Best survival games on PS4 and PS5 (US)
Essential Buyers’ Guide
Experience hostile worlds where your resourcefulness, instincts and craftiness mean the difference between life and death.
Myth and legend
Brave the fantastical in worlds filled with mythic creatures, legendary gods and ancient arcana.
Conan: Exiles | Funcom
Set in Robert E. Howard’s brutal fantasy realm, this sandbox action survival game can be enjoyed alone or online. Your warrior must build a home and craft weapons of war to survive a vicious and vast open world.
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Tribes of Midgard | Norsfell Games
It’s Ragnarök, the Gods are gone, and dark beings are hunting for the sacred Seed of Yggdrasil that your Viking clan is sworn to protect. Explore the land, craft weapons and defend your home from Giants.
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Worlds unknown
Strive against environments both hostile and unfamiliar — uncharted locations filled with uncertainty and peril.
RUST: Console Edition | Double Eleven Limited
Rust brings you into its world naked and leaves you to fend for yourself. Build yourself up from nothing while struggling to survive against the elements, animals and other ruthless players.
ARK: Survival Evolved | Wild Card Games
You are one of hundreds of players trapped on ARK, a hostile island designed to test your survival instincts. Tame over 100 prehistoric creatures as you plot your escape from this vast sandbox environment.
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Subnautica: Below Zero | Unknown Worlds Entertainment
Submerge yourself in an all-new, sub-zero expedition in an arctic region of Planet 4546B. Arriving with little more than your wits and some survival equipment, you must set out to investigate what has happened to your sister.
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Stylish settings
Not all survival games need to be gritty to be tense — some of PlayStation’s most enduring survival games are surprisingly colorful and family friendly.
Minecraft | Mojang AB
In addition to its incredible creative mode, this cube-centric classic boasts a deep survival mode where you mine resources, build shelters and craft weapons by day to prepare for the horrors at night.
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Terraria | Re-Logic
Descend into dangerous, resource-rich caverns and gather the materials you need to craft your own cities and build the gear necessary to keep you alive. This 2D sandbox game has just celebrated its 10-year anniversary – and is still an essential for all action and survival fans.
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Don’t Starve: Console Edition | Klei Interactive
Keep hunger, monsters and even madness at bay in an oppressive, randomly generated sandbox world. The stakes are high in this challenging roguelike where death is frequent—and always permanent.
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When order breaks down
Fight for your existence in worlds brought to the brink — where normality has vanished and only a savage struggle for existence remains.
Vigor | Bohemia Interactive
Nuclear war has left Europe devastated. All that remains is a tiny slice of post-apocalyptic Norway. The result? Outlanders fighting each other for valuable resources to build their Shelters. You’ll need to venture out into ‘Encounters’ to improve your safe haven. But be careful: these Encounters are dangerous!
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This War of Mine | 11 bit studios
Experience the realities of war from the perspective of a small group of civilians struggling to survive amid the chaos. Scavenge supplies under cover of night, and make tough decisions for the greater good.
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Frostpunk: Console Edition | 11 bit studios
Frostpunk puts you in charge of an entire society as it struggles to adapt to a new ice age. Your decisions will shape the growth, the technologies and even the laws that govern the last city on Earth.
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Lost in the wilderness
Far from civilisation and beset by harsh environments and savage wildlife, your only means for survival is your ability to adapt.
The Forest | Endnight Games
You’re the only survivor of a plane crash and somehow that’s the least of your worries. Now trapped in a remote woodland, you’re next on the menu for its population of cannibalistic mutants. Can you survive The Forest?
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The Long Dark | Hinterland Studio
Authenticity is at the heart of this intelligent sandbox survival experience. Every second—and calorie—counts while you explore the dynamic Northern Canadian wilderness in punishing sub-zero temperatures.
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Stranded Deep | Beam Team
As a castaway left marooned on an island somewhere in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, you’ll hunt for resources on land and at sea to craft tools, develop skills and build your new home. You might even befriend a volleyball…
Green Hell | Creepy Jar
The Amazonian rainforest becomes your personal hell.
Lost in this dense, enormous jungle, you must take care of both mind and body if you are to endure isolation in an uncompromising environment.
