Survival games aren't all created equal, and determining the best survival games is no easy feat, as community consensus can vary wildly. But there's no denying that the genre has become one of the most popular in the gaming industry, seeing several high-profile releases every year and garnering millions of players.
When it comes to classifying a title as a "survival" experience, you're primarily looking for it to have survival elements, such as a health, food, or thirst bar you need to keep replenishing. There's also usually an end goal when it comes to a survival game, but this isn't always a dedicated story or plot. Some of the best survival games just have a set of goals for you to hit to get you started on your journey, with the rest of the experience being an open sandbox for you to make what you want of it. Funny enough, several of our picks for the best zombie games also land here, as the undead are such a popular enemy in survival games.
Check out our picks for the 29 best survival games in the list below, which showcase all kinds of different experiences within the genre but are also widely available in 2025. As a note, this list is in no particular order. These games span all platforms, but if you're looking for even more to play, check out our picks for the best PS5 games, best Switch games, best PC games, and best Xbox games.
Minecraft
- Developer: Mojang
- Release Date: November 18, 2011
- Platforms: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android
Minecraft is the game that shaped the bulk of the survival genre and a large part of the gaming industry as a whole. Released back in 2011 (following earlier alpha and beta versions), Minecraft is the second-best-selling video game of all time behind Tetris, selling over 300 million copies as of late 2023. It popularized the sandbox style of survival games, allowing players to do whatever they wanted and build anything that came to their mind. It's still a global ...
