Sandboxy survival games - any thoughts?

[Bison]

The Forest is fun and scary as hell if you like cannibals and mutants.  Otherwise subnautica, Stranded Deep are fun to pass the time.  They all are in beta so new features are being developed and released.

[undercovergeek]

Just buy it on Steam Geekypoos

For twice the price grrrrr gnash!

Thanks bison - I think I'm sold on ark

[JasonPratt]

Pick up 7 Days to Die.  I promise you won't regret the purchase if you have any interest in zombies and survival.

Not really a lover of the zombies

I hate zombie games, and I love 7DtD. Just saying.

[Bison]

7 Days really is the best sandbox survival game out.

[JasonPratt]

It isn't that it doesn't do everything better; but that it does a number of things very well in a synergistic way. Its limits are deep but limited enough to keep things focused, if that makes any sense.

Empy is really quite a different game, with (so far) a very different mood. ARK from everything I've seen and the little I've played, is both unbalanced in favor of the environment and in favor of the players (if you survive and team up enough) which makes it feel schizy.

[JasonPratt]

At the moment, I'd say the next game with the potential to un-niche 7DtD is Savage Lands. I don't know that the island is randomgen, and it surely isn't as large, but the general deep-limited scope feels the same -- accomplish surviving and thriving with the ass end of technology, and nights that you'll fear coming -- but with a wider set of threats and a clear final boss goal to win the game, namely the dragon.

[Asid]

Life Is Feudal: Your Own

http://store.steampowered.com/app/290080

[Hofstadter]

There was a period on steam, where they all spawned en masse like locusts.

And they are all terrible.

[Huw the Poo]

Have any of you played Planet Explorers?  I haven't played much of it but it looked very promising indeed.  A colony system, some kind of monorail transportation, automated defenses and various other loveliness.  They've just released a reportedly huge 0.9 update so I'm tempted to go back in and have a look when I eventually have some time.

[Tpek]

Are there even any good (singleplayer) sandbox-ish survival games that have been fully released? (not Early Access)

Life Is Feudal looks like it's designed solely for MP.

[JasonPratt]

I think several people here will testify that 7DtD makes a good single-player game. For that matter, the map is so freaking huge that you could play the Groghead Invitational as, in effect, a single player -- some players do that.

True, it's still technically Early Access, but the game might as well be in full release. It's only technically alpha because they keep adding things. Also the pure single-player campaign may have an end-goal of some kind (I don't know for sure).


My Empy campaign (see the AAR category for the first few days here on Grogheads) has so far been a good single player experience; but I haven't put nearly the time in it yet. I wouldn't have bought it if the impression from the forums wasn't that it worked well single player, though, and I can see how that would be true. The devs conservatively list it as pre-alpha, but it plays like a full release with regular free updates.


It isn't a FPS or 3PS sandbox, but Don't Starve was built from the ground up as a single player experience, and has been in full release for a while. Your mileage may vary at the cutsey woodcutterish art style, but it's a very legitimate randomgen survival game (with an end game goal, to make the machine again that got you there in the first place).


Subnautica seems to be the best underwater survival game at the moment, and very much a single-player game. Gorgeous and again only technically early access, plays like a full game with occasional free expansions.


I hear really good things about Salt, which seems to be the best of the upper-sea survival games currently. (Stranded Deep has been having increasing problems.)  Again, practically a full release game already, with regular updates.


I'm hearing ridiculously good things about Fortresscraft Evolved, which is so single-player designed (but can still be played multi co-op) that industrial assembly lines are part of the game design. Mind-shrivelingly huge industrial assembly lines -- the point being that you make your own co-op partners in game to work for you doing things while you're off doing something else.

[Huw the Poo]

I'll second Don't Starve, it's a lovely, strange, amusing little game.  Try to read as little as possible about it before playing, though.