Aug 9, 2018 - 50 Games like Rust for Mac OS, daily generated comparing over 40 000 video. Logo of the video game ARK: Survival Evolved.
While they were once in vogue in a big way, much like battle royale games are today, the demand for survival games isn’t quite what it used to be. There’s a belief that a lot of them follow a similar blueprint, faults and all. Many survival games launch in Early Access and refuse to leave for the longest time; a couple of entries on this list are certainly guilty of that.
Bear in mind that this collection of the best survival games isn’t in any particular order and that some of them certainly have their rough edges. They all have their pitfalls in one way or another, but make no mistake, they’re all about survival down to the dictionary definition. The Best Survival Games 22. Green Hell Developer: Creepy Jar Publisher: Creepy Jar Platform: PC One of the newest games on this list of the best survival games at this time of writing, has been compared considerably to The Forest. Though they both have a familiar mood and feel, it’s Green Hell that is the more hardcore experience and one that will teach you how to play it with some incredibly harsh lessons.
Stranded in the unwelcoming Amazon rainforest, you must scrape by however you can, though death is never far away. Whether it’s because of a rattlesnake bite or eating a goddman leaf, Green Hell makes no bones about how unforgiving it is. Currently in Early Access and already impressively polished, expect Creepy Jar’s to survive and become a cult hit that shows what you can achieve when you do more than the bare minimum. SCUM Developer: Gamepires, Croteam Publisher: Devolver Digital Platform: PC Similarly to Green Hell, has also been compared pretty liberally to another survival game. However, comparisons to DayZ are just on a surface level and fairly lazy to boot: SCUM is a far deeper and more meticulous game that will punish even the slightest of misses in micro-management. You have to keep track of vitamins, minerals, calorie intake, warmth and so much more in SCUM, as well as it boasting some realistic approaches to stamina and body shapes determining the kind of athlete you are.
Your skills upgrade the more you play, which is just one of many reasons why it’s captivated so many players so early on in its development. It’s more than just a pooping simulator, you know. Darkwood Developer: Acid Wizard Studio Publisher: Acid Wizard Studio Platform: PC You want a more hardcore version of Don’t Starve, a deeply disturbing survival game that’s far more terrifying than its lo-fi visuals may suggest?
Then you should absolutely check out Darkwood: one of the most unsettling and constantly tense games of its ilk thanks to some superb audio design. Ugh, the dog.
The damn dog. The goal is simple: survive. While that is the point of all the best survival games we’ve compiled here, Darkwood doesn’t ask you to go up against teenagers with a penchant for teabagging. Instead, you must roam a forest by day and hunker down for the night and all the things that go bump in it. Darkwood features a top-down perspective, which is somehow even more panic-inducing, and absolutely zero hand holding throughout. Best of luck: we also listed as for a reason.
How To Survive Developer: Eko Software Publisher: 505 Games Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS3, XB1, 360, Wii U While its sequel may have failed to capture the same magic, How To Survive’s one of the most engrossing zombie games of recent times. Not because of the blood and guts, but because of how it takes you from a hapless idiot with a stick to the conqueror of the undead. You’re stranded on a desert island with nothing but hordes of the undead and some suspicious residents for company. How To Survive’s big mechanic is that you can find new passages from a survival book and then apply them to your character, meaning that you’re always learning and growing with each passing day. If the top-down perspective doesn’t do it for you, you can buy How To Survive – Third Person Standalone to change things up. They Are Billions Developer: Numantian Games Publisher: Numantian Games Platform: PC This Early Access success story is two things: 1) a zombie game that does plenty to refresh tired ideas and 2) a pre-release title that isn’t polarising. They Are Billions’ positive reception comes down to its name fitting the billing: there are endless streams of the undead to defend against.
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Just one zombie can be your undoing, which makes covering all of your bases an essential. There can be no gaps in your defenses, making They Are Billions a bit on the intensive side — it’s not a game, it’s an obligation. If you think you have the game licked, Numantian waste no time in upping the ante with even bigger challenges to face head on. Updates are admittedly slow for They Are Billions, but your patience will surely be rewarded.