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12 Best PS4 Survival Games (2023 Edition)
Whether your special snake is flying around in the wind or you’re a cartoon that looks like it crawled out of a Tim Burton pitch meeting, survival games are a lot more eclectic than people give them credit for.
Sure, there was a period where basically everyone wanted to be the next DayZ, but if you look a little closer on this list of the best PS4 survival games, you’ll notice that each game is different to the next.
The PlayStation 4 doesn’t really have nearly as many survival options as its PC counterpart, which is down to PC just being a far more natural home. When most survival games make their way to console, they’re not exactly what you would call shining bastions of technical ingenuity, the likes of DayZ and 7 Days To Die examples of that. However, with a little bit of patience, developers are able to bring their base building and dinosaur riding up to scratch.
Here, then, are some of the survival games you can find on PS4 that managed to successfully make the trip over from PC while allowing you to go swimming with the fishes, wear a horse mask while you kill zombies, and customise your “private place”. Video games are weird. Anyway, all of these survival games for PS4 will also work on PS5 thanks to backwards compatibility.
The Best PS4 Survival Games
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12. Conan Exiles
Conan Exiles
Developer: Funcom
Publisher: Funcom
Players: Single-Player & Multiplayer
A survival game perhaps best known for its willies than anything else it brings to the table, Exiles is a light bit of fun adapted from the Conan universe, though it does ultimately just feel like it’s using the name for clout.
Base building is present and is widely regarded as some of the best of its kind, as is the customary jank for most survival experiences on console. The monsters are eclectic and the world worth exploring, but Conan Exiles is overall a safe and just about solid survival experience.
Funcom has supported the game fairly well over the years and with a large expansion having released in 2021, it’s a good time jump in.
11. ARK: Survival Evolved
Ark Survival Evolved
Developer: Studio Wildcard
Publisher: Studio Wildcard
Single-player/Multiplayer: Single-player & Multiplayer
While it’s true that ARK is still a tad unoptimised on PS4, there’s no denying its kitchen sink appeal.
Dinosaurs and sci-fi is the aim of the game here, as is punching exotic animals square in the face until they die.
Base building is available, and while it’s tempting to drop this out of the list altogether for its horrendous UI that looks like it was made on Microsoft Paint, the simple pleasures available in ARK cannot be denied.
Those simple pleasures involve riding a kangaroo creature around. Is ARK actually the most pioneering game of all time? We’re not saying it isn’t.
10. Stranded Deep
Stranded Deep
Developer: Beam Team Games
Publisher: Beam Team Games
Single-player/Multiplayer: Single-Player
Pick somewhere that you wouldn’t like to be stuck. Odds are that you probably said a haunted house, or in an awkward conversation with your mother about what she just found under your bed. More terrifying than those, though, is the ocean.
As difficult as you would expect a game about trying to forge an existence on a desert island to be, Stranded Deep sees you diving deep into the sea for goodies while trying to avoid the local predators, whether that’s a shark or something, much much bigger.
Technically speaking, Stranded Deep isn’t the best looking survival sim on PlayStation 4, but it’s certainly one of the most rewarding.
9. How To Survive
How to Survive
Developer: Eko Software
Publisher: 505 Games
Single-player/Multiplayer: Single-player
A top down survival game, How To Survive opens with you crashing on an island swarming with zombies. An irreverent narrative and a cast of characters charm enough to keep you invested, as well as the basics of staying hydrated and fed enough to intrigue most survival fanatics.
With it being available on the ultra cheap, collecting all of the pages in a survival manual is a fun distraction that is at its best with some friends in tow via co-op. There’s even a second game, though that doesn’t quite have the same magic.
8. Rust: Console Edition
Rust Console Edition
Developer: Double Eleven/Facepunch
Publisher: Double Eleven/Facepunch
Single-player/Multiplayer: Multiplayer
It really is a marvel that Rust even works on the PS4 to begin with, owing to just how much it demands of even high-end gaming PCs.
The port takes some fairly significant hits across the board to somehow make the experience work on console, but if it’s misery and misanthropy you want, Rust: Console Edition still provides just that.
Despite being quite stripped back when compared to its PC counterpart, Rust: Console Edition has a lot to learn in lessons that will feel extremely harsh sometimes. All of your work can disappear in a matter of minutes thanks to the machinations of others, but once you get rolling, Rust offers highs unlike many other survival games out there.
