5 best survival games of 2022

Game genres, such as action, adventure, role-playing, horror, survival, and more, are there to indicate what type of experience is in store for the player. These are, after all, escapist fantasies of power and discovery.

What is equally appealing, though, is the fantasy of weakness or lack of power. These powerless fantasies are the backbone of horror and survival titles, and the struggle to overcome a great lack of power is what makes this genre so powerful.

Survival can mean many things, but at its core, it's about ensuring one lives through some sort of trying event or phenomenon. Games in this genre often throw difficult and unfavorable situations at the player and ask them to not only live through them but even prosper. For such players, here are five games worth considering.

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Survival games that test hardened players

1) Ixion

Ixion hands the player a space station and expects them to ensure not only their own survival but also the entire human race. Gamers are tasked with keeping the station safe, managing the workforce, raw materials, resource production, and much more.

The management and survival aspects of the game have a lot of depth. It can have weird difficulty spikes but, for the most part, stays a tense base-building experience throughout its run time.

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2) Callisto Protocol

Jacob Lee is sent to a prison on the Jovian moon Callisto. Here, he eventually finds prisoners infected by a virus and soon realizes he has to battle for survival. As he continues to evade death, Lee starts to uncover the dark truth behind the prison.

The game has some exceptional ambiance and immersive horror experience but is unfortunately bogged down by horrible performance issues - something that is hopefully being fixed.

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3) Grounded

Surprisingly, the premise for Grounded hasn't been tried before. Players take on the role of a kid that has shrunk to the size of an ant. It's an excellent setting where normally mundane concerns like spiders and dust bunnies suddenly become very dangerous.

These kids will have to ensure they survive in the backyards of their homes by avoiding danger, collecting resources, and building a shelter. The game is available on Xbox and PC.

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4) Dwarf Fortress

Dwarf Fortress is a very old game, but it recently got a fresh release with a new coat of paint. As the title suggests, it is a dwarf colony simulator but can be deceptively complex. Players start off by generating a world and its detailed history. Then they choose a set of starting characters and a starting location. After that, they can get to building a dwarf fortress.

Players can set up a complex colony system with chains of command and resource pipelines, all working in tandem to create a living, functioning ecosystem. This leads to intricate events piling together and reacting with each other to create unique stories.

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5) Raft

Players start off with a throwing hook on a wooden plank surrounded by an ocean full of clutter. They can use the hook to fish out materials like plastic or wood from the ocean, which can be used to expand the boat and build sails, cooking grills, and eventually even motor engines.

Raft is not only a sandbox survival simulator but also offers a story. As players drift in the ocean, they will start to discover islands, and soon, they will come up on very large islands that hide clues as to what happened to the planet. As they progress, players will eventually discover what submerged the entire world in water.

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The sense of satisfaction that comes from looking at a base or at a character that has become capable of handling whatever the game throws at it is unparalleled, and only survival games can deliver such an experience.