I enjoy the game. First person perspective is nice. There are interesting things to build and acquire. Is there another first person game that is similar that is more complete?

Hey everyone!

I’m the developer of Isles of Arcana, and after nearly three years of work, it’s finally out on Steam!

It’s a pixel-art survival action RPG where you explore a world being consumed by a mysterious corruption. You’ll manage hunger and thirst, gather resources, craft equipment and venture into increasingly dangerous biomes.

Between expeditions, you can build up your settlement and restore a safe haven. As you rebuild, survivors return with skills and trades to help you prepare for the next journey.

You can tackle it solo or with up to three friends in online co-op.

It feels surreal to finally reach launch day. If you enjoy heading into the unknown, bringing supplies home and turning them into something useful, I’d love for you to take a look.

🎮 Steam page — free demo available

Thanks for reading!

anything similar to 7DTD but without the melee that is in the game currently?

i would take 1:1 of 7dtd as long as the melee was fixed, real hitboxes, proper animation and weapon sweeping, this game still uses the same combat Skyrim used 20 years ago despite being created 2 years after skyrim and continously worked on since, unlike Skyrim.

I truly love the zombie survival genre but its incredibly difficult to play 7dtd due to its melee combat, not because its hard to use or anything its simply unrewarding, it makes melee unfun when it should be a core experience imo.

current list of games i have and have played extensively are, ill also just rate them cause might as well, these rating are my POV as someone who has legit only played these types of games pretty much.

also almost every game here ive played like 500hours to 3k hours on, skyrim being the exception with 6k.

enshrouded havent played 1.0 but pre1.0 rating is 6/10

valheim1.0 8/10

conan exiles 6/10

aska 4/10

SOD2 7/10 needed more content to be 10/10

ESO 0/10 pay to win slop

the forest 8/10 / clunky animations and no third person functionality

SOTF 6/10 took their eye off the ball, became way too space related, its a cannibal survival game, not et phones home, if the second half of the game was like the first half it would've been a higher rating

oblivion 8/10 for its time 6/10 today

skyrim 7/10 for its time (my heart says 10/10 but its nostalgia and cope)

palworld 4/10 can't do anything you could before nintendo sued them, animations for throwing pals are ruined and they havent fixed them since.

RDR2 ?/10 legit havent played this yet, bought it thinking it was RDR1 and had the zombie mode then didnt buy the first one cause i wasted cash lol

gtav finished the story hella times but mainly played online havent in years

prorotype 1 and 2 same rating, both were mid games 5/10 but good for their time prolly 7 or 8/10 back then

the darkness 1 and 2 10/10 for story, gameplay is 5/6 10 as it does get repetitive quickly

rust, ?/10 uninstalled after i got spawncamped 15 times upon loading in the first time lmao

enderal 10/10 for story, still uses skyrims engine tho so same combat yuck

some hitman games 5/10

dying light 1 7/10 would've been higher with 3rd person mode

dying light 2, 5/10 didnt play past the first couple hours, got tired of not being able to see the cool animations in third person

sengoku dynasty 4/10 basically aska with even less content which is hard to imagine

last oasis 5/10 its a unique game, just not for me, i always hated conans desert so i hate this game too lol

minecraft bedrock, got some mods for it i can get past the blocks after i get into it but mainly the world just feels dead after a while

the dead island games 5/10 for all of them even the new hd one which id honestly rate even less probably 1/10

im for sure forgetting some but hopefully this gives a better image as to what i am looking for and what i've already played

As per title, what do you think is the best building system in a survival game and why, do you prefer a more realistic but limited building system or a system where you can pretty much build whatever you want. do you prefer no physics building or a game with a strucural system meaning buildings can collapse if the materials are not strong enough for overhangs or so on.

Hi everyone! I'm not an avid survival player but I'm currently playing Valheim with a couple of friends and Enshrouded solo. The first one looks impossible to me for another solo run and Enshrouded is really good but too RPG with all the skill tree and that things, not a bad thing but sometimes not what I'm looking for in that moment. Is there any other survival similar to these (especially Valheim)? I've read about RuneScape Dragonwilds but looks more like Enshrouded, correct me if I'm wrong. Also Windrose was in my list but not clear enough about the solo playing situation.

I don't have too many other requirements aside from avoiding the typical survival scenario in post apocalyptic/zombie world and that it should have a decent UI, since many survivals have a horrible UI that drives me out. And obviously, should be viable to play solo.

For reference, I've already played

- Subnautica series

- Palworld

- both Forest

- ark

- Grounded

Any questions I'll be glad to answer

Zombies at the door, ammo is running low... Gather your friends and try to survive! 🧟‍♂️🔥

The gameplay trailer for our 1-4 player co-op zombie survival game, The Fallen Grid, is live! How far will you go to survive the chaos?