However, if you don’t like PVP and haven’t got at least a few hours spare every single day, Rust might not be the best fit for you. Really, that might be a blessing in disguise — Rust can be a lot.
7. Death Road To Canada
Death Road To Canada
Developer: Rocketcat Games
Publisher: Rocketcat Games
Single-player/Multiplayer: Single-player & Co-Op
The aforementioned horse mask game, Death Road To Canada is very silly in its nature, though with a dark twist here and there.
Imagine The Organ Trail and Zombies Ate My Neighbours had a baby and you’re not that far off.
Death Road puts you on the titular road to Canada as you look to escape a zombie apocalypse with you picking up plenty of weird and wonderful new friends along the way. Each day some new challenge is thrown at you, making each day of progress feel like a miracle.
Don’t let the game’s cutesy pixel art put you off, though: it’s called a Death Road for a reason.
6. Minecraft
Source: VentureBeat
Developer: Mojang
Publisher: Mojang/Microsoft
Single-player/Multiplayer: Single-player & Multiplayer
You know what Minecraft is; your nan knows what Minecraft is; people who have been dead for 100 years know what Minecraft is. While more of a slow-burn creation game than outright survival, it’s not something you should take lightly, despite appearances.
The building and survival phenomenon is what you make of it, so if you want to build an obscene monument or simply try to outlast the Creepers and Zombies that come streaming your way, it’s all up to you.
It’s not a hardcore survival experience by any means, but there’s a reason why it’s been so popular for so long.
5. This War of Mine
This War of Mine
Developer: 11 bit studios
Publisher: 11 bit studios
Single-player/Multiplayer: Single-player
A game that makes you feel like a bag of crap for anything you do, This War of Mine flips the script on war games and makes you the innocent bystander of said conflict instead. Just in case that wasn’t enough, it even has a DLC where children depend on you.
Playing as a clutch of civilians each with their own personality, you must do whatever it takes to stay alive when normality is ripped away from you. The game constantly asks the difficult questions of you and no matter how hard you try, war will always claim some victims who don’t deserve it.
4. Don’t Starve
Don’t Starve
Developer: Klei Entertainment
Publisher: Klei Entertainment
Single-player/Multiplayer: Single-player & Co-Op
A survival game almost as old as the console itself, Don’t Starve was the solitary survival experience on the PlayStation 4 for the longest time, but it’s still as fun now as it was all those years ago.
When you find yourself alone on a hostile island, you have to scrape your way through the day and then hope that you have enough fire to last you through the night. It’s punishing thanks to its permadeath nature, but if you need some help, the co-op spin-off Don’t Starve Together is just as great.
3. Subnautica
Subnautica PS4
Developer: Unknown Worlds Entertainment
Publisher: Unknown Worlds Entertainment
Single-player/Multiplayer: Single-player
Water traversal in video games is never the friend of anyone, so it was surprising to see Subnautica do it so damn well that we couldn’t help but dive in whenever we could.
You can even build yourself a little base under the water, painfully claiming back pieces of normality as you uncover the mysteries of this planet. That normality is absolutely shattered when you visit the depths, though.
Exploring a water-based alien world is seriously fun, especially the deeper you go and the more ominous things become.
There’s a tonne of depth to Subnautica (pun absolutely intended) and with loads of depths to also explore at your own leisure, it’s one of the more approachable survival games on PS4.
And once you’re done with it, there’s always Below Zero.
From our Subnautica review:
“Despite some quibbles, Subnautica was one survival game that I didn’t just want to survive in — I flourished and revelled in creating my own life under the sea. It feels unlike anything else in its (rather crowded) genre with its own identity shining through. Quite simply one of the most best and most rewarding survival games you will find on a console — or anywhere.”
2. The Long Dark
Sorry, bunny buddy | The Long Dark PS4
Developer: Hinterland Studio
Publisher: Hinterland Studio
Single-player/Multiplayer: Single-player
A post-apocalyptic survival game without zombies or any of the usual nonsense? Sign us up.
The Long Dark is a mature experience set in the harsh climes of Vancouver, Columbia where the biggest enemy is the environment itself. Those looking for action a minute need not apply; The Long Dark is all about appreciating the somber nature of solitude and scrimping along to simply stay alive.
