They say that survival of the fittest, whether it be on an island, in an apocalypse, or beneath the sea, is the way humanity survives. Whether this is true or not, I can’t say, but the fifty tons of loot that I’ve gathered from the trail of death behind me is weighing my shoulders down and making it a bit harder to run. I set these guns, clothes and countless piles of ammo down on my side table and wonder about what the best survival games are for my trusty Xbox One.
I whittle away at this thought as I run from the zombies and swarms of humans, realising that as the light dies out I have the answer in front of me: a top five list! I could write all of the games down, but a top five list gives the best games a spotlight under my fluorescent light, and helps me narrow this down tremendously.
Anyhow, here are the top five Survival Games on Xbox One, with bonus mentions!
Honorable Mentions
Minecraft: Xbox One Edition
We all know about Minecraft, and if you don’t you’ve been away for a long time! The game is all about, well, mining and crafting, whether it be mining out the new Moria or crafting a 3:1 scale of the Sydney Opera House, you can do it all in this Voxel based game of survival. With Multiplayer support and a plethora of textures and items, Minecraft can be filled with an infinity of outcomes for you to survive. With the added bonus of Survival, it is really quite good. Just remember…we built this city on Block and Bowl!
Elite: Dangerous
Whether it be smuggling, combat or simple trading that you enjoy, Elite: Dangerous has you covered. This game isn’t about survival in the means of water and food, but you’ll need precious fuel and make sure you don’t warp drive straight into a sun! Elite: Dangerous is fantastic for putting a podcast on and listening to harrowing tales as you pirate the massive galaxy that makes up the game. Just remember to invest in fuel, or you may end up stranded in space. You definitely don’t want that.
GTA: Online
It may not be a survival game in the traditional sense, but when it comes to public lobbies, survival is the name of the game. Whether you like to fly, race, shoot up stores, or help people shoot up their veins, GTA has you covered with its multiplayer system. Run missions and flee in terror as the highest levelled member in the lobby nears your location, circling overhead with a VTOL armed with homing missiles. Just close your eyes and hope he crashes into the beautiful skyline of Los An- er – Santos.
5. Subnautica
It all began with some flashy lights and a big ker-splash! Get ready to go off the deep end!
In Subnautica you find yourself crash landing into the ocean of an alien planet, before deciding it would be a good idea to document everything whilst trying to survive.
Face monstrous fish that dwarf you and lead you to believe that you may very well be the lowest on the food chain. Build bases and answer the age long question of whether you shall sink or swim! With lovely graphics and an atmosphere out of this world, Subnautica wraps its tendrils around you and won’t let go until you can rip yourself free. But who would ever want that?
4. Dying Light
Whether you like zombies or not, you must admit they can be pretty terrifying. In the latest Techland game you play as Kyle Crane, a man sent into a quarantine zone for story reasons, but quickly find out that survival is where it is at!
Race through the slums or the city, using parkour as your main form of transport. Gather weapons and care packages and even some pieces of paper, presumably written by MacGyver, that tell you how to make weapons of mass decapitation! The scariest part of this game isn’t dealing with the zombies during the day, but trying to avoid the creatures during the night – ones whom are more vicious and have special abilities that make for one hellish night on the town.
Dying Light may not feature a food or water meter, but the sheer number of zombies roaming around makes it difficult to survive without exhausting all of your options. With a mode that allows people to invade your game as the night creatures, a setting which can be toggled, makes for the ultimate game of cat and mouse. Unfortunately, it looks like you’re the mouse.
Grab your night lights and glow sticks ’cause it’s zombie time!
3. ARK: Survival Evolved
With the title containing the word ‘survival’, I would hope this game is a survival game.
After a flip through the community and a quick romp through the forest with which I ended up eaten by a dinosaur, I realized I hadn’t given this game much credit. You start the game looking for stone and plant fibers, slowly progressing to the point of taming and domesticating dinosaurs, all while dealing with food and water shortages, heat issues and limbs breaking.
ARK: Survival Evolved has all the staples of a survival game, but they seem a little strange; the rate food goes down is exponentially faster than it really should be, and what you do eat seems really weak. I ate a whole bush worth of berries and got a few percentage points for my troubles, and a dodo steak didn’t hit the spot either.
I didn’t worry about water, but I couldn’t stand more than ten feet away from my fire pit before my clothe-less person complained about burning up. That being said, it is still a fantastic survival game, if a bit illogical.
Now saddle up and ride ’em, velociboy!
2. Dead Island Riptide
Some may argue that Dead Island isn’t a survival game, but I have to disagree. You have to worry about health and your weapon durability, and there are hordes of relentless zombies that want to tear you apart. There are also annoying glitches that you have to survive, but they can be used against the zombies in a Dark Souls-ian twist. You have to help survivors escape the zombie infested island after your boat shores up, but you are equipped with only a paddle, something you must then thwart the infesting hordes with.
You can swap the paddle out for a plethora of different weapons, ranging anywhere from a stick to a rocket launcher. That being said, it has a survival feel to it as you try to upset the least amount of zombies for fear of being overrun, whilst having to scour and scavenge every piece of loot to make better weapons graced by MacGyver Magic.
It is a must play, and the Definitive Edition is just a measly twenty bucks on the Xbox Games Store.
1. Fallout 4
War has changed in the latest Fallout instalment, showing us the social experiment side of Vault-Tec – you’re made into a man-sicle within the first five minutes, depending solely on how much you play with the new face maker. When you awaken, you find the world has jumped into the handbasket and is on its merry way to hell. But all is not lost. Your old home is still around and you seem to be able to build anything with just enough reagents from junk that litters every shelf and floor of the wasteland.
Before you exit the elevator, a pop-up shows, asking if you would like to enable survival mode. You quickly accept it, hoping that this is the thing you’ve been waiting for, when out of nowhere, your character is starving and dehydrated and tired. You rush to eat something and drink some water, lying down in your old bed to finally take care of yourself. You awake to find you have a plethora of diseases! Sleep has become a gateway to death, but it is the only way to save! You slowly get better as you collect scrap, killing everything that stands in the way of you. Your mission: get vaccinated. Now just remember, fumigate every other week, and if you can’t taste the delicious mutfruit, stop fumigating.
So there we have it, these are clearly the best survival games the Xbox One has to offer us right now. If you’re a springy survivalist, or a pale masochist, you should play all of these games until you can finally say you have survived…the summer drought of games that is!
Do you agree with the choices? Let me know in the comments below or on our social channels.
Not even a mention for the most awesome State of Decay?