10 Best Survival Games on iOS & Android (January 2026)

Looking for the best survival games to enjoy on mobile? Survival games have become a favorite for players who enjoy adventure, crafting, and exploring. These games put you in exciting situations where smart moves and quick thinking help you stay alive. You can build shelters, collect resources, and face new challenges in every session. Whether you like fast action or slow planning, there’s something fun for everyone. These are some of the best premium and free-to-play survival games available on Android and iOS.

What Defines the Best Survival Mobile Game?

For me, the best survival mobile game should offer more than just crafting and building. It needs to keep things interesting through exploration, smart progression, and freedom to play your way. Some games give full control with open maps and deep resource systems. Others focus more on managing people, making quick choices, or surviving tough situations. What matters most is how the game keeps you hooked every time you jump in. To choose the games for this list, I looked at variety, gameplay depth, replay value, and how well the survival element is done on mobile.

List of 10 Best Survival Games for Android & iOS

Every game listed here brings its own flavor to survival.

10. Vampire Survivors

A survival arena full of monsters, upgrades, and nonstop action

Vampire Survivors places you inside a top-down arena where endless enemies flood the screen. You guide a character across open space, and attacks trigger automatically without manual action. The core idea revolves around survival through smart upgrade choices. Experience grows as enemies fall, leading to level-ups that offer weapon boosts or new abilities. Over time, weapons evolve into stronger forms that cover large areas. Therefore, screen control becomes essential as enemy numbers rise quickly.

Also, different characters start with unique weapons, which shapes how combat unfolds from the very first moment. Beyond moment-to-moment combat, Vampire Survivors shines through long-term build planning. During level-ups, players select upgrades that affect damage, range, speed, or special effects. As a result, weapon combinations define how wide areas remain protected. Overall, Vampire Survivors delivers a loop where learning upgrade synergy leads to stronger control over massive enemy waves.

9. Granny

A survival escape game inside a locked old house

Granny starts with you trapped inside a dimly lit home ruled by an eerie old woman. You must explore every corner to find clues and useful items to escape. The rooms are filled with locked drawers, narrow hallways, and secret routes that connect different sections of the house. Every door or cupboard can hold a tool that brings you closer to freedom. However, wandering too carelessly can lead to sudden danger, so players have to move with patience and plan every action carefully.

There’s a sense of curiosity that grows as you discover what helps and what doesn’t. Bit by bit, the house reveals patterns that guide you toward escape. Also, there are puzzles that require logic, like finding the right key or using objects in the correct order. Eventually, when you piece everything together, that final dash to freedom feels thrilling and well-earned. All of this makes it one of the best survival horror games available on mobile.

8. Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad

Build your own floating base and survive the endless sea

Imagine being stranded in the middle of a vast sea surrounded by nothing but blue water stretching to the horizon. You start on a small wooden raft drifting through debris scattered across the waves. The game lets you collect floating materials and craft tools that help you survive. Gradually, the raft expands into a floating base equipped with cooking stations, storage boxes, and simple weapons to defend against ocean predators. The experience steadily grows richer as you craft more items, gather food, and strengthen your floating shelter.

Apart from crafting, survival depends on how well you manage resources and plan ahead. Food and clean water are limited, so you constantly work to maintain supplies. Sharks circle your raft, attempting to destroy what you build, so preparing defenses becomes essential. Furthermore, the game allows you to travel to distant islands filled with materials that upgrade your gear. Altogether, it’s a relaxing yet exciting mobile survival experience that captures the thrill of creating something strong out of nothing.

7. The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands

Build and protect a growing village in a frozen wilderness

The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands is an excellent blend of survival and village management wrapped in a calm yet challenging atmosphere. The world is covered in snow, and the cold surrounds a lone worker trying to build a small settlement from nothing. The environment looks quiet at first, but as night falls, danger approaches from the dark. You start with limited supplies and a simple fire that acts as the heart of your village. From there, you assign workers to gather wood, mine resources, and craft tools that help the settlement grow.

Guards protect the settlement during the night, and builders expand it during the day. Every addition, from farms to workshops, brings new possibilities. Moreover, the decisions you make about who does what determine how well the village develops. There’s also the joy of watching your settlement thrive despite constant threats. The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands is easily among the best survival games on iOS and Android for anyone who enjoys steady progression and thoughtful strategy.

