Update: With Survivor in the title, roguelike monster-slaying sleep-depriving Vampire Survivors is a required text for this list. Even if it's about surviving the day with no sleep...
Some people play games to relax and unwind; others play games where everything's trying to kill you, and you have to prevent them from doing so with nothing but a crude hammer and a bunch of edible flowers. To each their own, of course, and if you're one of the latter type of people, then have we got a list for you!
We're here to find out what the best survival games on Switch are, from the lovely, relatively peaceful Minecrafts of the world to the brutal, punishing games like The Flame in the Flood. Some will let you play with others in local or online co-op for a more collaborative survival experience, and some games require you to build a life in a hostile world with nothing but yourself for company.
A survival game is usually all about starting with nothing, slowly crafting tools and furniture, and tentatively exploring further into the world, where hosts of monsters, traps, and obstacles wait for you. If you manage to survive all of that, you've probably also got to contend with various metres like hunger, thirst, temperature, oxygen, and even sanity. And don't go out at night, okay? Just... don't.
So, without further ado, here are the best survival games on Nintendo Switch, in no particular order. Get ready for lots of crafting, and lots of dying. Good luck!
Subnautica + Subnautica Below Zero Double Pack (Switch)
Survival games are often about surviving in a specific environment — the unforgiving tundra, a post-apocalyptic bunker, or a wartime city, for example. Subnautica takes the unknown horrors of the deep blue and expands it into an entire ocean planet, where the fish hate you and things occasionally explode for no reason.
It's slightly disappointing that Subnautica 1 and 2 don't have multiplayer, but you'll likely be too busy tussling with a particularly angry alien octopus to ever feel too lonely.
Multiplayer? No
Difficulty options? Survival (health, oxygen, food and water metres), Freedom (health and oxygen metres), Hardcore (permadeath, no "low oxygen" warning), and Creative (no metres)
Can you have pets? Yes! You can put fish in a little tank, and hatch creature eggs
Windbound (Switch eShop)
So far, we've had deep water, spooky nightmare, cold Canada, and space as the various survival settings — but we haven't had BOAT. Windbound is all about boat, and the silent protagonist, Kara, who's trying to find her way back home.
Heavily influenced by Breath of the Wild, Windbound is a five-chapter story about exploring the ruins of an ancient civilisation, while trying to keep herself fed and improving her boat. Like many survival games, Windbound is procedurally-generated, which means you never know when — or if — you'll find your next meal.
Multiplayer? Nope
Difficulty options? Storyteller (easy), and Survivalist (hard)
Can you have pets? No [sad face]
Don't Starve: Nintendo Switch Edition (Switch eShop)
Don't Starve gets straight to the point: the game is about not starving. That's the easiest way to survive, after all. But with an added layer of horrible, terrible horror — think spiders, snakes, and the creeping fear that something, somewhere, is watching you — Don't Starve is a little bit spookier than other survival games.
Don't play this game if you're afraid of the dark, because Don't Starve will convince you of several reasons why your fear is entirely well-founded. Be aware, though, that the multiplayer mode, Don't Starve Together, is not available on Switch.
Multiplayer? No
Difficulty options? Hahahaha, no
Can you have pets? Sort of! You can raise pigs, rabbits, and birds
The Flame in the Flood (Switch eShop)
If you like your survival games brutally hard, then The Flame in the Flood is the game for you. It's easy to get sick, injured, or starve to death, and if you manage to get past all of those threats, then you're likely to get mauled to death by a wolf or a bear.
What's more, your exploration is somewhat limited — you're on a raft, floating on a river, and whatever supplies you manage to grab will have to be pilfered from islands along the way. If you miss an island? You're screwed, mate.
Multiplayer? No
Difficulty options? Traveler (any equipment that the dog has won't be lost on death, plus checkpoints), Survivalist (permadeath, harder to survive), Endless Mode (no plot, survive as long as possible)
Can you have pets? You have a dog from the start, named Aesop or Daisy
This War of Mine Complete Edition (Switch)
If you're looking at this list and thinking, "all of these survival games don't sound nearly depressing enough," then you'll probably really enjoy This War of Mine, which adds survival mechanics to a life lived under siege.
