22 Games Like 7 Days to Die
Our assorted list of survival games like 7 Days to Die offers more crafting games where you’ll fight off the undead with the help (or hindrance) of others.
Focusing on the scavenging of resources in a destructible world players will find a sandbox is at their fingertips. From crafting tools and weapons to building complete shelters and fortifications the game is addicting as a solo experience and even better with friends.
The feature list of 7 Days to Die continues to grow as the game has slowly developed from a successful Kickstarter campaign in late 2013. With features including random world generation, various structure mechanics (structural integrity, repurposing materials and others), item crafting, fauna, flora, buffs, character customisation, skills and vehicles it’s easy to see why the game is one of the leaders in the survival sandbox genre.
The games like 7 Days to Die featured here are limited to playable games in late stages of development or games that have been fully released to ensure only the highest quality games make the list. In these various games you’ll get to scavenge the game world, craft tools, create shelters and eventually make a safe haven for yourself and friends.
Life is Feudal: Your Own
Step into a massive medieval world in Life is Feudal: Your Own that blends combat, crafting, building, sandbox, realistic directional combat and many other mechanics to create an adventure set far into the past. Alternatively explore the much larger world in Life is Feudal: MMO, the MMO variant of the title with different features (see the official website for full details) but the same gameplay. Life is Feudal: Your Own supports up to 64 players on a medieval map measuring 3km x 3km. With ample...[Read Review]
Haven and Hearth
Haven and Hearth is a free to play survival based MMORPG that will have you fighting to survive in an unforgiving game world with permanent death. You will have to fight off animals, hunger and other players. The game is being developed by Jorb and Loftar and takes place on a persistent single server. Haven and Hearth is free to play and offers plenty of unique features that create a realistic experience. The games focus is on two core gameplay aspects, permanent death and lasting changes to the...[Read Review]
Stranded 2
Stranded 2 is a free to play 3D game that challenges you to survive by yourself on an island. Building on the original game by offering improved graphics, larger islands, additional items and better randomisation you’ll get plenty of more hours of Stranded gameplay. Allowing players to play either through the story mode that gives you goals and objectives to achieve over four islands or the sandbox mode that lets you run wild there is a game mode for all tastes as you try to survive in the harsh...[Read Review]
Miasmata
Miasmata is a unique survival adventure that has you attempting to cure yourself from a deadly disease. The only thing you have at your disposal is your scientific knowledge and the plant life around the island. Miasmata is one of the most unique and impressive adventure games released in recent years and is even more impressive when you discover the game was created by two brothers (the production quality definitely rivals that of a larger team). Not only are the environments visually attractiv...[Read Review]
Contagion
Contagion offers co-operative and PvP game modes set within a number of zombie infected environments and combined with first person shooter gameplay. With a healthy dose of maps, game modes and weapons underneath the generic setting Contagion has provided a popular framework for fans of the FPS zombie sub genre to sink their teeth into while avoiding infection from the zombie horde. Contagion offers 4 different game modes at the core which are all multiplayer focused but bring something differen...[Read Review]
Don’t Starve
Don’t Starve is a single player survival game that has many unique features and a dark art direction that makes it a stand out open world survival experience. The game was released in April 2013 by Klei Entertainment with a standalone expansion pack released in 2016 under the name Don’t Starve Together which introduces multiplayer to the Don’t Starve universe. While this review here does not cover this expansion in particular the mechanics discussed below are all applicable to the ba...[Read Review]
Fallen Earth
Fallen Earth is set in a post-apocalyptic game world and offers it to players with a free to play MMO experience. The game is a mixture of FPS and role playing features making it akin to the later games in the Fallout series. The game is centred around the Grand Canyon area which is now a wasteland after a series of events which players will learn more about during the in depth tutorial which covers most of the games features and introduces the setting. One of the things that players will first ...[Read Review]
This War of Mine
Most war games have you take on the role of a soldier in the middle of the battlefield with weapons and armour. This War of Mine, on the other hand, puts you in charge of a household of civilians trying to survive a brutal war with what minimal supplies they can scavenge. In the day, you cannot leave the house because of snipers, so instead you stay home and maintain the dilapidated hideout that you’ll slowly improve over time (if you last that long). When night comes, you get to dispatch ...[Read Review]
State of Decay
State of Decay combines the open world genre with a zombie outbreak to create one of the largest and most impressive games in the genre to date. The game started out as a title on the Xbox Marketplace and eventually made its way to Windows. The game plays out in an open world environment with players taking control of their survivors in a third person perspective. State of Decay is packed full of unique elements with a crazy amount of depth for players to explore. While the game has zombies with...[Read Review]
Wurm Online
Wurm Online is a sandbox style MMORPG that has a creative focus allowing you to create your own adventure. You can play Wurm Online with a basic account for free but to remove some restrictions you will have to commit to a subscription based premium account. The game also has a stand alone version released on Steam in 2015 called Wurm Unlimited. Fans of Minecraft will be pleased to know that Markus Persson himself worked on the game so there is definitely a Minecraft influence present (Wurm Onli...[Read Review]