Early Access Coming Soon
Don't forget to add the game to your Steam wishlist!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/5146450/The_Fallen_Grid/

Hi everyone, some nice recommendations for cross platform videogames like outward?

Preferably in a fantasy setting and not too demanding pc-performance side.

My gf and I have loved every single aspect of the game but the brutality of the fights and the consequential frustration.

We want some game to enjoy and set apart the thoughts for some time.

Thanks!

Some of you asked last week how the shelter side actually plays, so here is the generator room in action.

In Shelter 38 one diesel generator keeps the lights and the heat on for thirteen bunks. When it stops, the shelter goes dark and cold, and someone has to go down there. You open the repair manual, find the symptom (here the battery isn't charging), take the right tool from the bench, kill the main switch first and only then open the cover. No menus, just your hands and the book.

Meanwhile upstairs you're still splitting food and water between thirteen people, and everyone notices who got more.

Thanks again for the ration idea last time, per-person rations are in the game now. What would you want to repair yourself in a shelter like this?

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5281900/Leave_Them_Outside/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=bakim_2610_sg

Hi there,

I am working on this project since 4 years now and we are looking for feedback and content creators !

The game is called Wandering Within and you have to survive in a desert and solve a mystery about an ancient legend and a powerful artifact (kind of the story mode but you can also just enjoy the sanbdox)

THE GAME

Survival - As in many other games, you collect ressources and craft tools to manage your hunger, thirst and temperature since the night is extremely cold. It is hard-core but not action-focused. The game rewards problem solving, observation and organisation so don't expect plenty of fights. There are some creatures that will attack you though.

Navigation - A big twist is that there is no base-building, you really have to travel in order to solve the mystery but also to survive, since ressources cannot be found in the same biomes and your inventory is limited. The game design is heavily focused on navigation, so be sure to craft a compass and to leave landmarks behind you. You will get lost and experience lonely walks quite regularly.

Story - The desert is full of fantastical places and strange NPCs that will help you in your non-linear quest. You will try to open an old chest said to contain tremendous powers. The game is also deeply personal and a metaphor for the search for meaning of life.

THE DEVELOPMENT

I began alone in 2022, experimenting with a game design idea but the game rapidly became very personal and important to me so I wanted to go further. Also because I feel like there are a lot of "casual" survival games but not so much focusing offering an hard-core experience like I adore.

After two years of prototyping I decided to ask for help. We are now 3 people (1 prog + 1 visual artist + 1 sound designer) working on it next to our jobs and studies. It is our first commercial project and we aim to enter Early Acces beginning of 2027.

Our goal now is to get visibility and lots of feedback. We already received some and are working on it but the more the better.

So feel free to try the free demo on Steam (windows only), ask any question you want or to just tell us your point of view about the state of the survival genre in 2026
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3558550/Wandering_Within/

See ya !
Brandon

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5269640/Survive_The_Reset/

Please message me for a free key , I have about 20 of them

The recently released Early Access title Under Canopies is off to a solid start. Early feedback is positive, currently sitting at 51 active players with a lifetime peak of 108 at the time of this post. While this is an open world survival game, it looks more toward exploring and crafting.

Forget the stress of survival. In this cozy open-world sim, you don't fight nature, you join it. Build your dream cabin piece by piece, cook complex meals with crops you watered yourself, and fill your photo album with rare wildlife. A serene experience where the only enemy is inefficiency.

Disclaimer: Just sharing an update. I am not the developer, and nobody is paying me to post this.

Squad up and fight for survival in The Brink of Z! 🧟‍♂️ Build your base, gather resources, and level up your skills to withstand endless zombie waves. Persistent progression means every battle makes you stronger. Grab your friends, gear up, and get ready for intense coop shooter action! #TheBrinkOfZ #CoopGaming #ZombieSurvival #ShooterGame #BaseBuilding #builtonRUN

https://w.run/forbus/the-brink-of-z?s=rkVP0Nr

It was important to me that lunar traversal in my game felt authentic, so instead of being able to run on the moon, I recreated the bunny hop as seen on old moonlanding footage. I took some liberties in terms of duration and height to make it also fun during gameplay.

Slow walking is still possible too and of course jumping.

If you'd like to try it out, the game is part of Steam Next Fest, so feel free to give it a go!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3310910/SPACE_WALK/

Hey champs, I have scoured my upvote history and saved posts but I can't find it. While playing Surroundead and browsing reddit about it maybe a few weeks or months ago, I read a comment that spoke about a game that was like Surroundead, came out after Surroundead, but has now more content or progress than Surroundead. I didn't think much of it then but now it's haunting me. I can't find that comment and what game it was talking about. Any ideas? TIA

With growing AI possibilities, it’s getting hard to tell when a game is heavily inspired by another game and when it’s just another copy.

