2026 is shaping up to be a great year for new survival games. Some of the biggest Early Access titles of the last few years, including Enshrouded and Valheim, are either confirmed or highly expected to hit 1.0. But if you’re new to survival gaming or feeling nostalgic, sometimes, you want to check out some of the games that made the genre popular in the first place. Survival games have been around since the early days of gaming, but some peak entries in the 2010s are widely credited with making the genre what it is today. And some of those games are still worth playing today.
Survival games are, broadly speaking, defined by having mechanics that demand players meet certain basic needs. Along with the requirement of keeping hunger, thirst, and other motives in check, survival games typically bring in base-building and crafting elements, as well. Much of what fans associate with a good survival game these days can be traced back to some of the most popular games from the 2010s. And these 3 classic survival games still hold up today, whether you’re an old fan or someone looking to try them for the very first time.
3) Don’t Starve
Image courtesy of Klei Entertainment
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Mobile
Price: $9.99
Believe it or not, Don’t Starve is the newest game on our list of survival classics from the 2010s. It first released in 2013, introducing players to a dark open world full of dangerous science and magic. Its hand-drawn, whimsical visuals are part of what sets Don’t Starve apart from other survival games, but don’t be fooled – it’s still a grueling, challenging survival game.
Don’t Starve retains an Overwhelmingly Positive rating on Steam to this day. It is praised for being truly difficult, not offering the hand-holding that some survival gaming fans dislike in more modern entries. Don’t Starve features much of what defines a survival game today, from resource gathering to crafting and fending off monsters. But it also has a dark tone that fits its refusal to teach you how to navigate it, landing it a place among the best survival games of all time, even 13 years later.
2) Minecraft
Image courtesy of Mojang Studios
Platform(s): PC
Price: $29.99
With the A Minecraft Movie of it all, I’ll hardly surprise you by saying that people are very much still playing Minecraft in 2026. Yet when you think about it, that’s fairly impressive, given that the game first released back in 2009. The blocky sandbox open-world survival game has inspired many of the games that came after it, including the recent fantasy hit, Hytale.
Though it’s largely associated with its blocky art style and iconic creatures, Minecraft is also one of the survival games that defined what the genre is today. Its immense open world and creative freedom, along with elements like farming and mining, carry on to many popular survival games. Given its widespread popularity, Minecraft is often credited as helping to popularize the survival genre itself, and it certainly helped give developers a good reason to keep iterating on the formula.
1) Terraria
Image courtesy of Re-Logic
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Mobile
Price: $9.99
If there’s any game that has led more people to survival games than Minecraft, it’s got to be Terraria. Released in 2011, this sandbox exploration RPG retains a solid player base to this day. In fact, it still gets regular updates with new content, with its latest update releasing on January 27th, 2026. And while it’s debatable if Terraria is a full-on survival game, it is part of why we have so many action RPG/survival hybrids today.
Terraria is an action-adventure game at heart, with a focus on exploration, crafting, and exploration that make it familiar to survival gaming fans to this day. It does incorporate survival elements, with basic needs that you need to meet. In fact, this game helped prove there’s a hunger for sandbox survival with a bit of RPG-style progression, and for that, it remains beloved to this day.
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