In Graznavia, a grim and gritty city in the midst of a war, you'll be expected to raid bombed-out houses in order to find the resources you need to live. And often, those resources won't just be out in the open for you to take — they'll be the vital medicines of an elderly couple, or the last remaining food for a family with young children, and your need to survive will have to be balanced against, you know, your ability to bury your morals. Aren't video games fun?
Multiplayer? No
Difficulty options? Noooo
Can you have pets? You can have children, if that counts
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The Long Dark (Switch eShop)
Much like Don't Starve, The Long Dark is all about harsh, relentless Winters — except, where Don't Starve eventually rolls back around to Spring, The Long Dark is set in a permanently wintery Canadian wilderness, where things never get warmer.
In the Story Mode, you'll be trying to find your missing fellow traveller, Astrid, and unravelling the events that caused your plane to crash. If you play in Survival Mode instead, you're just trying not to get eaten by bears. The story hasn't finished, either — the five-episode Season One has another episode due in 2021, and the final episode some time after that.
Multiplayer? No
Difficulty options? Survival has permadeath, and four experience settings: Pilgrim (forgiving), Voyageur (challenging), Stalker (punishing), and Interloper (impossibly hard). Story Mode will lead you along the path of the plot, and comes with three difficulty options, Green (forgiving), Capable (challenging), and Hardened (punishing). All difficulty options dictate things like wildlife aggression, resource spawning rates, and how easily you can freeze or starve to death
Can you have pets? No! You've hardly got enough to feed yourself!
Green Hell (Switch eShop)
You know how everyone who's never visited Australia imagines that it's full of spiders, snakes, scorpions and other deadly animals that will kill you the second you let your guard down? Well, Australia isn't quite that scary, but Green Hell certainly is. Hope you like being poisoned, because you're about to get poisoned a lot.
Green Hell's twist on the survival genre is that, alongside your health and energy levels — which can be influenced by how well you sleep, plus whether or not that weird fruit you ate was a bad idea — is the Macroelement Scanner, which will track your nutrient intake. And surviving isn't just about not dying, because you're also in this unfriendly jungle to try to track down your missing wife, Mia, who's probably going through a similar "should I eat this weird grub?" journey to you.
Multiplayer? Not on Switch
Difficulty options? A Walk in the Park (easy, no animal attacks), Welcome to the Jungle (balanced), King of the Jungle (hard, enemies are more hostile), and Green Hell (extremely hard, enemies are more hostile, permadeath is included, and you lose all your stuff when you die)
Can you have pets? Does it count if you have a parasite lodged in your skin?
Sheltered (Switch eShop)
Everyone knows that, in a real apocalypse situation, we've got to head to the bunkers. What could possibly go wrong in an enclosed, underground space full of scared and hungry people? Haha, nothing. Eat your nutrition paste, and stop asking questions.
Sheltered is a bit different from the other survival games here, because you'll be running the shelter itself, rather than a specific character, so it's more of a resource management simulation game than a strict survival, but if it's dwindling resources and the ever-present spectre of death you're looking for, then you'll find it here all the same.
Multiplayer? No
Difficulty options? Easy, Hard, and Hardcore
Can you have pets? You can have children, if that counts
Comments 21
No love for Darkwood?
Highly recommend Subnautica to anyone interested in survival games. It gave me a very strong sense of exploration and adventure which games like Minecraft couldn't accomplish in my opinion.
The port was also surprisingly competent as the game sometimes runs poorly on high end PCs.
Just be wary the game may get pretty frightening at times when you're exploring the deep ocean.
Minecraft may be the GOAT, but Subnautica's tinge of Lovecraftian cosmic horror speaks to me.
Not included in this list, Surviving joycon drift.
A story bout a Switch owner who goes on a perilous journey to find the holy grail, a joycon with no drift.
The twist?
There is none.
😜
Green Hell is very good. The Switch version will (eventually) have quite a few updates coming its way (the other versions have a lot more meat on their bones). It's similar to The Forest, another survival crafting game set in a forest environment.
I recommend Terraria. Is it much of a survival game? Maybe on your first playthrough and on hardcore. Does that make it bad? No! It's a wonderful game worth far more than the asking price! After a few playthroughs why not try out expert mode too. It's a wonderful experience seeing new items and ai. But if you're a pc player don't even get me started on mods... 10/10
You know you are getting old when you have to google what 'GOAT' meant...
