Imagine killing zombies and crafting your own weapons while experiencing a high-tension survival horror experience. Who wouldn’t enjoy that?
Those were some of the reasons for Dead Island’s critic success after being released in 2011. Survival horror’s atmosphere merged with RPG elements revealed how zombies can be fun and scary at the same time.
Eight years later, several games emerged with similar characteristics to Dead Island, and we’re here to tell you which ones are even better than the Techland game.
10. Resident Evil 7Resident Evil 7 Gameplay
Resident Evil 7 is a survival horror and first-person shooter game from the Resident Evil franchise. You play as Ethan: a civilian with few combat skills and lots of love for his missing wife.
Imagine having nothing but frightening vídeos of your injured wife asking you to stay away. This is Ethan’s horrifying reality. Before you realize it, Ethan is on a derelict plantation looking for Mia. There, you meet the Bakers: a strange and mysterious family. Human experimentation, abuse, and insane people who have made it their purpose to torture you are a few of the many oddities you’ll find.
On top of all that, you must discover what is going on and search for the weapons and tools that will help you survive the game.
Along with an astonishing first-person experience, Resident Evil 7 favors us with brilliant cinematography.
While accessing your inventory, the game keeps running, so you must be quick if you’re being charged by a heinous creature.
9. State of Decay 2State of Decay 2 Gameplay
State of Decay 2 is a zombie apocalypse survival game. Every time you start the game, you choose a distinct character and form your group based on the skills of each participant on your team.
Civilization as you know is gone. Now it is your duty to gather with other people and build a new community. Your ability with maintenance plays a crucial role in whether your colony will survive among the undead hordes. You are free to play as you wish: be it as a despot or as a selfless leader.
This apocalypse simulator has a notorious open-world environment that can be explored by four people in cooperative mode.
Through a random character creator, every new game is individualalized and gives the player a unique challenge.
Although you may organize your group strategically for its survival, it will be necessary to spend some time in bloody combats.
8. ScumScum Gameplay
Scum is an open-world, multiplayer online survival game set on an island in Croatia. You, along with 63 other players, must survive and escape the island by removing the implants in your heads that are preventing you from leaving.
During the game, you’ll earn fame points, which can be traded for products or to be cloned in case of death. These sci-fi elements establish this game as a strong player in the dystopian genre.
Scum includes an outstanding and organic system. For example, if you get your teeth knocked out, you must liquify your food before eating it. In addition, defecating and urinating gotta be well hidden, because they can be used by other players to track you!
You can either play in first-person or third-person perspective.
This third-person shooter has beautiful settings, which help the player become emerged in the search for supplies and weapons in the company of your selected (not so much) friends.
Even though you need to cooperate with others to survive, don’t get attached. The first rule of the game is “kill or be killed.”
7. DesolateDesolate Gameplay
Desolate is an open-world action game set on a fictional island called Granichny. It is designed as an alternative story of the Soviet Union.
It's1980, and you begin to discover dangerous things around you on the island, the scariest of which is an experiment that transformed its population into horrible creatures.
You play as a volunteer from “The New Light,” an organization responsible for covering up the experiment-gone-wrong and fixing its problems. As a volunteer, your mission is to research the paranormal activity of the island while gathering information and performing death-proof tasks.
Desolate has an attractive system of abilities that can be used to improve your chances of survival against creatures as well as the customization of clothing and armor.
You can also craft, modify, and upgrade weapons and equipment.
You can choose to explore with a team or on your own, but you must prepare to face unearthly creatures.
Desolate has a foggy and chilling atmosphere, but this is just one of the elements of survival.
6. Dying LightDying Light Gameplay
Dying Light is an action-adventure game with survival features set in an open-world. Like Dead Isladn, it is a Techland game. However, it has faster, more advanced dynamics.
Playing as Kyle Crane, an undercover agent looking for Kadir Suleiman in a quarantine zone, you face the moral decision of staying focused on your personal mission or helping other survivors. With exceptional parkour mechanics, you can move anywhere, but be aware of the consequences if you decide to go out at night.
This survival game contains an outstanding day and night cycle and RPG features that recapture the Dead Island environment more competently.
