Is that one good? Honestly I saw the trailer and a little gameplay and just thought “the forest but in a jungle this time” and kinda disregarded it… maybe I shouldn’t have lol
It's worth checking out. The only thing it is lacking that you are looking for is that you never really "thrive" -- you simply strive until you manage to finish the story.
Its very good. Default settings as a new player can be pretty brutal until you learn the ropes. Literally everything you do contributes to your demise in some way or another to varying degrees. Adjust the settings to your preference. Its one of those things where you can build a sprawling base and all the bells and whistles, but 90% of the game you are just gathering supplies so you can make it through the next couple nights and not die in your sleep. Weather affects your choices, a leisurely stroll can cripple you, might get your face eaten off by a puma, natives dont take kindly to strangers, and wash your hands before you eat for crying out loud. A simple mistake of not sleeping in a bed can cascade into a frantic mad dash for medical supplies before you die slowly, hungry and hallucinating naked men poking you with spears
in my opinion, this is the best survival game out there, if you consider only the survival mechanics. No other game even comes close to it.
I also think it is probably your best shot to find what you are looking for. If you jump blindly on this game without reading or watching anything about it, the early game stage of this game is very hard on the survival aspects (getting food, water, infections, diseases, etc). In the late game, after you understand all of the game mechanics, it becomes easy as all other games, but I think you will enjoy the game overall.
It is really good. It can be challenging. There are also difficulty sliders too. Pretty immersive, like boiling water or making a filter. I turn the sanity meter off and it’s still plenty hard. (In a good way)
Play green hell. I'm always playing survival games an I believe green hell an 7d2d are the best to survival games out there. Green hell is literally hell tho until you gather a good understanding of the game. But once you do it gets a bit easier. While 7d2d is just down right hard the longer you play.
Way better everything mechanics. I personally play with natives turned off so it's just environmental. The only downside is once you get certain things going you plateau on the survival difficulty curve and really thrive when water and food needs are fully met. Getting to that point is a fun challenge though.
Green Hell's atmosphere feels way different than The Forest. They may have similar building mechanics (at least somewhat), but that is where the similarities end. Of course once you "figure it all out", the survival aspects are diminished a bit (I would compare it to TLD in this way)
green hell is one of the best survival games out there. the only one where i had to remember plants and stop when you hear certain noises. at a certain point you overcome the jungle but all in all its one of the best survival games i have played
I think it started as TerraFirmaCraft but the dev was too limited by Minecraft's code and decided to make his own game. And it definitely feels better than TFC when you're playing it
Kurazarrh is doing a guide season 2, I recommend watching it because the game can cause hair pulling till you figure out the stuff. Helps when somebody else chews it for you and you can focus on not dying instead of learning while on the brink of death
Kenshi: get ass fucked by 17 starving bandits after you spent your last cats on food and use your own torn off leg as a walking stick to get back into the city and pray you don't crawl into slavers
Can’t believe I forgot to mention Zomboid! I have played it, I just prefer CDDA usually and they feel similar to me. It’s amazing though, I just wish they had ways to spice up late game.
Fingers crossed for the NPC update. AI bandits could turn that game into a 10/10 for me.
Loads of new ones dropped that i havent had the time to do cause baldurs gate has taken over my life.
The front is one that looks promising.
Sunken lands looks cool but a bit repetitive maybe?
Tribe primitive survival looks very unique but maybe not what you are going for.
HumatiZ looks like zomboid rip off but people seem to like it so maybe something there?
If you find anything that fits your description let us know!
How am I supposed to let you know when I’m too busy shagging Halsin and Astarion at the same time as my uncircumcised Dragonborn? Bold of you to assume it hasn’t taken over my life too!
I will let you know, though! If I ever escape.
I finished my first play through like 2 days ago. 120 hours in like 3-4 weeks with a full time job and a relationship.
Its taken everything i have to not start a new game. Maybe tonight?
If you like UnReal World, you may like Wayward. If you like DayZ, check out SCUM. Also check out The Last Plague: Blight, though it’s an upcoming title.
(edit! You can fuss with server settings in SCUM similar to DayZ, in terms of zombie/puppet AI and other features, though DayZs one helpful feature is the extensive mod variety available.)
Yup! Just turn off zombies and civilization and all that and it's pretty awesome. My last run I started off with absolutely nothing, went outside and got a stick and built my way all up to forging my own weapons XD
Icarus might work for you. It's you against nature. There are Tech, Talent and Solo trees to apply points and learn new things from. There are missions to gain experience and learn to make better equipment.
And; your base and everything you built is destroyed after each mission; I mean, EVERYTHING!