Subnautica Developer: Unknown Worlds Entertainment Publisher: Unknown Worlds Entertainment Platform: PC, PS4, XB1 Compared to most of of the survival games on this list, Subnautica is positively vibrant. Gone are the muted colours and destitution, replaced by a life under the sea. If you want a break from the grime of the post-apocalypse, Subnautica is the perfect substitute. That’s not to say that it doesn’t pose a challenge — it is a survival game after all. After your spaceship crash lands on an alien planet, you have to eke out an existence by balancing your basic human needs, the allure of exploration, and a need to make your way home. The deeper you go in the sea in Subnautica, the deeper the nightmares become — Lovecraft would be proud of the creations lurking beneath. From our: “Even those who dislike survival games are bound to find something to like in Subnautica with its PS4 version doing more than enough to keep itself afloat.” 16.
Frostpunk Developer: 11 bit studios Publisher: 11 bit studios Platform(s): PC Part city management game, part guilt simulator, Frostpunk is an almost oppressively challenging game that tasks you with carving out a living after a worldwide freeze kills off most of humanity. You are the leader of group at one of the last bastions of hope: a gigantic furnace that is your saviour just as much as it is a burden. Allow the heat to drop, people die. Those who don’t become amputees thanks to frostbite, which can unsettle the majority of your population. Frostpunk is a survival game of constant risk and reward: do you send out your survivors to work in freezing conditions or do you set up shop and hope that your resources last? It constantly asks the tough questions and shows that there is no right answer in life or death situations.
Expect to be publicly executed once or twice or ninety times. Hey, if the children didn’t want to be put to work then they should have said something. From our: “Frostpunk is a beautiful game that doesn’t shy away from the ugliness of our species, nor does it pull any punches with its difficulty. It’s an uncompromising, completely captivating affair that shouldn’t be overlooked as one of April’s best new games.” 15. DayZ Image source: www.craveonline.com Developer: Bohemia Interactive Publisher: Bohemia Interactive Platform: PC, XB1 (Game Preview) The first of to enter our list, it’s important to stress here that DayZ isn’t going to be for everyone. In fact, whether it’s down to the long stretches of nothingness and a performance that still isn’t quite where it should be, there’s a good chance that you’re going to be completely underwhelmed by its first few hours.
Stick with it (and also grab a few friends) and DayZ begins to slowly flourish, however. DayZ as a whole is something of a slow game with human encounters being few and far between, as well as there being a likelihood that they may just kill you outright. It’s been in Early Access for an obscene and controversial length of time, though 2018 might finally be the year when we see DayZ fulfil its promise. 7 Days To Die Developer: The Fun Pimps Publisher: The Fun Pimps/Telltale (consoles) Platform(s): PC, PS4, XB1 Another zombie survival game that’s been in Early Access since a week after Nelson Mandela died, 7 Days To Die and DayZ aren’t a million miles away from each other but it’s 7 Days that arguably has the most interesting ideas. You survive for as long as you can against hordes of the undead by building fortifications and jankily bashing their heads in. 7 Days is not the prettiest or smoothest game on this list with some very rough textures and a general lack of sheen. If you can overlook that, it can be an engaging and very long ride.
If you’re on PC, that is. Is, in a word, horrendous and supported pretty terribly. Conan Exiles Developer: Funcom Publisher: Funcom Platform(s): PC, PS4, XB1 Packed with more cocks than the House of Lords, Conan Exiles made a name for itself thanks to countless headlines that went in hard on its phallic nature. Really, that’s probably still its biggest selling point as it doesn’t do a great deal to distance itself from its peers while also borrowing pretty liberally from them. Still, if you want to feel very loosely connected to the lore of Robert Ervin Howard and grief some people, Conan Exiles has what you need.
It has the customary open world survival game jank and drawbacks, though if you just want to build bases and get to the top of the ladder from the bottom, Exiles has a steady but rewarding sense of progression. As with many games of its ilk, it’s much better with friends. From our: “What is there now is still fun and with friends it can be a blast, but people should know that it simply isn’t finished yet. I see great potential in this world from an age undreamed of, and perhaps one day it can truly be a place of high adventure as well.” READ NEXT: 12. Rust Developer: Facepunch Studios Publisher: Facepunch Studios Platform: PC If you’re at all sensitive, don’t play Rust.
If you are easily frustrated, don’t play Rust. If you’re at all a good person, don’t play Rust. Facepunch’s notoriously toxic survival game is built around griefing other players just as much as it is about building itself.