During the night, the creatures are much more fast and dangerous, so it’s better to stay in the safe zones until dawn.
If you decide to help the survivors, you must be quick and alert while searching for supply drops.
5. ContagionContagion Gameplay
Contagion is a multiplayer-focused game with three different game modes: Hunted, Escape, and Extraction.
Hunted mode resembles a Battle Royale with up to 16 players and some A.I.. Controlled zombies serve as an environmental hazard. If you die, you come back as a zombie and may attack the surviving players. The goal of Hunted is to be the last living player.
Escape and Extraction are cooperatives modes. In the first, a team of up to 8 players is tasked to progress through the level by fighting through zombies and completing missions in a linear order. Your ultimate goal is to escape the map. In Extraction, the goal is to explore an area and rescue a number of survivors. Like in Hunted mode, you can be killed and come back as a zombie in both of these modes Both modes can also be played online.
Contagion brings back good old-fashioned Resident Evil 1 vibes: you face dumb zombies without special abilities, and the scarce supply of ammo encourages a precise and systematic approach to playing.
Even though the zombies are slow, they can still be scary and catch you if you make a mistake.
Playing in Extraction mode requires well-thought leadership and cleverness, or you’ll lose the survivors.
4. Overkill’s The Walking DeadOverkill’s The Walking Dead Gameplay
Overkill’s The Walking Dead is an action-adventure cooperative game. Built as a first-person shooter, it’s clear how role-playing elements influenced its construction.
This multiplayer cooperative game puts you against the group “The Family” after they steal the water purifier of your camp. Between the team intrigues, you can control four new characters from The Walking Dead universe, each one with unique skills, abilities, and plots.
As you progress through the missions, don’t forget to stay quiet. If you are too loud with your weapons, an immense zombie horde will appear.
Remember to shoot the least amount of enemies possible to minimize noise.
Maya’s character is a former surgeon with the ability to heal all her allies. She is also good with light weapons like revolvers and SMGs.
3. Mist SurvivalMist Survival Gameplay
Mist Survival is a survival sandbox game with stealth elements. This single-player game is set in a world that had been torn apart by a virus outbreak.
To survive, you must find food and water, build shelter, and protect everything--not only from the wild animals and bandits but also from the nightmarish zombies lurking in the shadows. Along the way, you can rescue survivors from enemy bases and add them to your camp, assigning them tasks or posting them on defense.
Mist Survival features great time mechanics, crafting skills, base building, and an excellent stealth system.
The zombies only come when a mysterious mist falls, so when it does, you better be prepared!
Despite being a single-player adventure, you can count with many non-playable characters that are willing to help you with your harvest.
Through your inventory, you can access your equipment, status, and weather information.
2. 7 Days to Die7 Days to Die Gameplay
7 Days to Die is a survival horror game set in the fictional open-world country of Navezgane.
You were thrown in this place after the nuclear World War III destroyed almost the entire world.
As a survivor of this war, you must as well seek for supplies, such as food and water, and build your own shelter to protect yourself from the zombies, created by the nuclear hazard, that populate Navezgane. Just like in Dying Light, it’s better to shelter yourself before it gets dark!
The only goal is to survive for as many days as possible.
As the days go by, your enemies grow stronger, so make sure you can find everything you’ll need to survive.
Building your shelter can be fun and challenging as a tower defense mode.
1. The Forest
The Forest Gameplay
The Forest is the ultimate survival horror simulator. This first-person shooter game puts you into horrible and taboo situations that are utterly terrifying.
When you, Eric Leblanc, and your son, Timmy, survive a plane crash, you are left to your own devices. Beholding a silence wilderness as you walk your way to, supposedly, save your son from cannibals, you confront eerie creatures that behave bizzarely against you.
Like the games previously discussed on this list, The Forest includes a day and night cycle, a crafting system, and the continuous need to defend yourself during the night. However, it’s the bizarre atmosphere, including baby mutations, and its capability of making the player question who the real enemy is that makes the many hours you put into the game worth it.
Cannibalism scenarios aren’t uncommon during the exploration of the island tribes.
It’s advisable to set up your shelter and traps during the day, so you can stay safe at night.