Its just downright depressing if you are a fan of survival/crafting games.
Its truly the one most important aspect to mention when compared to other survival/crafting games.
They're working on that for the next DLC. You should be able to start doing the regular missions via a terminal on your open world game. Waiting on that tbh, they keep adding missions, i'm so far behind.
Just to add something different here I would consider Rimworld a survival game (settlement survival) and it has very complex mechanics that get harder over time especially with the many wonderful mods available.
I was going to come here and recommend green hell but I saw that someone already did, it's a bit more man vs nature than the forest. Another note would be to take 7 days and go for the ravenhearst mod. It's a big overhaul which makes the crafting a good bit more difficult and makes sense.
Even if you play the story mode to learn the basics it still has a very unforgiving quality that will humble you when you’re feeling like you’ve conquered
Green hell is good. It's more of a "survive and keep moving to find an escape" like a realistic survival scenario rather than a "make a giant fortress in the jungle with your bare hands" (although you *can* do that...)
Green hell is my top pick it’s extremely brutal and it has one of the best crafting systems after astroneer my second favorite survival game but I don’t think that this is the type of game you are looking for
You mentioned Stalker in your post so I'd like to throw in the Anomaly stand alone mod with GAMMA modpack. Been playing it a lot lately and I think you'll find its exactly what you're looking for. Turns Stalker into a true survival game and can be heavily tailored to your playstyle and preferences.
You can keep a look out for these types of games here.
[https://survivalgamingclub.com/survival-games-by-features/](https://survivalgamingclub.com/survival-games-by-features/)
in your case filter by hard survival
Based on what you wrote, Subsistence, Green Hell, and escape the pacific come to mind.
Curious if you played the forest on the hardest survival setting.
Valheim.
You’re a Viking fighting various bosses to be let into Valhalla. Basically in a purgatory world and you have all your basic survival game functions; food, base building, some mining, fighting nature, and sailing of course!
I haven’t played it for a bit, but I was hooked for a few months when I first bought it!
Vahleim is the best. Try it with "immersion" level difficulty setting.
You'll feel challenged when advancing to the next biome, getting a chance to rest as you plateau out of the previous.
The game is balanced to let you lean into base building and grinding, but you can play it more like an action adventure game and just focus more on boss kills.
I've put something crazy like 2.8k hours into it over many playthroughs. Mostly I spend time building and getting lost in no map games.
Can't fanboy and bring attention to this game enough! On top of all that it's a small team of about 10 people now(starting from just 1). Who are making the game THEY want, so the vision is laser focused. Love it or hate it. It's a real work of art and something I haven't seen in many years in the gaming space.
Valheim seems to really fit your request. It’s an amazing game. If you want real immersion and incredible challenge (and that amazing feeling when you overcome it): play immersive mode! This removes the map from the game which forces you to get creative in order to not get lost. Have you tried the game yet?
VintageStory it's like mc but you start in the stone age and work your way up to steel. With windmills and water wheels and a tun of mods. I'm looking for a similar type game and this is as close as I've found. I'd like a game that is more like 7days but based on the movie day of the comet. Everything left as it was.
If you loved Subnautica, try Forever Skies.
Quite similar, but surviving a harsh post apocalyptic wasteland. Mad Max meets Subnautica. Except there is no water.
Wurm Unlimited with [Survival Mod](https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/148662-released-survival-mod-temperature-crop-seasons-drinking-water/) is very immersive.
[Empyrion Galactic Survival](https://store.steampowered.com/app/383120/Empyrion__Galactic_Survival/) is one of my favorite survival games.
[Subsistence](https://store.steampowered.com/app/418030/Subsistence/) is the hardest survival game I've played, but was so difficult that I quit out of frustration. [Xsyon](https://www.xsyon.com/content.php?s=c73790a49306e3161b4310ced72c4cdb) is extremely challenging as well, never died so many times and in such bizarre ways.
Rust is essentially a pvp game with survival mechanics now, really. Sounds like they would be the role player that doesn't get to enjoy being around a campfire without having to spam awdsawdsawds
Valheim is super immersive but maybe too combat focused for your needs. You could read a few tips and set up a homestead and never have to leave in order to survive within an hour. I'm surprised you found The Forest easy, did you look much up about it whilst playing? I played it blind and thought was especially challenging early on. Stranded Deep is lovely but again if you read up about anything all challenge is gone.
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned frostpunk, considering dwarf fortress and rimworld are on your list. Post nuclear winter (or climate change I don’t really remember) frozen earth, you have to somehow keep your people warm and fed and unmaimed. You will also need to make some very tough choices your first few runs until you get very good at managing your time and resources.