Infestation: The New Z
Infestation: The New Z offers another iteration of The War Z and Infestation: Survivor Stories with a free to play open world shooter made for PvP play across various game modes. Ignoring the rocky history that this franchise has had with countless development issues and decisions that have been less than well received by the community Infestation: The New Z has thus far avoided the same fate a few months into release and hopefully this trend continues for the title so that it may finally see th...[Read Review]
Unturned
Focusing on zombie survival the free to play multiplayer game known as Unturned spent 3 years in Early Access before its final release on the Steam platform in July 2017. Since release the game has not only proved popular in its core gameplay but also the Arena mode which is similar to battle royale titles such as PUBG. In November 2020 the game was expanded to consoles with releases on PS4 and Xbox One as a paid experience. Regardless of the game mode players opt for the same basic premise rema...[Read Review]
Left 4 Dead 2
Left 4 Dead 2 continues the co-operative zombie adventure with all new characters, locations, enemies and weapons to change up the popular gameplay introduced in the original Left 4 Dead. The popular AI director also makes a return with plenty of tweaks to ensure players are always challenged. Just like the original game plot elements are kept minimal with players following four survivors of an infectious disease that has turned the population into zombie like creatures. The story is portrayed t...[Read Review]
CastleMiner Z
CastleMiner Z is a sequel to the popular Xbox Live Indie Game of CastleMiner while also bringing the series to the computer environment via Steam. While the original CastleMiner was a creatively focused experience the sequel pushes the game into survival orientated gameplay instead aligning it with other games in the genre that offer a survival sandbox experience in a block based game world. This CastleMiner Z block based gameplay also features mechanics that are familiar to the genre with zombi...[Read Review]
Project Zomboid
Placing itself into the open world survival horror genre Project Zomboid (PZ) has been in development since late 2013. Throwing you directly into a post apocalyptic landscape ravaged by zombie infestation your goal is to survive and ideally thrive for as long as possible. The game is the first development project by The Indie Stone and received generally favorably by the committed zombie survival community for offering an experience that is highly realistic, vast and unforgivingly hardcore at ti...[Read Review]
Sir, You Are Being Hunted
Sir, You Are Being Hunted is one of the more unique games to be released in recent years with its offering of stealth gameplay combined with free roaming sandbox mechanics. As the name might suggest players spend their time being hunted in a procedurally generated game world by killer robots. Unlike the zombies, mutants or humans of other games these British themed robot opponents give Sir, You Are Being Hunted a unique setting over other stealth and survival titles. Players find themselves in t...[Read Review]
Dead Island
In Dead Island you’ll have to explore an open world environment and try to prevent being eaten by using whatever weapons you can find around the place. Dead Island is a great role playing experience for fans of survival horror and is available on Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Dead Island features a fictional island which is home to a luxury tropical resort. After a night of wild partying the player wakes up as one of the four available characters (each with their own stats and skills) an...[Read Review]
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead (L4D) is a zombie survival experience that focuses on co-operative gameplay against a varied and randomised zombie infection. Left 4 Dead separates itself from similar co-operative shooters by promising a different experience each time you load up a game map thanks to the AI director that alters aspects of the map each time it is played. The Left 4 Dead base game takes place across four varied and unique acts all with a movie design to the campaign, their own tagline and five separat...[Read Review]
Dead Island: Riptide
Dead Island: Riptide is the second game in the Dead Island series and continues on from your previous adventure but takes place on a whole new island. The game launched in 2013 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, delivering a very similar experience to the first game. The events in Dead Island: Riptide occur right after those of the first Dead Island game although they are disconnected enough that you don’t have to play the first one if this is your first experience with the franchise. Although, it defini...[Read Review]
Salem
Salem is a free to play MMO with a focus on exploration and crafting mechanics. Seatribe is behind development of the game who also run the popular hardcore MMO, Haven and Hearth (to which Salem has many similarities). Just like in Haven and Hearth players can expect permanent death in Salem so it definitely isn’t for the faint of heart. Salem is set in 17th century New England and as the name might suggest has obvious ties to the witchcraft of the era, with players playing as a pilgrim. Your jo...[Read Review]
Dying Light
Parkour across a massive city while also slashing zombies to pieces in Dying Light a game with plenty of open world and RPG elements. The game is available on Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Centred around agent Kyle Crane whose objective is to infiltrate the quarantine zone of Harran. This city is overrun with infestation that has turned its populace into aggressive zombie inspired creatures. At the core of this adventure is parkour that takes you over the city rooftops and a day night cyc...[Read Review]
ZombiU
ZombiU (Zombi on non Wii U platforms) brings the zombie genre onto Nintendo’s platform with an amazing and horrifying experience that shows off some unique mechanics and potential of the Wii U. On non Wii-U platforms some of these features are taken out or redesigned while still retaining the impressive fundamental design of the primary Wii U version mot notably the fantastic London setting and horror tones that are magnified by the permanent death mechanic with some graphical improvements along...[Read Review]