The 10 best survival games on PS5 to play in 2024 (2024)

Search for shelter, learn new skills, and try to stay alive in titles that will test your adaptive power.

Pack your stuff; we’re heading into the wilderness! Don’t expect the trip to be easy—you’ll discover the true meaning of the words: “survival experience in the open world.” Join us as we attempt to manage scarce resources, stay in good condition despite ever-present dangers, and navigate challenges of tightly packed maps.

As many of you are undoubtedly aware, survival games can be quite complex, demanding players to carefully learn the rules of their worlds. Typically, you’ll be on your own—or, in the best-case scenario, relying on your co-op partners. Yet, there’s always something compelling about exploring virtual jungles, wastelands, or distant galaxies, where danger lurks at every step.

And that’s precisely what you’ll be doing in the titles included on this list—titles we think are the best survival games on PS5. While many such releases are typically found on PC, there’s still a great deal of them available on Sony’s current-gen console. So, are you ready to hunt wild game and build a makeshift shelter with a couple of old planks?

What are the best survival games on PlayStation 5?

For the purpose of this article, we’ve hand-picked 10 open-world survival games on PS5 (though none of them are exclusives). Keep in mind that this list is purely subjective, and if you feel we’ve overlooked any notable titles, feel free to share your suggestions in the comments.

What you’ll find here is a diverse selection: from hardcore to slightly more casual experiences; from titles grounded in reality to spacefaring adventures. What connects them is their genre affiliation and, at least in our view, above-average quality. Since survival games are often getting new content years after release, it’s possible that a new hit will soon appear on the console scene. Let’s be honest, though: topping Minecraft will be a near impossible challenge.

Conan Exiles

Robert E. Howard’s literary world isn’t the most peaceful place to end up in, which is accentuated at the very beginning of this game: your avatar is immediately sentenced to be crucified. After getting rescued by none other than the legendary barbarian himself, you’re left on your own (unless you're playing in co-op with friends, of course).

Conan Exiles offers its players a vast sandbox to explore. Before getting the hang of its rules, you might get your arse handed to you more than once, as the game’s rather challenging. With the initial goal of surviving in the Exiled Lands, you’ll dive into brutal combat to gradually make a name for yourself and build your own kingdom.

Green Hell

Welcome to the jungle! After waking up deep in the Amazonian rainforest, Green Hell’s player must find a way to survive and escape this predicament. Starting from scratch, you’ll need to learn the ropes of self-preservation, crafting much-needed tools, making fires, and hunting for wild animals. Be mindful, though; it’s going to be a pretty hardcore experience.

That’s because Green Hell is incredibly realistic—highly immersive, sure, but frustratingly so at times. Before you master all the survival elements, be prepared for frequent deaths: from snake bites, food poisoning, or seemingly minor wounds becoming infected.

The Long Dark

If you’ve had enough of dying in the Amazonian rainforest, why not switch things up and join Will Mackenzie as he crash-lands in the Canadian wilderness? Hinterland Studio’s The Long Dark is a standout in the survival game genre, offering a thrilling adventure in the frosty blizzard.

You can dive into several game modes to follow the episodic story, test your survival skills in the sandbox experience, or take on various challenges. For those looking to make things a bit easier for themselves, the game features extensive customization options. Tinker with them to enjoy a relaxing session… or find yourself in even more dangerous situations.

No Man's Sky

Immediately after its release back in 2016, No Man’s Sky was bashed for not delivering on the galactically ambitious promises and having an overall limited structure. Years later, the game is now changed beyond recognition and can be put on the best PS5 survival games list like this without anyone raising their eyebrows in disbelief.

That’s because NMS has been receiving updates ever since its disappointing launch, making this space odyssey truly unique, epic, and time-consuming. Examples of added content include co-op multiplayer, base building, and a special, more challenging survival mode. The latest update released so far made the planets even more lively and visually stunning, with dynamic weather, which means now's a great time to pick up the game and embark on a journey to the heart of the universe.