6. Don’t Starve: Pocket Edition

Explore, craft, and endure in a strange unforgiving world

With a focus on survival in a strange hand-drawn world, this mobile version of Don’t Starve takes you into an environment filled with odd plants and creatures. The setting has a day and night cycle that changes how you approach your surroundings. During the day, you gather food, chop trees, and build basic tools to stay alive. Night brings danger from unseen creatures, so light becomes vital. Also, the world is generated differently every time you start, so the layout, resources, and threats always feel new.

What makes it one of the best survival games on iOS and Android is its depth. You craft tools, hunt animals, and discover rare materials that open new options for survival. Different biomes introduce new challenges and resources. Hunger, health, and sanity bars constantly shift depending on what you do. As you spend more time in this game, you understand how the world reacts and discover new ways to endure its dangers.

5. This War of Mine

A survival strategy about ordinary people in crisis

From the name, you might think it’s about soldiers fighting through warzones, but the reality is very different. This War of Mine puts you in charge of a small group of civilians trapped in a city torn apart by conflict. The surroundings are harsh, food and medicine are scarce, and the group must rely on what remains inside damaged buildings. During the day, the characters rest, repair tools, and craft essentials. The artwork builds a heavy atmosphere with sketch-style visuals that perfectly match the grim environment.

When night arrives, someone must venture out to search through ruins and collect supplies that help the group survive another day. You decide who should go out to gather items or who should guard supplies during the night. Every choice carries weight since the group depends on balance and planning. Through its slow pace and emotional depth, This War of Mine presents a grounded view of human endurance.

4. Fallout Shelter

A vault-building survival where you manage a hidden underground base

Whenever there’s discussion about the best survival games on Android or iOS, Fallout Shelter often slides into the discussion. Here you play as the Overseer, the leader of an underground vault built to protect people. The world outside has collapsed, so humanity survives inside these huge shelters. You manage the entire vault, from food and power to population and jobs. The vault begins small with only a few rooms, but more areas unlock as you grow. Dwellers arrive over time, and you assign them to specific duties that help the vault function smoothly.

Every section contributes something valuable, such as energy production or water filtration. You monitor the vault’s needs, making sure nothing goes out of balance. Over time, your community expands, and managing becomes more detailed. Additionally, enemies sometimes attack from the outside or sneak in, so keeping your people equipped and ready is part of the loop.

3. PUBG Mobile

A massive survival shooter with solo, duo, and squad modes

This list of best survival mobile games would be incomplete without PUBG Mobile, a title that completely changed how survival shooters work on phones. You get dropped onto a huge island with nearly a hundred others. Everyone starts empty-handed and must collect weapons, armor, and supplies from buildings and camps scattered across the land. The map keeps shrinking over time, which pushes everyone closer until only one team or player survives.

Matches can be played solo, in duos, or in full squads of four. You can join friends and coordinate how to approach fights or defend against attacks. The visuals look realistic, and the maps are detailed enough to allow creative strategies. Vehicles help reach distant areas faster, and random supply crates bring rare weapons to fight for. Moreover, the game constantly updates with seasonal content and limited-time modes that keep it fresh. Over the years, it has become a benchmark among mobile survival shooters worldwide.

2. DYSMANTLE

Open-world survival where everything can be broken down

In DYSMANTLE, the world has fallen quiet after a strange disaster. Nature has covered cities and roads, and strange creatures now wander around. You move through empty streets, collecting scrap and materials from old furniture, metal objects, and fences. Everything you find can be turned into useful tools. Homes, factories, and farms lie abandoned, giving you plenty to scavenge and rebuild from. You gather wood, metal, and food to stay prepared for upcoming challenges.

Tools help you clear paths, defend yourself, and harvest better materials. Also, combat is simple as you swing handmade weapons to fight creatures guarding useful loot. The constant cycle of collecting, creating, and improving gives a satisfying sense of growth and adventure throughout the ruined landscape. Lastly, DYSMANTLE is among the most popular survival games on mobile because of how much freedom it offers.

1. Subnautica

Underwater survival adventure set on an alien ocean planet

This game was recently ported to mobile after earning massive praise on other platforms. It already had a strong reputation, and now it delivers the same depth and wonder on handheld devices. You crash-land after a ship malfunction and find yourself surrounded by endless blue horizons. The world is a gigantic ocean filled with alien creatures and glowing plants. Soon after starting, you craft simple tools using nearby resources.

The environment stretches far beneath the surface, filled with vibrant reefs and strange underwater structures. Oxygen becomes a constant concern, so every dive below must be carefully planned. You also build a small base beneath the waves that serves as your safe zone. Subnautica on mobile perfectly recreates the same sense of wonder and accomplishment that made it a favorite among survival fans.