It’s about as unwelcoming to new players as these games can get. However, if you’re lucky to find other players who don’t want to immediately kill you despite you only having a rock, Rust becomes a whole lot of fun. Clans are part of the long-term gameplay of Rust, so you’ll want to find some allies as soon as you can. Over time, it’s morphed into more of a PVP game than a survival one, so make of that what you will.
ARK: Survival Evolved Developer: Studio Wildcard Publisher: Studio Wildcard Platform(s): PC, PS4, XB1, Switch, Android, iOS A game with a UI so hideously abrasive that we questioned leaving it off this list on principle alone, ARK: Survival Evolved follows a similar trend to the previous two survival games mentioned but with a more fantastical twist. Any game where you can mount a frog into battle has to be at least worth trying out though, right? You farm and you build in ARK; a similar story to plenty of its peers. However, it’s in its exotic array of animals and gear that ARK comes into its own — by its very nature, ARK is a deeply silly game and Studio Wilcard have done well to embrace that.
You can play it by yourself or with others, though expect the customary griefing if you decide to share a world with other players. Just absolutely do not play it on Switch. The Forest Developer: Endnight Games Publisher: Endnight Games Platform(s): PC, PS4 No game has ever made the monotony of chopping down trees feel so compelling. The thud of your axe and the consequent falling of the tree means that although you may be doing a lot of it to try to survive against freakish enemies after your plane crashes, you will never tire of it.
An Early Access game that fully released in a relatively short amount of time, The Forest has lots going for it that its contemporaries simply don’t. You must survive, but you also have to find your captive son in a story that’s actually worth investing your time into.
The Forest also has a sheen to it that the likes of Conan and ARK could only dream of, as well as very limited opportunities for griefing. This is the game you want to check out if you just want to do everything that the subgenre is all about. From our: “Any issues I had with The Forest didn’t stop it from becoming the definitive survival experience on console in my eyes, however.
If you’re yet to try the game on PC, its PS4 version is a surprisingly sleek and arguably just as rewarding time-sinker that won’t even make you feel bad for being a terrible parent. Sorry, Timmy, I am one with the trees now.”.
If you ask Mac gamers to name one survival game, you’ll probably hear Ark: Survival Evolved a lot. That’s because in Ark, if you survive long enough, you get to tame, control and even ride dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts. And while its focus is on multiplayer, it also includes a single-player offline mode. In Ark, you survive and thrive by collecting resources, crafting items, taming animals including the aforementioned dinosaurs, forming or joining tribes and fighting off the other humans on the island. If you’re good enough, you can advance to upgrading your dinosaurs with lasers. But this is a persistent world, where (bad) things keep happening even when you’re away from the game. You’ve been warned.
A closer look at the reviews reveals the mixed feelings players have about the game. TJ Hafer’s detailed review at concluded: ARK: Survival Evolved has some great moments of battle with prehistoric beasts, but just as many of AI bugs and grind. Ian Birnbaum at largely agreed: Feeling real fear in a game—fear of failure, fear of loss—can be really fun. Escaping that fear can be dramatic, and the tragedy of almost getting away can be unforgettable.
But when so much of Ark is grinding drudgery, the consequences of its unforgiving style are hard to enjoy. My Take: Ark: Survival Evolved is a survival game with some real strengths and some significant weaknesses. If you’re willing to put in the time, and die and lose your work over and over again, you can rise to a level where things get really fun. But if you’re not willing to put up with the grind and the established user base, it may be too frustrating of a game for you. Why these machines? Our purpose is to help you understand how well this game runs on different setups. And hopefully, one of these setups will be similar enough to yours to give you a clear idea of what to expect.
We usually have a more varied selection of hardware but as this is a highly demanding game, we will focus on high-end models this time:. High-end Macs (the 2017 iMac, 2017 MacBook Pro, and 2014 iMac). Recent entry-level Macs (the 2016 MacBook Pro). Older Macs (the 2013 MacBook Pro) These are the settings we used to test Ark: Survival Evolved using our in-house FPS counter Count It for a fixed duration of 5 minutes:.
1280x800 or equivalent resolution. Graphics Quality: Medium. Single player, local game (i.e. Internet connection is no longer a factor) Why these settings? Remember, we are testing vastly different machines.
Some high-end, some not. 1280x800 and Medium settings won’t impress anyone, but they are acceptable and should meet the requirements of the average gamer. Recent Macs with dedicated graphics cards had no trouble with the game at our default setting, but everything else struggled at best.