And honestly speaking, the newly revealed dinosaur survival game is the closest I’ve seen to Valheim yet.

What do you think about Paleokin?

Anyone want to join me in a 7 Days to Die Darkness Falls run?

I love the concept of 7D2D but I need my survival games to have a narrative...essentially a natural "ending" lol

I tend to take these games slow and love to explore. I'm also super silly and love to be dumb, so if any of that appeals to you, let me know!

Im also in Boston so ill be on EST :)

I’m tweaking the game’s plot a bit and have decided to test and add a character mutation mechanic that allows the protagonist to transform into a monster. This isn’t in the current demo version yet, but I’d love to hear your thoughts—what do you think of this new feature?

I know that browsing this edition of Next Fest got rather difficult with over 8k demos taking part in it but maybe you stumbled upon something worth playing?

I personally tried 3 survival demos so far.

1. Frostrail - I had high hopes for this one. I think it has potential but I was really disappointed with the execution of this game. The exploration and looting of the few initial areas felt surprisingly engaging. I had some Long Dark vibes although something about it felt hollow to me. Maybe it's the fact that main purpose of most items is turning them to scrap? Traveling by the train is where this game should shine but sadly it didn't feel very rewarding to me. The controls of the train aren't super intuitive. You add fuel, move one lever, then another lever for throttle and also break lever. Worst part probably is the visibility as you "drive". The front windows don't offer too much of it and you hardly see where you're going. Combat is the worst part though. Pistol needs to be reloaded after each shot. The creatures move erratically and are difficult to shoot at and overall I really didn't like this part. I got killed rather quickly in the underground and didn't feel that I want to try again. Maybe they can fix these issues but I doubt it's gonna be a game with score above 70%. Maybe co-op actually makes it better, I don't know. I played solo.
2. Arctic Drive - Another winter game. This one is far less serious. It's janky as hell but I actually had some fun playing it. It has a certain way of doing things that I'm not a fan of - again, the core of crafting revolves around scrapping items in a recycler to get basic resources. With these basic resources, either organic or mechanic you craft stuff. The level of fidelity and realism is super low. Assembling and driving the car in the snow is quite cool until you hit something and your engine disassembles. They tried to implement some sort of story to push you forward but it's not super engaging. The best part is probably looting the houses you find along the road and scavenging fuel and car parts. It suffers from the "open world with fast vehicle" problem though. Most of the map is empty because you need long distances to justify the car. So the actual exploration revolves around small POIs scattered along the way that you loot quickly and move on. Might be fun and laughs in co-op but I feel that it verges on the category of "friend slop" with how non-serious it takes itself and "pee" mechanic that forces you to urinate every 5 minutes with "pixelated censorship" effect in the crotch area. Be adviced :D
3. Mayday: The Survival Island. - This one is pixelart top down game but I honestly think that from the three I played it's closest to actual survival game. It's quite engaging, borrows some ideas from Don't Starve but also has it's own idea about island-based exploration. It requires you to gather and cook some food to allow exploration outside of the starting area. It lacks some quality of life aspects like seeing behind large obstacles, chests to organize items etc. Overall I think it's really a promising one if someone is into this kind of artstyle. I think I'll give it another try for full release.

Let me know what you found!

Edit: Ok, I played two more but they didn't click with me that well.

1. Never Wither - On high level the design is quite similar to V Rising. Only, you don't play as a vampire but as some shape-shifting spirit that can capture creatures and morph into them. Mechanically it's interesting and there's the whole Creature Collector twist to it. The theme is meant to be cozy/nature inspired. Not a bad thing at all but it feels more light hearted than I like my survivals to be. Also, there is crafting but actual survival mechanics were not the main focus here. The main focus were definitely different abilities you get by changing forms.
2. Nighthold - I played solo while this game is clearly designed for co-op. It's a sci-fi survival about crashing on alien planet. Which is inhabited by some humans, which gave me some confusion initially. The combat is super rough and the progression and crafting is questionable. There are NPCs you can get objectives from. One of the first ones is to hunt and skin some creatures but I wasn't able to find a knife needed for this task. The knife can't be crafted on the initial bench either. This game at least has some interesting setting and doesn't feel like another clone in the genre. But I feel like the design is lacking and the execution could definitely use some polish.

I’m a solo dev working on EvoX, a multiplayer primitive survival game, and I’m finishing the farming side of it.