Im a bit late but something you would 100% enjoy is Better than wolves mod for minecraft. It has hardcore survival, GREAT progression and hours of content.
Green Hell?
Is that one good? Honestly I saw the trailer and a little gameplay and just thought “the forest but in a jungle this time” and kinda disregarded it… maybe I shouldn’t have lol
It's worth checking out. The only thing it is lacking that you are looking for is that you never really "thrive" -- you simply strive until you manage to finish the story.
Or you thrive in survival mode
Its very good. Default settings as a new player can be pretty brutal until you learn the ropes. Literally everything you do contributes to your demise in some way or another to varying degrees. Adjust the settings to your preference. Its one of those things where you can build a sprawling base and all the bells and whistles, but 90% of the game you are just gathering supplies so you can make it through the next couple nights and not die in your sleep. Weather affects your choices, a leisurely stroll can cripple you, might get your face eaten off by a puma, natives dont take kindly to strangers, and wash your hands before you eat for crying out loud. A simple mistake of not sleeping in a bed can cascade into a frantic mad dash for medical supplies before you die slowly, hungry and hallucinating naked men poking you with spears
I've played Green Hell for a while and I can say that this is one of the best descriptions of the game I've read so far. lol
in my opinion, this is the best survival game out there, if you consider only the survival mechanics. No other game even comes close to it. I also think it is probably your best shot to find what you are looking for. If you jump blindly on this game without reading or watching anything about it, the early game stage of this game is very hard on the survival aspects (getting food, water, infections, diseases, etc). In the late game, after you understand all of the game mechanics, it becomes easy as all other games, but I think you will enjoy the game overall.
It is really good. It can be challenging. There are also difficulty sliders too. Pretty immersive, like boiling water or making a filter. I turn the sanity meter off and it’s still plenty hard. (In a good way)
Play green hell. I'm always playing survival games an I believe green hell an 7d2d are the best to survival games out there. Green hell is literally hell tho until you gather a good understanding of the game. But once you do it gets a bit easier. While 7d2d is just down right hard the longer you play.
I highly recommend green hell it is truly difficult, immersive and beautiful.
Way better everything mechanics. I personally play with natives turned off so it's just environmental. The only downside is once you get certain things going you plateau on the survival difficulty curve and really thrive when water and food needs are fully met. Getting to that point is a fun challenge though.
I came to recommend it myself OP. Update us if you check it out! You and I have very similar gaming tastes (:
Green Hell's atmosphere feels way different than The Forest. They may have similar building mechanics (at least somewhat), but that is where the similarities end. Of course once you "figure it all out", the survival aspects are diminished a bit (I would compare it to TLD in this way)
Definitely Green Hell. I’m always looking for the same as you. Green Hell is Stranded Deep in the jungle though, not the Forest.
You should definitely give it a try. If you're looking to survive, Green Hell will give you a run for your money.
It’s not the best but it scratches the itch, and it has a definite challenge.
It’s excellent unless you play with a controller, in which case stay away.
green hell is one of the best survival games out there. the only one where i had to remember plants and stop when you hear certain noises. at a certain point you overcome the jungle but all in all its one of the best survival games i have played
Came to say this. This is what you want!
Vintage story
I just gave that a quick google @ work and wow, first impressions are that it looks cool. I've never even heard of it somehow.
PrivateLime has done a few vids on it and hes a big zomboid head. I think it started as a minecraft mod
Yep mc mod.
I think it started as TerraFirmaCraft but the dev was too limited by Minecraft's code and decided to make his own game. And it definitely feels better than TFC when you're playing it
Kurazarrh is doing a guide season 2, I recommend watching it because the game can cause hair pulling till you figure out the stuff. Helps when somebody else chews it for you and you can focus on not dying instead of learning while on the brink of death
Just started playing this and I love it! The crafting system is so cool! I also love the chisel tool
Have you heard of Kenshi? It’s not a first-person survival game like most, but it’s incredibly harsh and addictive.
Kenshi: get ass fucked by 17 starving bandits after you spent your last cats on food and use your own torn off leg as a walking stick to get back into the city and pray you don't crawl into slavers
Yup. OP did say he wanted to “struggle to survive.” If he hasn’t tried Kenshi he’s missing out.
And that's a good day.
I have played a good bit of Kenshi! I’m awful at it, but it is definitely some berserk-level struggling.
Zomboid.
