15 Games Like The Forest
Our assembled list of games like The Forest offers other first person horror games where you’ll have to fight for survival in an open world environment.
The Forest joined the ranks of other open world survival games in early 2014 through Steam Early Access. Set within a dense forest players will take on the role of plane crash survivor as they explore the sandbox gameplay, empowering you to make the best decisions for your survival. From chopping down trees to scavenging for food and exploring the cave networks you create your adventure, ensuring each game is always different.
In addition to exploring the open world environment for resources players will need to craft their own tools, shelter and weapons to survive. It’s not only the environment that challenges players but also the tribe of nocturnal cannibals who inhabit the various underground cave networks.
The games similar to The Forest here will also push your survival skills to the limit as you gather resources, craft items and fight off enemies. This list includes both single player and multiplayer options allowing you to team up with friends or test yourself against other humans as opposed to AI.
Rust
Rust is a survival game that comes from the same brains that brought you Garry’s Mod. Drawing inspiration from a wide range of games and genres you’ll find plenty of depth to explore while struggling to survive. The game is best described as a mixture of Minecraft and DayZ. In Rust players will spawn with nothing (other than a rock) and must adventure through the game world to gather food and resources for crafting. This world isn’t free of threats though with other players and animals able to k...[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 that has infected your body. The only thing that stands between you and your death is the scientific knowledge that you hold about the plant life that is scattered around your remote island location which requires you to explore and craft your way to a cure. Miasmata is one of the most unique and impressive adventure games released in recent years and even more impressive when you factor in the...[Read Review]
Fallen Earth
Fallen Earth is a MMO that combines FPS and role playing features with its post-apocalyptic game world to deliver an experience akin to the modern games in the Fallout series. Fallen Earth originally launched in 2009 as a paid MMO game before transitioning to a free to play game in 2011, it was later shut down for a temporary 2 year period between October 2019 and October 2021. Fallen Earth is centred around the Grand Canyon area which is now a wasteland after a series of devastating natural eve...[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]
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]
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]
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 with familiar lore and mechanics from your previous adventure but takes place on a whole new island which keeps it accessible to newcomers to the franchise. Launching in 2013 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 its an overall similar experience released only two years after the success of the original zombie beat down title. The events in Dead Island: Riptide occur right after those of the first Dead Island game although th...[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]