7 Sandbox Survival Games You Should Try At Least Once

1. Necesse

Necesse Preview from Steam

This game is a mixing concept between Terraria and Rimworld, you are playing as yourself and you are building your own village. The combat system is so much like Terraria, except we are viewing the world top-down. Like most survival games, the survival-craft concept is there, you need to survive the night, satisfy your hunger, explore the dangerous world, fight bosses, defend your village from raids, escalate combat with hundreds of weapons and improve your crafting tier.

This game has a multiplayer option so you can play it with your friends! But if you prefer a solo play it is perfectly fine too, the choice is yours. Moreover, you need to be aware if the bosses' health point is scaled based on how many players are around. But on the top of that, I personally say the experience playing Necesse is great so far. If you find a fast 2D combat as exciting, then Necesse may be your go-to game!

2. Minecraft

Minecraft Preview from Minecraft Official Trailer

This is a very popular title that ever earned the best-selling games of all time. Children love it, and adults also love it too. This very game offers a creative way to survive, you can build secret bases, or even make some kind of in-game electrical engineering. Every block in the world can be destroyed and placed just like Lego, except Minecraft brings you into the first person experience in its 3D open world.

Similar to the other survival games, it literally live up to its name, "Minecraft", you mine and craft to keep progressing, you will want to upgrade your gears with better and better materials. What you are going to do is exactly up to you though, either you want to go straight to the boss, or chill like Thanos in his retirement farm, there is no pushing, the story will always be yours.

There are already hacks and exploits on the internet since the game is not new anymore. I bet Minecraft already got a lot of content now compared to the last time I had my gaming session. It also has mods, custom resource packs and shaders to add some spices into the game. It is not only the game for simply surviving, but also the game people try to break the limits and start going crazy with their creative minds, aesthetically or logically.

3. Terraria

Terraria Preview from Steam

Terraria is a proof that a 2D platformer game can still feel massive. It has been compared to Minecraft since they share the mining and crafting mechanic progression, but they indeed have different style. Terraria focuses more on unique combat mechanic with tonnes of weapons, and have plenty of armors and decorations. There are a lot of bosses to fight, and its drops and treasures are amazing.

It is a very fun game if you are seeking for adventure into the deep caves or ruins fighting monsters with your own quirk as you travel farther or deeper. There are also people settling at your base with different ability to help you with trades and stuff. Just like Necesse, it share similar experience, but perhaps this is the original one and you can experience the most hardcore, fast pace battle with its bosses.

4. RimWorld

RimWorld Preview from Steam

Rimworld isn't really about surviving one character, it's about surviving as a stranded colony, and that's what makes it so compelling. You don't move a one man character here, instead you manage and order more than one person along with their autonomous behavior.

This game is actually pretty complex, they mix colony survival, base building, human interaction, personalities for each character, raids, exploration, storage management, to power engineering. It's crazy that Rimworld have a darker side like you can have people with addiction, you can imprison a wild person or your enemies and make them work which is crazier. But indeed, the story is yours to decide, again.

Rimworld at the end will be a very challenging game because you need your management skill to prove if your colony is fully prepared for random encounters that comes one after another. Can your colony survive another day from any raid or sudden environmental change? If you are interested in such challenge, this game is totally for you.

5. Kenshi

Kenshi Preview from Steam

Kenshi is a game with a much more brutal surroundings, post-apocalyptic environment, slow and deliberately unforgiving, and that's exactly why it has such a dedicated following. You can play as a one character, or many characters at once, it can be a mix of a colony and real-time strategy genre.

There's no hand-holding, you can be captured, enslaved, or got a limb amputated, and the game expects you to build your characters from absolute weaklings into tough beings, it is a slow grind but it surely pays, kinda remind you of the real life grinds. What is awesome about this game is, it has an interesting mechanic on mixing various stats to define your character's ability. Your character's health point is also broken into parts, each separate health point for each limb, which is different from what you would expect in most survival games.

Kenshi is less about power fantasy and more about a harsh, open world that reacts to your choices in ways most games wouldn't dare to attempt. If you want a survival game that actually feels dangerous, Kenshi is the one that delivers on its promise. I wouldn't say Kenshi has a compelling graphics, but it gives you the freedom to play and write your own story.

6. Project Zomboid

Project Zomboid Preview from Steam

Project Zomboid earns its tagline of "This is how you died", this game simulates a person surviving a zombie apocalypse. This game comes with the complex system which could slow you down, like fatigue, hunger, thirst, injury, and even your negative personality builds. There is absolutely no superpower you can obtain along the way, so what you can do is staying low, scavenge, try not to run out of resources, and try not to get seen by zombie and the hordes.

In this game we are not trying to be a superhero, because fighting zombies increase fatigues, and you will need a long sleep after that. Even if this game is a top-down 2.5D isometric world, the gameplay is intended to be made closer to our reality which is much more challenging. I still remember that the cars have a complex mechanic itself and the skill system also has its own variation.

In Project Zomboid, every wound and injury needs to be handled quick before it gets worse or even gets infected. Zombie infection has no cure in this game, and if you get it eventually that will be the end of your character. Every time our character died, we slowly build up our learning curve and we can withstand the situation much better later. If you think it's a fun experience to see how tough and quirky to be a zombie apocalypse survivor, this game is a must to try.

7. Mindustry

Mindustry Preview from Steam

Mindustry has a pretty different theme from the rest of the list. If you are into tower defense and resource management, this game is for you. In this game we have the resource automation building and the turret building. Some resources need conversion, hence the production tiering exist. Some turrets need ammunition which is made out of a specific resource, and the others need different ones, you should stock the ammos before the enemies come closer to the base.

Mindustry has its own tech tree too if you are familiar with tech tree mechanic. It has an upgrade system with prerequisite resources needed to unlock the next tech. We got various conveyor belts, various turrets with different abilities, the powering systems, and all the production machines.

In the end, mindustry can be a fun little game, but can also be a big and complex base building experience. If you can catch up with the pace or feel challenged with building the best defense, Mindustry is totally for you.

So, what do you think of these curated games? The list is a bit old, but to me they are still gold. If I've ever got my hands onto different new games, I'll tell you again what to recommend next in the future.

Thanks for reading!