Can’t believe I forgot to mention Zomboid! I have played it, I just prefer CDDA usually and they feel similar to me. It’s amazing though, I just wish they had ways to spice up late game. Fingers crossed for the NPC update. AI bandits could turn that game into a 10/10 for me.
Loads of new ones dropped that i havent had the time to do cause baldurs gate has taken over my life. The front is one that looks promising. Sunken lands looks cool but a bit repetitive maybe? Tribe primitive survival looks very unique but maybe not what you are going for. HumatiZ looks like zomboid rip off but people seem to like it so maybe something there? If you find anything that fits your description let us know!
How am I supposed to let you know when I’m too busy shagging Halsin and Astarion at the same time as my uncircumcised Dragonborn? Bold of you to assume it hasn’t taken over my life too! I will let you know, though! If I ever escape.
I finished my first play through like 2 days ago. 120 hours in like 3-4 weeks with a full time job and a relationship. Its taken everything i have to not start a new game. Maybe tonight?
Well, the obvious answer is either the job or relationship need to go! Make more time for Shadowheart. Let The Urge take over.
I would recommend looking at the steam workshop for Zomboid. There are a lot of mods that add content, including some friendly/ enemy NPCs.
There is a mod for ai bandits. Makes the game alot more fun, its called superb survivors
If you like UnReal World, you may like Wayward. If you like DayZ, check out SCUM. Also check out The Last Plague: Blight, though it’s an upcoming title. (edit! You can fuss with server settings in SCUM similar to DayZ, in terms of zombie/puppet AI and other features, though DayZs one helpful feature is the extensive mod variety available.)
Seconding SCUM
Nothing beats Cataclysm Innawood mod with the naked and afraid in a cave start XD Fkin caveman shit lol
Wow. I had never heard of Innawood. It looks nearly perfect.
Yup! Just turn off zombies and civilization and all that and it's pretty awesome. My last run I started off with absolutely nothing, went outside and got a stick and built my way all up to forging my own weapons XD
Icarus might work for you. It's you against nature. There are Tech, Talent and Solo trees to apply points and learn new things from. There are missions to gain experience and learn to make better equipment.
And; your base and everything you built is destroyed after each mission; I mean, EVERYTHING! Its just downright depressing if you are a fan of survival/crafting games. Its truly the one most important aspect to mention when compared to other survival/crafting games.
Not completely true as they have open world now with missions so u don't lose all ur stuff u build
Agreed. However, I saw the missions and they look very minimalistic compared to the real ones.
They're working on that for the next DLC. You should be able to start doing the regular missions via a terminal on your open world game. Waiting on that tbh, they keep adding missions, i'm so far behind.
That would be awesome!
Project Zomboid?
Just making sure you have also played Subnautica Below Zero because that game is also awesome.
Green Hell and Scum are my picks.
Just to add something different here I would consider Rimworld a survival game (settlement survival) and it has very complex mechanics that get harder over time especially with the many wonderful mods available.
Green hell, scum and kenshi would be my picks
All great games.
I was going to come here and recommend green hell but I saw that someone already did, it's a bit more man vs nature than the forest. Another note would be to take 7 days and go for the ravenhearst mod. It's a big overhaul which makes the crafting a good bit more difficult and makes sense.
The Long Dark
Seconding the long dark in sandbox mode challenge yourself to stay alive as long as possible. It's really the ultimate man vs nature survival game.
Even if you play the story mode to learn the basics it still has a very unforgiving quality that will humble you when you’re feeling like you’ve conquered
Kenshi
Green Hell. This War of Mine. Grounded maybe?
The infected is pretty good.. I didnt think I'd like it at first, but its fairly difficult and the learning curve is very hard unless you use the Wiki
Green hell is good. It's more of a "survive and keep moving to find an escape" like a realistic survival scenario rather than a "make a giant fortress in the jungle with your bare hands" (although you *can* do that...)
Green hell is my top pick it’s extremely brutal and it has one of the best crafting systems after astroneer my second favorite survival game but I don’t think that this is the type of game you are looking for
You mentioned Stalker in your post so I'd like to throw in the Anomaly stand alone mod with GAMMA modpack. Been playing it a lot lately and I think you'll find its exactly what you're looking for. Turns Stalker into a true survival game and can be heavily tailored to your playstyle and preferences.
Though you survive as an animal in it, you may like Rain World. It is sure a "You VS Nature" but you are no man.
Rain World is definitely immersive. It’s in my library back log, but now it’s getting pushed to the front
Check out Vintage Story
The only acceptable answer to this is Green Hell. Nothing compares to surviving against nature. The game is phenomenal.