I have 130 hours on Fallout Shelter. I don’t know why I like it so much, but I do. I also have not spent a dime on it.
My love for Exploration, Building, and Survival Horror has turned me into an absolute Survival Games lover. Completed Flame in the Flood, Windbound, and already have 35 hours into Subnautica on Switch. It's the best survival game I've played yet. Will need to try The Long Dark next.... is it worth "beating" Minecraft?
I thought you were gonna go “prepare to dive,” but I fully endorse your dark souls reference.
NINJA APPROVED
@daebiya Minecraft (in it's current form) is impossible to beat.
If you mean killing the ender dragon, yes, but only if you want to continue after that.
If you mean killing the wither... don't even try. Well, not on bedrock hardmode at least. But if you somehow can kill it without losing everything, yes, the reward is amazing.
If you mean getting all achievements, no, not at all. There are many stupid achievements, one of which is having all status effects at once. This is impressive, but very disconnected from the rest of the game.
If you haven't really 'played' Minecraft though I'd recommend just staying away from it. You'll immediately get sucked in and spend hundreds, if not thousands of hours in it. Some time later you'll see that all the time you spent was a waste. So in my honest opinion, no it isn't worth it beating Minecraft. You'd have better luck with Terraria, even if it isn't too much of a survival game. (But neither is Minecraft, so...)
@Varkster Subnautica is the first game to actually provoke fear in me. those shrieking echoes from the reaper....ugh what a beautiful game though.
@TMNHertl Playinh Subnautica in the dark with headphones is an experience you a should try at least once
If Game boy games were available in Switch, Survival kids will be a great option.
@MERG perhaps they deemed survival horrors to be a separate subgenre, although Darkwood is certainly closer to the subject here. It's even procedurally generated. But it's more baffling that Dragon Quest Builders dilogy didn't make the cut.
And the indie front has even more where that came from! Seeds of Resilience, The Final Station, The Long Journey Home, Cattails, Thea: The Awakening, JCB Pioneer Mars, Distrust, Skyhill, Dawn of Survivors, Frost, The Survivalists (a most conspicuous absentee indeed😄) and arguably its predecessors The Escapists dilogy... but then again, I'm already kinda impressed that Smoke and Sacrifice was remembered and highlighted. Credit where due.
@SakuraHaruka I wouldn't mind some new or ported stuff from Lost in Blue either. But Survival Kids in particular was pretty much the first survival game I recall ever playing, and it was something else.
For the life of me I don't understand why Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together have to be separate games. The lack of multiplayer was an instant no-buy for me. I thought maybe the online version would come later, but it's been like, what, 2 years now?
I'll stick to the PC version.
@Varkster really? I found an old copy on my xbox and booted it up having been really into it on switch. It ruined my game. The switch port sucks. Play it elsewhere if at all possible.
While Subnautica follows the basic recipe in terms of survival games. It really is one of the most unique experiences you’ll ever have the pleasure of playing.
@TMNHertl Yeah it's just a shame how Below Zero didn't live up to the original, felt like they tried to make it too similar to Journey to the Savage Planet, which I though was better.
I am thoroughly hooked on Subnautica and have peppered in a little The Flame in the Flood after picking it up on sale last week. The music in the latter is like nothing I've ever heard in a video game before - like some wonderful bluegrass soul music to enjoy before you're gored to death by a boar on the next island.
I heartily recommend both games.
Also, @KateGray if you ever update this list, it's an older game but I think Death Road to Canada would be a fitting addition. The writing kept me laughing thru dozens of runs that ended up with my party being eaten by zombies, ambushed by bandits, or blown to bits when the team anime girl explodes inside the car.
In the review here on NL, reader @bmlinds described it as "Oregon Trail on acid and definitely worth the price," and I wholeheartedly agree.
If I might (narf) suggest it, I'd add Might'n Mow'em to the ones to give a body swerve. It's not even properly playable on the Switch due to a horrendous frame rate that goes single digits late in a run. The publiishers are also full-on Web3.0/blockchain/crypto/NFT cultists, which raises a hackle or ten.
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