While the wolves and bears might be threats to fear, Mother Nature herself is the big bad in this gripping survival game.
From our The Long Dark review:
“The Long Dark sets a fine example for other survival games to follow. It will pull you in and have you worrying about the correct balance of condensed milk and beef jerky in your inventory without you even realising.”
1. The Forest
The Forest PS4
Developer: Endnight Games
Publisher: Endnight Games
Single-player/Multiplayer: Single-player & Co-Op
While The Forest falls into some familiar survival trappings, there’s so much more beneath the surface (quite literally) of this ingenious, enterprising life invader.
Lovely aesthetic aside, its enemies learn and adapt to your actions, so if you go full aggro, so will they. The caverns underneath the map turn The Forest into a straight horror game, as well as the co-op offering a great bonding exercise for you and your friends as you build chairs out of teeth and bones.
There’s even a story about saving your kid called Timmy from cannibals, but we’re sure he’ll be fine without us.
From our The Forest review:
“If you’re yet to try the game on PC, its PS4 version is a surprisingly sleek and arguably just as rewarding time-sinker that won’t even make you feel bad for being a terrible parent. Sorry, Timmy, I am one with the trees now.”
Any we missed? Let us know.
READ NEXT: Best PS4 Indie Games You Should Check Out
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Best Survival Games 2022 — Top Survival Games Released in 2022,
List
23
According to Gamery rating
from high to low to low to high
on the release date
, at first, the old
rating
from high to low
A-ZZZ -A
Retreat To Enen
PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series
Adventure, survival
Tinker Island 2
Android, iOS
Adventure, Supervision
The Last of US: Part I
PC, PlayStation 5
Adventure, Action, Survey
TRAITORS RALEM
PC
Adventure, Strategy, MMO, Survival
Salt and Sacrifice
PC, PS4, PlayStation 5
Adventure, RPG, MMO, Fighting, Platform, Survival
Source of Madness
Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series
Platformer, Survival
5
Evil Dead: The Game
Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series
MMO, Survival, Horror
V Rising
PC
Adventure, MMO, Survival
9000MA5
Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series
Survival
Fobia: St.
Dinfna Hotel
PC, PS4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series
Adventure, Survival, Horror
Hidden Deep
PC
Adventure, Survival, Horror
VODID SLAYER 9000
,0005
VODIC Survival
DREAD HUNGER
PC
Strategy, Action, Survival, Cooperative, Horror
Core Keeper
PC
Adventure, Simulator, Survival
9000 Trail Out 9000 9000
2
more
PS4 Survival — the best Survival 9 games0001
Minecraft
November 18, 2011
Action, Adventure, First Person, Fantasy / Medieval, Indie, Sandbox, Survival, Crafting, Multiplayer
The Forest
April 30, 2018
900 , Horror, Pv, Indie, Co-op (co-op), Survival
Rust
February 8, 2018
Multiplayer, Action, Adventure, Pv, Survival, Co-op (co-op), Crafting
DayZ
December 13, 2013
Action, Shooter, First Person, Third Person, Survival, Co-op (co-op), Open World, Multiplayer, Zombies
ARK: Survival Evolved
29 August 2017
Multiplayer, Simulation, Action, First Person, Shooter, Survival, Open World
No Man’s Sky
August 9, 2016
Multiplayer, Simulation, Action, Shooter, Adventure, First Person Faces, Futurism (Future), Open World, Survival
Raft
May 23, 2018
Action, Adventure, FPV, Open World, Survival, Co-op (co-op), Crafting , Futuristic (Future), Indie, Virtual Reality (VR), Survival, Open World
Don’t Starve Together
April 21, 2016
Action, Isometric, Free to Play, Co-op (co-op), Survival
Stranded Deep
January 23, 2015
Action, Adventure, First Person, Survival, Open World, Co-op (co-op) Fantasy / Medieval, Survival
Subnautica: Below Zero
January 30, 2019
Action, Expansion, FPV, Futurism (Future), Open World, Survival
Chernobylite
October 16, 2019
2 FPV, Futuristic (Future), Indie, Survival, Exploration, Sci-fi, Crafting, Horror, Open World
Play
Fobia — St.
