Can you survive the zombie apocalypse? Play games like DayZ and find out!
“Do I have what it takes to survive the zombie apocalypse?”
It’s one of the most important questions in life, next to “should I invest in a life insurance plan?” and “should I name my second child after that Mass Effect character?”
DayZ, a mod of the military simulation ARMA 2, was created in time to jump into the zombie hype train that everyone is currently riding right now. And the best thing about it? It puts all your undead survival theories to the test.
But there are other titles that leave you stranded in a wasteland with nothing but your wits and the barest of necessities to fend off hordes of man-eaters. So how do you know which one will satisfy all your zombie survival needs?
Worry not, dear friends! This article, which lists the Top 10 Games Like DayZ, will help you decide! So pull that hatchet out of that still-squirming corpse and put on your best Daryl Dixon scowl, ‘coz we’ve got zombies to slaughter!
15. State of Decay 2
Never go anywhere, or do anything, without Firecrackers. Use them to distract and evade.
Switch between randomly generated survivors as you battle in a zombie filled open world. Team up with three of your favorite friends in 4-player co-op and wipe out the Blood Plague. You can only hope to survive.
It’s an apocalyptic landscape with a lot of cars, you can use them as barricades, fix them with tool kits and run over zombies. Except for Juggernauts, you’ll probably find a head-shot works better. Build your community by finding survivors. Select the perfect combination of engineers, computer hackers and car salesmen.
Find a car, fill it up with Ruck Sacks, and transport several at once.
Keep morale high by maintaining inventory and keeping nearby zed populations low. If you don’t your base will stay filled with very sad and sorry survivors.
14. Dead Frontier 2
Multiple graphic modes allow playing even at 60fps, for those that refuse to upgrade.
Dead Frontier 2 is a free-to-play, MMO. In fact, the only thing you can spend real money on, utility and fashion, won’t give you any gameplay advantage. The story takes place in a small town, taken over by crows, zombie hordes and tentacle monsters.
Fumble your way through the darkness, holding tight to your highly customized weapon. Find the perfect roof, aim through the downpour of rain, as light from a car’s headlights cut the fog… you make the ultimate headshot.
Over the shoulder 3rd person is a big change from the original game.
Dead Frontier 2 has a release date of August 31, 2018—according to Steam.
13. Desolate
Maintain a “stash” with extra food, firecrackers, meds and at least one weapon.
Desolate begins on Granichny Island. It’s filled with mutants, research experiments gone terribly…terribly wrong. The game is a FPS, horror, open-world, survival experience. You and your volunteer research party investigate clues left from previous inhabitants. In an attempt to find out what happened… and fix it.
And, battle otherworldly, smoke-materializing creatures. You’re always safer in a team, but you can go at it alone. Inside the default base, you will find an upgradable crafting bench. Use it to turn scrap you collected into more useful objects, like the trusty “Pipe Wrench-Welder”. [Multi-threat weapon]
You always need blueprints for every weapon you want to craft. Even that “combat-bat” you have your heart set on.
Scissors can be used for basic crafting in the field, so always keep a pair on you.
12. The Forest
If it’s during the day, don’t waste your energy, most cannibals can be starred down, if you don’t move a muscle.
The Forest focuses on survival in an actual… Forest… but don’t worry, there are cannibals too. Pick up resources like you would in the real-live woods, with caution, not every item is useful. Spoiled food and tainted water will poison you.
Be prepared to be hunted by cannibals. With game AI that hunts you back. Local inhabitants will not only attack you… but they might follow you home as well. Smarter tribes might even execute a siege, if your location is known.
Find mud near ponds and swamps to use as camouflage.
Weapons that you craft in The Forest, won’t wear out.
11. Miscreated
An in-game currency has been added as of June 21, 2018. It’s called “amCoin”.
After decades or nuclear and biological war, the world is reduced to a lightly populated, survival obsessed, zombie ridden nightmare. An all-powerful company, Amalgamated Corporation, provided the perfect recipe to turn your neighbors into bloodthirsty fallout victims.
Going scavenging? Take the dirt bike, it’s a lovely day, just 3% chance of snow--an update by developers. Also, passengers will be dumped, and engine turned off, when the driver exits.
Remember “Fanny Packs”? Look good, feel good-- by customizing the new, “waist slot”, on your character.
Because of abuse, the use of programs like ReShade, SweetFish or Nvidia Program Inspector, have been disabled.
10. Subsistence
Non-verbal communication shortcuts available. Never “F4” your friends, you might need them one day.
Wolves and bears will be the most immediate greeting you get in this game. That’s plenty to start with. After you build your base and install the Base Command Unit [BCU], AI hunters—the enemy, will start building theirs around you too.
Hunters aren’t just walking loot crates, but they do carry unlimited ammo. Destroy their base, before they can rebuild. Dominate the area with your strategically chosen base location. Remember, you don’t have to start building until you want to. Wait until you have enough resources to pull it off successfully.
Starting a garden but don’t have any fertilizer? Use ashes instead.
Locating your base around natural resources will save time over the long run.
9. Colony Survival
Colony Survival multiplayer gaming available as of 2018. The ability to fight and trade with other players, still in the works.
Colony Survival is a first-person voxel [3d version of a pixel] RTS. Enjoy the power of the Colony, with this new take on a game similar to Minecraft. Command a colony [you decide the size] of team minded AI, in the wilderness. Build a town so your members can build, craft, cook, grow, mine and guard.
Just remember, for every member of your colony, you have to recruit them with 50 food credits and feed them every day. Guards protect your crops and elaborate towns, invest in them early on. Otherwise, your townsfolk will become cafeteria line food… after dark…
Not only does it have realistic biomes like a massive jungle and harsh desert but a north and south pole with appropriate climates.
