Best Survival Games With High Replay Value

Among all of the video game genres, survival titles are some of the most popular games ever made both for hardcore gamers and general audiences.

In many cases, survival games are the ultimate culmination of sandbox games, often allowing players to freely explore vast landscapes and worlds to their heart's desire.

While some survival games are limited to solo adventures, others allow players to join a group of friends or encounter random players within a server to make explorations far more fun or challenging.

Oftentimes, these features, on top of entertaining crafting systems, engaging wildlife designs, intriguing enemy designs, and enigmatic stories or mysteries to unravel, keep players coming back to survival games time and time again, giving them high replay value.

10 7 Days to Die

The Horror of Zombie Hordes

Several survival games have a bit of horror in them, not to be confused with titles within the survival horror genre seen in games like Resident Evil. One of the best games to lean more towards horror is 7 Days to Die.

Set in a nuclear wasteland infested with zombies, 7 Days to Die has players spawn either in a randomly generated world or in a pre-set area of post-apocalyptic Arizona where they must craft and loot items in order to survive against zombies, mutants, and other players for at least seven days.

Every seventh night, a blood moon will rise and cause hordes of zombies to viciously attack the player, which can easily destroy strongholds and eliminate players if ill-prepared.

This gameplay loop already makes 7 Days to Die highly replayable, as players can attempt to survive in each of the game's five biomes, struggle to learn new skills such as building robots and vehicles, or simply try to survive in the game as long as possible with enemies becoming increasingly difficult every seven days.

9 Subnautica

Ryley Robinson's Aquatic Alien Journey

Unknown Worlds Entertainment's Subnautica is quite unlike most other survival games as the game is not only set on an alien world, but it's primarily played underwater.

Here, players embody the lone survivor of the spaceship Degasi, Ryley Robinson, on the alien ocean world of 4546B, as they struggle to survive in the planet's unknown seas and attempt to find a way off the planet.

Along the way, players will have to research 4546B's vast aquatic wildlife, recover materials from the crashed Degasi, and build underwater outposts and vehicles to explore the planet's treacherous, leviathan-filled depths as well as the planet's mysterious alien temples.

While the story of Subnautica may not have too much replay value on its own, the gameplay and world of the game does, as players can attempt to research every animal on the planet, build bases in each available area of 4546B's oceans, or even attempt to complete the game in hardcore mode.

8 The Long Dark

Canada's Harsh Wilderness

Many survival games have players explore areas with multiple biomes or environments, but sometimes the best survival titles are those that only focus on one particular area, with a perfect example being Hinterland Studio's The Long Dark.

The Long Dark can be played in two ways: either in the episodic story mode following plane crash survivors Will Mackenzie and Astrid Greenwood or in the open world survival mode where surviving the harsh arctic climate is the only objective.

These two modes on their own already provide The Long Dark with ample replay value, but its complex gameplay mechanics encourage players to play the game multiple times in order to learn how to best survive the game's 12 icy regions.

Unlike other survival games, players will have to manage their temperature to not get hypothermia or frostbite, requiring players to craft warm clothes, fires, and food in order to survive, but storms and hostile wildlife will make surviving The Long Dark a constant challenge.

7 Rust

Safety in Numbers

Many players can find comfort going alone in survival games by being able to freely explore vast landscapes solo, but Facepunch Studios' Rust is designed to test players' survival and social skills as the game is entirely online and PvP multiplayer oriented.

Here, players can join official, community, or private game servers where players are dropped into random, procedurally generated open worlds filled with three biomes, abandoned structures, and other players who can either become allies or arch enemies.

By its very nature, Rust is highly replayable, as players are likely to die multiple times by other players before they get the hang of things and maps routinely reset players' progress and structures built, bringing everybody on a server back to equal footing after a certain period of time.

Every playthrough of Rust will be different from the last, such as one being focused on friends striving to build a well-guarded base, while another could follow a solo player making friends with random players and going off attacking bases, raiding ships, and exploring underwater shipwrecks.

6 Sons of the Forest

Mutant Mayhem

Endnight Games' The Forest was already one of the most highly replayable survival games on the market when it initially released in beta form in 2014, but virtually every aspect of the game was greatly improved in its 2023 sequel, Sons of the Forest.

Much like its predecessor, Sons of the Forest follows the player embodying a survivor of an aircraft crash on a seemingly desolate landscape as they're forced to use animals and resources nearby to survive, all while fighting cannibalistic tribes and mysterious grotesque mutants.

What makes Sons of the Forest better, though, is the addition of two NPC companions, Kelvin and Virginia, who can help players carry materials, craft items, and even fight enemies, which have newfound variants and abilities such as mutants being able to hide in trees or the grotesque, bipedal, multi-fingered Fingers mutants.

