genre, Abiotic Factor‘s popularity is helping to bring plenty of newcomers into the fold as an entry-level experience that teaches players the ropes of the survival and crafting genres.

• Release Date — April 23, 2018
• Developer — Klei Entertainment
• Publisher — Klei Entertainment
• Steam User Score — 96% (Overwhelmingly Positive)

After putting out a handful of excellent side-scrolling action games, Klei Entertainment would try its hand at something different and end up producing its most successful game to date. Don’t Starve is pretty much what it says on the tin: a survival game in which your main goal is to simply — what else? — survive. But the process to achieve that goal is anything but simple or boring, with plenty of twists, turns, and darkly comedic misfortune along the way that have managed to make it one of the highest-rated games in the genre.

• Release Date — September 10, 2024
• Developer — Coffee Stain Studios
• Publisher — Coffee Stain Publishing
• Steam User Score — 97% (Overwhelmingly Positive)

The idea of merging the automation genre with the survival genre is a stroke of genius, and it ended up producing one of the survival genre’s best games with Stasifactory. There’s something so satisfying about scavenging for supplies in order to further improve and refine your factory, increasing production and improving your facility in an addictive gameplay loop that’s almost impossible to walk away from. If you thought Factorio was dangerous, it’s best to steer very clear of Satisfactory, as you might find yourself never playing anything else.

• Release Date — October 17, 2018
• Developer — Ludeon Studios
• Publisher — Ludeon Studios
• Steam User Score — 97% (Overwhelmingly Positive)

Ambitious colony simulator RimWorld has been around for quite a long time, making it one of the older survival games on this list. But Ludeon Studios has never stopped refining and improving the game, which has helped it remain one of the most-loved games in the genre, along with being one of its most mechanically complex. One of the main pulls of the survival genre is the unique stories and scenarios that players can experience from those titles’ emergent gameplay, and it’s something that RimWorld has in spades.

• Release Date — May 16, 2011
• Developer — Re-Logic
• Publisher — Re-Logic
• Steam User Score — 97% (Overwhelmingly Positive)

Re-Logic’s Terraria is a classic in the survival and crafting genres that took its biggest cues from Minecraft, but eventually evolved into something else entirely. Unlike most of the games in the survival genre, which typically are first-person experiences, Terraria is a third-person side-scrolling action-platformer, making as much part Metroidvania as it is a survival game. But like the best survival games, players are only limited in Terraria by both the limits of their creativity and their imagination, making it easy to see why it remains one of the highest-rated and most-played survival games on Steam.

• Release Date — January 23, 2018
• Developer — Unknown Worlds Entertainment
• Publisher — Unknown Worlds Entertainment
• Steam User Score — 97% (Overwhelmingly Positive)

2018 was a banner year for the survival genre, largely thanks to games like The Forest and Subnautica. Out of the two, though, Subnautica has earned the most praise from players, maintaining an impressive 97% “Overwhelmingly Positive” user score from nearly 300,000 reviews. That tens of thousands of players are still flocking to Subnautica to explore its underwater depths all these years later is a testament to the game’s lasting prominence as one of the great titles in the survival genre.