As a reminder, this is how we describe the different levels of performance: Below 20 FPS Unplayable Laggy gameplay, full of stutters and slowdowns. 20-30 FPS Borderline Can be Ok in slow paced games. Still, not optimal.
30-45 FPS Playable Acceptable for most (most gaming consoles do this). 45-60 FPS Smooth Fluid gameplay, with no perceivable stutters. 60+ FPS Very Smooth For hardcore and professional players, a luxury for most. Do you have a high-end Mac? There’s no question that a high-end Mac can play this game at our default settings. Frame rates of 49 FPS (2014 iMac) and 81 (2017 iMac) put our iMacs in the Smooth and Very Smooth range respectively, while our 2017 15-inch MacBook Pro (using the dedicated graphics card) hit a barely Playable 30 FPS. While these are ok results for a game known to be demanding and poorly optimized for the Mac (more on that below), we still would have hoped a brand new iMac could have blown the FPS out of water on medium settings.
And a brand new MacBook Pro barely hitting playable on medium settings is disappointing, to say the least. This is what can be expected when turning the settings to high: Model Medium Settings High Settings 2014 iMac 49.1 FPS Smooth 40.5 FPS Playable Takeaway: If you have a high-end Mac, you can expect to play this game at our default settings with no problem, and you can probably bump things up a bit and still have a silky smooth experience. But playing the game at maximum settings may be outside the reach of anything but a tricked out iMac Pro.
Do you have a recent entry-level Mac? Things get tricky here, as they often do with more demanding games. Our 2016 MacBook Pro was nearly Borderline at 19 FPS with our default settings. With settings turned to the minimum it was firmly in the Borderline range at 27 FPS.
While this is not ideal it indicates that the game should be playable on newer machines with integrated graphics. Model Low Settings Medium Settings 2016 13-inch MBP 27.4 FPS Borderline 19 FPS Unplayable Ultimately it’s a decision for you whether you want to spend your time and money on a game you’ll have to play at very low graphics settings. Takeaway: If you have a recent Mac with an integrated chipset you may find the game playable.
We hit high Borderline on a 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro with all the settings at their minimum. Whether that’s an acceptable tradeoff is up to you. How much do you want to ride those dinosaurs? But what if you have an older Mac? As you’d expect, the news gets worse. Our 2013 13-inch MacBook Pro stayed firmly in the Unplayable range, maxing out at 15.5 FPS with all the settings on minimum.
If you have an older Mac with a dedicated graphics card, however, there’s a good chance you’ll be in better shape. The difference between our 2014 iMac and 2013 MacBook Pro indicates that it’s the graphics card that’s doing much of the heavy lifting here, and a look at Ark’s system requirements (see below) indicates that even older machines with a dedicated card might well be fine. Takeaway: Our older Macs with integrated chipsets were unable to even approach the Playable range with our default settings and lowering those settings to the minimum didn’t move the needle enough to put this game close to Playable range.
Sorry, you’re out of luck with this one. Still unsure? Remember, you can always run the free Benchmark using the Basic Preset and compare your results with ours: If your machine had a better/worst Heaven score, expect a higher/lower FPS score. The correlation between in-game performance and a standard benchmark is far from perfect, but it can still be a good comparison point. Bottom line: Ark: Survival Evolved is demanding on hardware and does not seem to be well optimized for Macs. You’ll need a computer with a dedicated graphics card to get the most out of this game.
A newer (last 2-3 years) Mac with integrated graphics should be able to make Ark playable but at low graphics settings. Perhaps, the other big MacOS survival shooter, will be better optimized. We shall see in an upcoming Performance review Note: While Metal support was said to be coming to Ark, the last mention of that was in December of 2016; repeated requests for updates have gone unanswered.
The problem is that recent Mac hardware is woefully weak and poor for gaming. I’m running a 2010 Mac Pro, with 32 GB RAM, HyperX Predator PCIe SSDs and a MacVidCards NVIDIA GTX980. That 8 year old machine runs circles around any more recent Mac as far as gaming performance goes, except the iMac Pro. I do run ARK at 1080p at High/Ultra settings, although the fps is all over the place, it’s usually around 30, lower settings don’t seem to make much of a difference. I have been very disappointed with the Apple hardware since 2013, as far as Read more ».