In terms of replayability, players can have a ton of fun playing through Sons of the Forest's story solo or with up to seven other players, or simply try to build the best structures and survive as long as possible with friends in hardcore survival mode.

5 Valheim

A Treacherous Afterlife

Iron Gate Studio's Valheim is a survival game quite unlike most others as it's not only played entirely in third-person, but it's also set in a fictional Norse afterlife realm known as Valheim with players embodying a slain Viking striving to reach Valhalla.

This premise alone already makes it one of the most unique survival games on the market, but it's additionally an RPG, with players being able to upgrade their skills, gain power-ups, and fight mythological bosses in various biomes on top of traditional survival game mechanics such as crafting and hunting.

What makes Valheim have high replay value is the various different ways players can explore this Viking afterlife realm, as each world in Valheim is procedurally generated, making every world and hence every playthrough a bit different from the last.

For example, one playthrough could have a group of players explore the realm primarily by sea in Viking longships, fighting massive serpents, while another playthrough could be centered on trying to build the most structurally stable bases possible in each biome.

4 The Isle

The Best Dinosaur Survival Game

Most survival games, and games in general, have gamers only play as humans, but one of the best survival titles to let gamers play as not one, not two, but over 15 dinosaurs and prehistoric reptiles is The Isle.

The Isle is essentially the dream game for everybody who grew up obsessed with dinosaurs as kids, as the game allows people to play as dinosaurs and large prehistoric reptiles from an egg to adulthood, with players having to maintain their hunger, thirst, and stamina in order to survive.

Every playable dinosaur and prehistoric reptile can be cosmetically customized before they hatch, but as the creatures grow, players can select certain mutations to increase the prehistoric animals' stats or grant them unique abilities such as xerocole adaptation, which allows herbivores to gain some water when eating plants.

The Isle can be played in a practically infinite number of ways, such as someone playing as a motherly pterandon raising and supporting newly hatched players till they're able to fly and hunt on their own, while another playthrough could see someone attempt to become a stealthy deinosuchus.

3 Grounded 2

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

Movies have often explored how living life from the perspective and size of insects would be in films such as Ant-Man and Downsizing, but no game explores this concept better than Obsidian Entertainment's Grounded 2.

A sequel to 2022's surprise hit Grounded, Grounded 2 follows the same group of kids from the first game as they're once again shrunk to the size of bugs and must survive in a public park where grass now appears like a vast jungle and spiders are monolithic predators.

Much of the same gameplay mechanics from Grounded 1 return in Grounded 2, but there's a lot more to do in Brookhollow Park as it features nine distinct biomes which can be explored either on foot or by taming ant or spider mounts which can also aid players in combat.

Grounded 2 is currently still receiving updates as it's still in early access, but this makes the game highly replayable to see how the game has changed over time, such as Obsidian recently adding a new garden area, ladybug mount, and a snake colossus in a recent public test.

2 No Man's Sky

Exploring Strange New Worlds

Much has changed for Hello Games' No Man's Sky since it first launched in 2016 to mixed reviews, but over the decade, the space survival game has turned out to be one of the best survival titles out there.

No Man's Sky is an open world space survival game with some of the most expansive settings and gameplay mechanics ever seen, with players able to spawn on and explore over 18 quintillion planets complete with their own unique environments and alien wildlife.

Players can use crafting materials to construct outposts and spaceships, among other in-atmosphere vehicles, and use said spaceships to explore the galaxy, board space stations, and take part in dogfights against other players or NPCs in space akin to space battles seen in Star Wars.

Essentially, there's a limitless number of activities to do and planets to explore in NMS, giving it high replay value, as players can attempt to visit every planet alone or work with friends online to build a thriving trading settlement on a planet, complete with museums and friendly NPC residents.

1 Minecraft

Vast Blocky Worlds

No Man's Sky may be a near perfect space survival game and be the greatest gaming comeback of the century, but to this day, I'd argue that the best survival game with high replay value is the absolute blocky classic, Minecraft.

Minecraft is the benchmark for nearly every survival game out there, with most survival titles utilizing similar gameplay mechanics as Minecraft, namely its crafting, inventory, and health systems.

Despite being nearly 17 years old, Minecraft is still as fun to play as it ever was in survival, creative, or hardcore mode and the game is still constantly changing thanks to Mojang's numerous updates and content drops introducing new mobs, biomes, items, and more, such as the new Copper Golems and Nautilus.

I still go back and play Minecraft for a long time every year, and it's still as fun to create new worlds, build houses, defend villages, and explore caves, the Nether, and the End with friends as it ever was, and I'm always excited to see how Mojang will rejuvenate this iconic blocky game next.