The 10 best survival games to play right now

This roundup brings together the 10 best survival games around right now.

While survival games come in all shapes and sizes, they often bring to life high-stakes scenarios that will test your resourcefulness, ask you to overcome challenges, and ultimately get you to try to stay alive in all kinds of hostile environments. From base-builder games like Palworld to adventures steeped in lore for you to uncover, the nature of the genre also means they make for some of the best strategy games since you usually need to keep your wits about you and juggle management sim-like elements.

Taking into consideration firm favorites as well as the latest new games, we've included picks across all platforms so you can find something to try out. And if enjoy the genre, it's also worth considering checking out our dedicated ranking for the best survival horror games if you're after some more tense survival experiences. But for the best survival games you can play right now, read on.

The best survival games to play right now are...

10. Enshrouded

One of the biggest breakout hits of 2024 is Enshrouded, and it's fast becoming one of the best survival games ever. The dark fantasy adventure sees players stepping into the role of the Flameborn as they explore a vast open world, filled to the brim with all manner of hulking foes to vanquish while constructing a new life for yourself. It's an online multiplayer offering, meaning you get to band together with up to 16 friends or strangers on your perilous journey.

Its blend of action RPG and survival game makes for a great mix, so be sure to add it to your wishlist if that sounds like a good time to you. Like most survival games, though, there is a challenge to this one, so be prepared for a tough journey, but also a rewarding one if you choose to pick it up.

9. Don't Starve

Don't Starve and don't be fooled by those charming, hand-drawn, Tim Burton-esque graphics. This is as dark, brutal, and unforgiving as survival games get, with strong roguelike elements that make slaying weird monsters – evil spiders and creepy pig-men a specialty – as important as collecting the materials you'll need to craft tools, traps, and weapons, or simply stay warm and cook your food. Don't Starve is a game where you need to manage your time and resources carefully, and regard permadeath as another step on a learning journey. The longer you survive, the more seems at stake, and isn't that what survival's all about?

With some cracking additions like the Reign of Giants, the nautically themed Shipwrecked, or the standalone multiplayer Don't Starve Together expansion that lets you play with your pals, Don't Starve has so much to offer, and even after all these years, it's still holds up as one of the best open world survival games out there.

8. Palworld

The Palworld craze has gripped many, turning it quickly into one of the best survival games out there right now. The Pokemon-like involves catching and battling Pals across a large open world, using them to help build out camps and outposts that later must be defended from PvE raids. There's a multiplayer component, too, largely involving teaming up with guildmates to venture out into the wilderness together.

After being some of a sensation when it first launched, it's still going strong with a thriving playerbase to get involved with. But don't be fooled by its cute looks; this game is pretty dark. In fact, in our Palworld review, we wrote: "Palworld is a strange and obliviously cruel game that nonetheless shows effort and some real thought running through its core design." If you are after a wholesome affair, stick to classic Pokémon for sure.

7. Grounded 2

While it's currently still in its Early Access period across PC and consoles, Obsidian's excellent sequel, Grounded 2, is well worth diving into if you're looking for a great survival game that you can also play with pals. Packed with crafting and base-building that allows you to create your own shelters, you're shrunk down to the size of an ant and thrown into a literal playground which serves as big open world setting with plenty of mysteries to unearth.

Complete with combat, puzzle solving, and buggies that you can use as a mount to roam the lands, you can try to overcome various challenges with friends, or try to survive solo. With boss fights, you'll have to also contend with all of the critters that roam as you set out to gather resources, get stronger, and complete quests to uncover more of the story.

6. Rust

It's safe to say that Facepunch's survival sandbox game isn’t for everyone. It's legendarily challenging and hardcore in its nature, and the biggest question isn't whether you'll die, but whether it's the wolves, the bears, the patrolling helicopters, or the other players that will get you first.

Everyone spawns naked in a random male or female avatar, and you're stuck in a desolate landscape where nearly everything that moves wants you dead. Yet for some players, nothing beats Rust's brutal, unforgiving nature and fraught combat, or the bonds it creates between players once they learn to trust one another. It's always going to be divisive, but Rust keeps evolving in interesting ways.

5. Valheim

After finally leaving Early Access in 2026, there's never been a better time to get stuck into Valheim. One of the best tree-punchers on the market right now, it adds a sense of overall purpose to the challenge of, you know, not dying. You're a battle-slain warrior whose soul has been ferried to Valheim, the 10th Norse world.

You must slay Odin's ancient rivals and bring order to Valheim, but also try and reach the final world and find rest. It offers co-op for up to 10 people, ship-building and sailing, and tons of mythology, among the usual best survival games affairs too. There's lots for you to do in your quest, and the game is still getting supported with regular patches after it's 1.0 launch.

4. Minecraft

These days, we think of Minecraft as a kiddie-friendly creative wonderland, so we forget that at its core, there's a brilliant survival game. Mining for materials, crafting tools and building a shelter is still as tense as it ever was, with one eye watching for sundown and one ear cocked for the moans of zombies.

Forging your first decent weapons feels like a big achievement, and there's plenty of excitement to be had in farming and foraging in an epic, unknown landscape, or fending off exploding creepers before they can breach your fortifications. We love Minecraft for its creativity, but there's still a thrilling game underneath.

3. Frostpunk 2

Developer: 11 Bit Studios
Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S

Blending city builders with a story-rich campaign and combat base-building, Frostpunk 2 is one of the best survival games for its sheer effort to elevate its predecessor and then some. Taking place some years after the events of the first game, Frostpunk 2 tasks players with continuing to prosper in a barren, icy wasteland. Tactics are key to success, with the game expanding the player's arsenal of tools considerably to put it more in line with one of the best 4X games in terms of the size, scope, and breadth of gameplay potential.

In our Frostpunk 2 review we discuss how surviving in the sequel is a lot tougher too thanks to expansion of mechanics writing: "Though its moral quandaries don't pull at the heartstrings as hard as it did back in "simpler" times, it challenges the mind just as sternly thanks to the expanded management systems and scope, the need to manage factions and politics on top of individual needs, and a great story mode that taught it all to me." It may get tricky at times, but trust us when we say, this is one survival game experience that will be oh so worth your time and effort.

2. Raft

Developer: Redbeet Interactive
Platforms: PC

For a game to limit its play space to a few square feet seems like a bad idea. What are players going to do to fill the time? On the contrary, says Raft, if they want more room to explore, they're going to have to build it.

Set almost entirely on the makeshift watercraft of the title, Redbeet Interactive's survival game is all about life at sea, tasking players to upgrade their vehicle, explore mysterious islands, fend off ocean-faring predators, and hopefully find their way back home before its too late. Think Fortnite meets Subnautica, and you get the idea, not to mention the reason for its inclusion on this list of best survival games.

1. Ark: Survival Evolved

Take survival, add sci-fi and dinosaurs, and you have the bare bones of Ark: Survival Evolved. The game has built a huge fanbase despite dated visuals and a harsh difficulty level because it makes the business of staying alive so exciting. This is no doubt helped by the fact that, beyond the giant reptiles and other hostile beasties, it's other players who pose the biggest threat.

Build and upgrade your base and set traps, and you'll live a little longer. Join forces with a tribe and wage war on others, and you'll live longer still. It's not every game where you can tame a Saber-tooth or ride a Megalodon, and no other game does survival on quite this T. rex scale.

Next check out our list of the best city building games or head over to the comment section here and let us know what your top survival game is at the moment.