Stairs, bridges, towers, moats and walls: Build them all.
8. 7 Days to Die
As of August 2018, 7 Days to Die has a Steam score of 9/10.
Craft your own survival in 7 Days to Die. Like the name implies, a zombie horde will swarm you, getting larger and larger every 7 days. Build your base with a Minecraft inspired crafting system. Set traps, build barriers, and scavenge nearby cities for supplies and crafting blueprints.
Typically building high is a safe move, in 7 Days to Die, the zombies typically spawn at the highest area available. If you completely lock down all the floors of your base, you might just have zombies spawning on your roof.
Inside your base, put the campfire on a table, to stop catching yourself on fire.
If you are starving, go for overweight zombies, they are more likely to drop food.
7. Hurtworld
Host your own Windows or Linux headless server, located on Steam.
A FPS sandbox survival, pick your own pain kind of game. Choose anything from freezing forests to the searing deserts. Hurtworld will reward your fearless, risk-taking mindset. You could survive with just a bow and some arrows. Or, you could travel further into the map and discover items for killer weapon upgrades. Literally hundreds of items can be crafted by relentless scavengers.
This game has something called an Infamy bar. Depending on your characters path, there are certain rules that must be followed. Some decisions can gain you a bad reputation and increase your Infamy points. For example, if you are a Law Man, and you murder someone, you will get 1 infamy point. Each infamy point puts one secured item up for grabs by other players when you are killed. So always equip you best gear.
Hurtworld sports a low cap on PvP items, keeping the battleground level.
To minimize cheating, Hurtworld uses a more FPS style network instead of MMO.
6. Rust
Not doing your research to get blueprints? The only other option is to locate an air-drop.
A rock, a torch and no clothes. This is where you start when you play Rust, a survival MMO. At the very bottom. There is always a beach welcoming committee for newcomers… Once you run away from that—and into the woods—it’s time to start collecting wood and building. Cannibalize other players if you get hungry, and well… simply survive. Even though there are slowly shuffling chickens, don’t eat them raw, cook yourself a nice chicken dinner to avoid diseases.
Use the Recycler to increase your material quantities. But, don’t use it for trading—not secure.
If you see an unclothed player sporting a “caveman sash”, they have touched a weapon.
5. Survarium
Survarium is being built on new tech called the Vostok Engine.
Survarium is a free-to-play FPS. It’s visual styling resembles a post-apocalyptic USSR. The game is being developed by a Ukrainian company, Vostok Games. After an unknown disaster destroys most of the population, a massive evil forest begins to spread and destroy what’s left of humanity.
If you like to have a little authority in your game, start a clan and search for worthy members. Pick a faction and build your reputation to progress. Or play in Slaughter mode with your friends. This will shrink the map and increase the kill rate.
Recent patch 0.53 gives the ability to voice chat and includes a lobby, among other things.
Vostok Games also created S.T.A.L.K.E.R.S.
4. Contagion
As a zombie you can call in other zombies and try to infect still alive players.
Contagion is a multiplayer survival FPS with 3 different game modes: Hunted, Escape and Extraction. In these modes, after you die, you respawn as a zombie and must try to stop other players from winning the game. The general setting is typical, a virus has caused massive zombie changes to the locals. Forcing you into action.
You will never walk through the same dynamically changing map twice. Developers strive to make this game play “true to life”. Unlike many zombie games, the only way to kill these zombies is the classical headshot. There aren’t may healing items, so it’s a real life or death situation.
The developers offer 500 servers to enjoy Contagion on, so you don’t have to set your own up.
If you like Contagion, try playing Contagion VR: Outbreak. Still in early access August 2018.
3. Infestation: The New Z
This Infestation version was built by a developer FredAikis that liked hacking the older game renditions.
Built as a massive open world shooter, Infestation: The New Z, is free to play. It’s a battle royale along with other modes on the way. You will have huge maps with forests, towns, and cities. Fight until only one player is left standing.
Guard your reputation at all costs, and only progress in directions you are willing to deal with the consequences for. Based on the same principle, aim for big payout targets, like Sheriffs, they fetch a cool +500,000 kill points, when defeated.
Look for military posts to loot. They take a lot of bullets, but it’s worth it.
The New Z is a descendent of Infestation Survivor Stories, a.k.a. War Z.
2. Hunt Showdown
Wagons marked on the map are actually valuable resupply points for health kits, ammo and such.
Interested in being a monster Bounty Hunter? The pay is pretty good, they say do what you love, right? In deep dark humid swamps, you and a partner will take out the biggest and baddest monsters, this side of the Mississippi.
Use Dark Sight to find the monsters. Just remember, there are 4 more teams of Bounty Hunters. If you’re holding the bounty, that same Dark Sight will mark you as a target for the other teams. Everything is always on the line, except for your experience, which can be transferred to team members upon death.
Pick your bounties based on the equipment you will need for the hunt VS. what you have. Otherwise, you’ll end up in an unwinnable situation.
Don’t play this game on mute, sound is an integral part of detecting danger and opportunities.
1. Unturned
Nelson Sexon, the developer was 16 when he released Unturned, who has, since release, been updating the game weekly.
Unturned is a true Zombie Survival game. It’s visually similar to Minecraft, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to beat. Choose between multiple modes, all revolving around the most important concept in zombie games, Zombie Survival. You will love this game, if you are like 90% of the people on Steam. When killing Mega Zombies, stand on something, so you can hit them and they can’t hit you. Then, melee the heck out of them.
At its peak, there were 62,405 players on this game in one month on steam. As of August 2018, there are around 14,000 players per month, so you won’t be lonely.
Tear down walls with a sledge hammer, not a chainsaw, it’s faster
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