Survival Games Where The World Changes Around You

Survival Games are all about immersion, and setting the scenario for an adventure through the harshest environments on Earth and beyond. Some of these games are great at depicting experiences where survival is all that matters, while others are good at intertwining narrative with survival mechanics.

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Others rely heavily on defying the players to do what it takes to survive, by throwing everything it can at them. In those cases, where the main enemy is not hunger, nor dehydration, but the world itself constantly changing around them, players need to toughen up and think out of the box. This list has five games that use the environment to break players' spirits, with a world constantly shifting around them.

5 Project Zomboid

A Merciless Survival Experience Where The World Gets Worse And Worse Each Day

Day one of the Zombie Apocalypse: Players still have running water and electricity. Week 2: Some players might have already built up a neat provision of food and resources, electricity just got cut, and some smart survivors are using a power generator to keep fresh food still going. Week 4: No more running water, no more electricity. The zombies have taken over everything, corpses pile up in the streets, and some players might be among them.

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The world of Project Zomboid constantly challenges players to optimize everything they do. A silly mistake like not exercising enough, or sweating too much without drying and then going out in the middle of winter might be fatal. A sprain means instant death when surrounded by hungry undead, and there's no safe place to hide from the horde. Those survivalist players who want to run away from urbanization might find better chances in the forests, but if they don't build a shelter fast, the climate will kill them faster than the obnoxious zombies.

4 Green Hell

Mind Your Surroundings, Every Misstep Could Be Your Last

Lost in the middle of the jungle, tracking down a missing person, surrounded by wild animals that could either become a source of nourishment or the last thing players see. The merciless Amazon lives and breathes, which means that players are in the belly of the beast. An enormous beast with hundreds of ways to kill them at every misstep.

If poison doesn't kill them, perhaps a Jaguar will. A scrap without proper care becomes infected, and if players do not act fast, the fever will come, and with it, the hallucinations. The mind can break when reduced to a state of survival, and those unprepared often meet a gruesome end without knowing what they did wrong. Everything that grows and moves around in this Green Hell might be their doom, or their potential salvation if they learn how to awaken their inner survivalists and embrace the jungle.

3 Don't Starve/Don't Starve Together

A Cozy World To Explore, Or Your Worst Nightmare

The Isometric and cute-ish world of Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together might feel cozy for inexperienced players, but beware: The world will eat those who underestimate it, quite literally. From the perils of starvation to the dangerous and unpredictable wildlife, and even the antinatural creatures that roam the forests thirsty for blood, every choice might be the last players make.

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Finding the secrets of this place might take some time, so in the meantime, players will have to learn how to manage time and resources to survive the worst season: Winter. With unpredictable weather and freezing temperatures, the climate will try to crunch them down into stiff popsicles, if the monsters don't get them first, that is. The games maintain this eerie and weird atmosphere that seems to have made it out of Tim Burton's imagination, and for those thinking that is a good thing: they're sorely mistaken.

2 The Long Dark

Winter Is Rough, You Better Toughen Up

The Long Dark is a beautiful game, that perfectly reflects the solitude of winter and the loneliness of a survival experience in the Canadian wilderness. Players can pick up the story mode called Wintermute, and play as Will Mackenzie, a pilot who is seeking his missing ex-wife amidst the wild and forgotten Great Bear lands, where a geomagnetic storm took down their plane and left them at the mercy of nature.

There's also a Sandbox mode, and a Challenge mode, with several levels of difficulty. This game's world will constantly but surely try to kill players. Be it hypothermia, starvation, dehydration, or the jaws of many, many wolves, players will meet their dooms at one point during their playthrough. Slowly but steadily, they'll learn the basics, and once they do, their chances of survival will increase (a little). A truly dramatic and enthralling survival experience, that will make players think twice before adventuring far from civilization.

1 Nightingale

An Endless Challenge, Many Realms To Explore, Constantly Shifting

Nightingale defines its setting as "gaslight" fantasy, but in truth, it has a lot of grimdark and dark fantasy spots lurking around the many realms players can visit while they try to survive the events that left them stranded in the Fey Realms. Folklore always teaches about the perils of trusting the Fae, or revealing our true names in front of them, but folklore will be the least of the players' concerns in this place.

Dangerous beasts lurk among the lush treelines, hunger is an issue, and getting back to civilization will not be an easy task. First they need to fabricate a refuge, then weapons and clothing, and after that, seek the secrets of the Fae Realms and learn how to travel using the portal systems. Each time players cross to a new realm, they are able to modify (partially) what awaits on the other side of the portal, by using Realm Cards. These Fae artifacts have the power to alter reality, turning a nightmarish hellscape into a bountiful forest with many prey to hunt and berries to forage. But players should never let their guards down, since playing a Realm Card doesn't mean the dangers of the world have disappeared, as Harpies, Wolves, Giant Spiders, Bandersnatch, Jabberwocks, and even the bloodthirsty Bound could pop out of anywhere to kill them.

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