The Forest

Time for another crash landing—this time on an island swarming with cannibalistic mutants. Think it can’t get any worse? Just wait until night falls… The Forest is certainly one of the best survival games to play on PlayStation 4 or 5 if you’re looking for spooks and scares.

Don’t expect a Resident Evil-style experience, though. Endnight Games’ title very much focuses on the survival genre’s “big three”: exploration, building, and crafting. At least during the day. At night, you’ll need to defend your base from dangers lurking in the darkness. Speaking of which, there are also plenty of caves filled with mutated creatures to check out—and permanently lose your sense of safety.

If you're looking for other games like The Forest on PlayStation 5 (well, kind of), we recommend our article about the best survival horror titles on Sony's console.

Don't Starve

After all the horrors described above, you may be looking for something less intense but still challenging and engaging. If that’s the case, tryDon’t Starve. Behind its stylized, slightly dark visual style, there’s a rich experience set in an open world.

Here, you’ll be transported into a bizarre realm by someone known as Gentleman Scientist. The adventure begins with the basics: gathering stuff, crafting stuff, and building stuff, but your property will soon expand to enormous proportions—provided you keep up with your character’s needs, taking good care of his hunger and sanity. The latter won’t be easy in a world populated by monsters, ghosts, and other oddities.

ARK: Survival Ascended

Ready to hunt dinosaurs? Maybe you’d prefer to tame and ride them? You can do so in ARK: Survival Ascended, an upgraded version of the popular Evolved. Now, it’s one of those open-world survival games on PS5 that are certainly very flawed, but if you get hooked, you can spend hundreds of hours in front of the TV.

Let’s start with bad news: the game does have notable issues, including a rather uneven performance on PS5 (FPS drops, bugs). If you can stomach these, however, there’s plenty of good stuff beneath the rugged surface. Here, new players will find themselves on an island, starting their quest for glory that includes taming and training dinosaurs. Compared to the original version, Ascended offers enhanced visuals as well as support for cross-platform mods and multiplayer. Plus, building is now simpler and more intuitive.

Subnautica

The name of the studio behind Subnautica, Unknown Worlds Entertainment, perfectly reflects its essence. It’s an immersive game that plunges you into the depths of an ocean. Not just any ocean, though—it’s located on an alien planet.

After a rough crash landing (a common trope in these type of games, as you might have noticed), players won’t be taking relaxing dives to snap photos of local wildlife. Instead, Subnautica focuses on exploration of a dangerous underwater world shrouded in mystery. There are also some horror elements thrown in the mix.

Grounded

As you may have heard, Microsoft is looking to expand its publishing reach, so it’s no surprise that a title from the Xbox Game Studios catalog has arrived on Sony’s current-gen console. Grounded, created by the studio behind many renowned RPGs, Obsidian Entertainment, challenges players to survive in… a backyard.

It might sound simple, banal even, but the game’s heroes are far from having an easy time—they’ve been shrunk to the size of insects, making the garden’s menagerie of spiders, mantises, and other creatures incredibly dangerous to them. Unlike many other survival video games, Grounded features an engaging story that could attract even those who usually avoid the genre.

Minecraft

What more can be added about Minecraft that hasn't been said before. It's the best-selling game of all time that everyone has probably heard of—from old ladies to yet unborn babies—and the discourse around it covers so many aspects of Mojang’s hit: its addictive nature, ability to light a creative spark, or its usage as a tool for teaching or developing social skills.

This seemingly bottomless well of topics mirrors Minecraft’s expansive gameplay framework. After all, it’s one of these rare games where saying “your imagination is the limit!” is no exaggeration. You can build pretty much anything, embark on thrilling adventures, or… get bored after cutting down a bunch of trees and tapping at a couple of stones with the hammer.

Since our supplies are running low and shelter is barely standing, it’s probably time to wrap up the list of the best survival games on PS5. We’ve ventured into the world of a legendary barbarian, escaped the dark forest and its cannibalistic residents, marveled at the vastness of the universe, and played around with blocks for hours (days, weeks…). We hope you enjoyed the journey and found something nice to play on your console along the way.