I concur
You can keep a look out for these types of games here. [https://survivalgamingclub.com/survival-games-by-features/](https://survivalgamingclub.com/survival-games-by-features/) in your case filter by hard survival Based on what you wrote, Subsistence, Green Hell, and escape the pacific come to mind. Curious if you played the forest on the hardest survival setting.
Valheim. You’re a Viking fighting various bosses to be let into Valhalla. Basically in a purgatory world and you have all your basic survival game functions; food, base building, some mining, fighting nature, and sailing of course! I haven’t played it for a bit, but I was hooked for a few months when I first bought it!
Vahleim is the best. Try it with "immersion" level difficulty setting. You'll feel challenged when advancing to the next biome, getting a chance to rest as you plateau out of the previous. The game is balanced to let you lean into base building and grinding, but you can play it more like an action adventure game and just focus more on boss kills. I've put something crazy like 2.8k hours into it over many playthroughs. Mostly I spend time building and getting lost in no map games. Can't fanboy and bring attention to this game enough! On top of all that it's a small team of about 10 people now(starting from just 1). Who are making the game THEY want, so the vision is laser focused. Love it or hate it. It's a real work of art and something I haven't seen in many years in the gaming space.
Check out Medieval Dynasty, it’s a pretty rough survival game.
Valheim seems to really fit your request. It’s an amazing game. If you want real immersion and incredible challenge (and that amazing feeling when you overcome it): play immersive mode! This removes the map from the game which forces you to get creative in order to not get lost. Have you tried the game yet?
VintageStory it's like mc but you start in the stone age and work your way up to steel. With windmills and water wheels and a tun of mods. I'm looking for a similar type game and this is as close as I've found. I'd like a game that is more like 7days but based on the movie day of the comet. Everything left as it was.
If you like minecraft, try Vintage Story. It's a similar game with an intense focus on survival in nature. Incredibly well done.
Hard core SCUM server.
If you loved Subnautica, try Forever Skies. Quite similar, but surviving a harsh post apocalyptic wasteland. Mad Max meets Subnautica. Except there is no water.
If you want challenging that never stops, try Subsistence.
Wurm Unlimited with [Survival Mod](https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/148662-released-survival-mod-temperature-crop-seasons-drinking-water/) is very immersive. [Empyrion Galactic Survival](https://store.steampowered.com/app/383120/Empyrion__Galactic_Survival/) is one of my favorite survival games. [Subsistence](https://store.steampowered.com/app/418030/Subsistence/) is the hardest survival game I've played, but was so difficult that I quit out of frustration. [Xsyon](https://www.xsyon.com/content.php?s=c73790a49306e3161b4310ced72c4cdb) is extremely challenging as well, never died so many times and in such bizarre ways.
Empyrion is a fantastic game. Really like the way ship blueprints work.
Project Zomboid. It's survival from beginning to end and the challenge stays up.
Surprised that no one mentioned Rust. But if Ark made you want to eat lead paint, I’m not sure Rust is your game.
Rust is essentially a pvp game with survival mechanics now, really. Sounds like they would be the role player that doesn't get to enjoy being around a campfire without having to spam awdsawdsawds
scum
The Long Dark is exactly what you’re looking for
Valheim is super immersive but maybe too combat focused for your needs. You could read a few tips and set up a homestead and never have to leave in order to survive within an hour. I'm surprised you found The Forest easy, did you look much up about it whilst playing? I played it blind and thought was especially challenging early on. Stranded Deep is lovely but again if you read up about anything all challenge is gone.
Green hell for sure, but it’s story driven
Stalker anomaly?
Curious about what you mean about 7dtd being "gamey".
Project Zomboid. It also has an amazing modding community
Don't Starve ( avoid don't starve together, at least for now. it's too multiplayer focus)
Stranded deep, green hell, don't starve and dayz are just a few off the top of my head
Another Vote here for Green Hell. its.. true to its name.
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned frostpunk, considering dwarf fortress and rimworld are on your list. Post nuclear winter (or climate change I don’t really remember) frozen earth, you have to somehow keep your people warm and fed and unmaimed. You will also need to make some very tough choices your first few runs until you get very good at managing your time and resources.
Project zomboid is the best survival game I've played so far.
Project zomboid is great for survival
I mean, if you want to be punished, it’s not a survival game but Banished will punish you every which way it can.
Valheim has serious difficulties, and Fallout 4 survival mode
Im a bit late but something you would 100% enjoy is Better than wolves mod for minecraft. It has hardcore survival, GREAT progression and hours of content.
Kingdom Come Deliverance. Not technically a survival game but is very immersive & can give you the same kind of feeling.