Right now you can dig up wild berry bushes and replant them in planter boxes, watch them grow in real time, and harvest them when ripe. You can also set up beehives: find a wild hive by chopping trees, take its honeycomb and put it into your own hive, and bees will move in and bring you honey and beeswax.

That’s where I am so far, and I’d love to know where to take it next. What do you want from farming in a primitive survival game? And what do you hate about it in other games (grind, waiting, babysitting plants)?

Steam page: EvoX - https://store.steampowered.com/app/4814790/EvoX/

I've been working on this abandoned shipwreck location for my indie survival game

I wanted the ship to feel like it had been stranded here for years, slowly being reclaimed by the forest. I've been working on the overgrown vegetation, weathered wood, torn sails, and lighting to make the scene feel like a believable part of the island.

The game is about surviving and exploring a mysterious island, with a loyal dog companion by your side.

What do you think of the environment and lighting? I'd love to hear your feedback!

And just out of curiosity: how do you think a ship like this ended up in the middle of a forest?

I'm a creative writer who's never had an outlet to make games before. I tried for years and it felt so out of my depths. I recenly re united with my best friend who is a developer who uses AI. With his help I was able to make this game, an idea I've had for years that i'd only theorized.

I'm being fully honest about this project, it was a fully driven AI project. Every detail and design element was made solely in my own brain, and using the Opus 5.5 model via Claude Code I was able to make my concept a reality.

I'm a massive MMORPG gamer, i LOVE OSRS and WoW. Im also a huge fan of the game Rust, along with other intense survival games.

Feel free to try the game! Happy to answer any questions, and take any criticisms!

downloadable here on Itch.io! --- > https://boil-egg.itch.io/fish-or-die-2

Fish or Die: Fishing Survival is an RPG single player game, where you must fish, to survive. Cook fish on the dock bbq, feed the island cat, meet the locals and earn reputation. Go see granny and check out her cosmetics, or visit the secret  CASINO on the island and double your gold!

Fishing rewards you in many ways, through fish you can make gold, find certain fish perfect for buffs! Sell your elusive fish to Pierre the Connoseur for profit!

Within this seemingly peaceful world, lies risk. Risk of natural disasters like lightning, the cold, and mainly hunger. So keep on top of your bbqing, take refuge in goldies shack if you finish his island quest! 

Thanks for reading this far! <3

Hey! I'm a solo dev making a dark top down survival game and I've been going back and forth on the look of my game for weeks now. I honestly can't decide anymore, so I thought I'd ask you guys. I'm putting together my Steam page in a few days and want to lock this in before then.

Each scene is shown in all three styles, only the rendering is different. Open them full size if you can, some of the differences are hard to see in the preview.

Which one would you rather play? And if something feels off in any of them I'd love to hear that too.

Thanks!

Edit:

- A is clean
- B is with some dither
-C is some dither with lower res look to give it a retro style.

I've always loved engineering games where you can build almost anything, but I often wished the machines we created had more depth to them.

What if your spaceship wasn't just a collection of blocks with engines attached? What if you actually had to design its electrical network, fuel distribution, oxygen supply, and internal logistics?
That's the idea I've been working on for the past 4 years.

I'm a solo developer making MineEngineer, a 2D space engineering survival engineering game inspired by Space Engineers, Terraria, and Factorio.

The game currently has over 200 interconnected systems, and I've tried to make engineering the central part of the experience.

For example, imagine you want to build a fully automated mining ship.

First, you need drills to collect resources. Then you connect them to storage through conveyors, install refineries to process the ore, and assemblers to manufacture components. You also need enough electricity to run everything, engines to move the ship, and fuel to keep those engines working.
You could stop there, or you could take things further.

Add sensors, programmable blocks, and logic systems, and suddenly you can start automating the whole process. You could even build a remote-controlled mining drone and operate it from your mothership.

But there's another important part of the game. Everything can break.

If your ship gets hit during combat, individual blocks can be destroyed. Your conveyors might disconnect, your electricity network might fail, or your ship could literally split into multiple pieces.
You can also build walking mechas, enormous battleships, space stations, factories, and all kinds of machines that I probably haven't even imagined yet.

Outside of engineering, there's a massive procedurally generated universe with planets, asteroids, enemies, and different environments to explore. I'm also expanding the game with bosses, progression, and multiplayer.

After 4 years of working alone, it's finally starting to feel like the game I originally wanted to play.
It's called MineEngineer, and there's already a free demo on Steam if anyone wants to try it. You can also wishlist it to support the project.

I'm curious what other engineering players think. Do you enjoy spending hours optimizing complicated machines, or do you prefer building something quickly and immediately going on an adventure?