5 Best Survival Games on PlayStation Plus (April 2024)

If you’re looking for some of the best survival games that PlayStation Plus has to offer, then look no further. Here are, in our option, the five go-to titles that’ll make that subscription all the more worthwhile.

5. Rise of the Tomb Raider (Endurance)

Rise of the Tomb Raider isn’t a survival game at heart; it’s an action-adventure game that adopts a couple of features that you might see in another genre. With that said, the sequel does include an Endurance Mode, which is essentially a new take on the survival blueprint. Granted, it doesn’t have a beefy campaign to shovel through, or even any major curveballs to tackle, either. However, what it does have, on the other hand, are needs—cravings that you must keep a lid on in order to survive the elemental dangers of the Siberian wilderness and make it through to extraction.

If you’ve ever so much as grazed the tip of the iceberg in any survival game, well, ever, then you’ll know what to expect here. The goal is simple: keep control of your warmth and hunger, and unlock new abilities to further flesh out your character and arsenal. In addition to this, you’ll also need to keep track of an ever-changing day-and-night cycle, too—a fluctuating period that constantly finds new ways to test your strength and durability out in the field. At its core, it’s still the same old Tomb Raider, but with thanks to its newly implemented mode, it serves as much, much more than that, and it’s bound to give frequent gamers something to write home about.

4. Fallout 4 (Survival Mode)

Fallout 4 isn’t a bread-and-butter survival game, though it does knuckle in on several of its core elements, such as crafting and fleshing out a toolkit. Its Survival Mode, on the other hand, is, more or less, an emulation of one, as it introduces new features such as sliders—hunger, exhaustion, and general fatigue meters that you must keep tabs on in order to stay afloat and progress deeper into the campaign. It also adds an additional layer of complexity to the mix, too, as it prevents you from utilizing certain items in the workshop, as well as crafting quality ammunition for daring endeavors.

At its core, Fallout 4 isn’t overly demanding, though it does occasionally conjure several molehills for you to clamber over. However, if you’re looking for a serious challenge that goes out of its way to secure new ways to test your mettle, then you’ll definitely wants to give its Survival Mode a shot.

3. The Long Dark

The Long Dark is one of “those” games, in the case that, you’re rarely given a helping hand to scoot you in the right direction, but rather, a series of open-ended objectives that can be tackled in any way you see fit. Similar to Conan Exiles, you begin your journey out in the wilderness with little more than a makeshift tool and the clothes on your back. The ultimate goal of the game, really, is to survive long enough in order to unearth the secrets that shroud the world, and locate news technologies that will help you to establish dominance in a location that’s clearly out to whittle your sanity down to a pulp.

Naturally, you can expect to find your fair share of building, crafting, and combat in The Long Dark, as well as a day-and-night cycle that churns out frequent environmental challenges for you to overcome. There is a story to unravel, too, though it’s entirely up to you whether or not you choose to tackle it, or settle for something slightly more nonlinear and without the general rules of a typical story-driven survival game.

2. Stranded Deep

Stranded Deep raises a single question for you to answer: what would you do if you lost your way in the middle of the ocean and washed ashore on an uninhabited island? This is, for the most part, what the game is all about — surviving on a deserted island, and learning how to craft the tools needed to branch out and explore vast new oceans and landmarks. Like a lot of survival games, it’s a bit of a slow burner, what with it requiring several in-game days just to learn the basics, but once you get the ball rolling, so to speak, the possibilities soon become endless.

Stranded Deep combines a good amount of exploration with all of the traditional hallmark qualities of a survival-sandbox game. It doesn’t quite tap into any major storytelling elements, but it does provide you with enough components to allow you the freedom to generate your own. Sure enough, it’s a beautiful game, too, and there’s more than enough to keep you busy as you cycle through the motions and establish a foothold on the nautical monopoly.

1. Far Cry: Primal

If you’d soon rather plunge into the prehistoric roots of a mammoth-imbued world, and without the assistance of a mini-map or lengthy tutorial, to boot, then you ought to consider Far Cry: Primal, Ubisoft’s critically acclaimed open-world action-adventure hit. Aside from it having a solid storyline and a whole heap of great character arcs, the game also offers a survival mode that allows you to disable just about every helping hand that the campaign has to give, and instead prioritize basic survival and exploration over anything else.

The survivor mode in Primal certainly isn’t for the faint of heart, as it not only removes the option to conveniently fast travel, but also reduces the amount you can craft and carry, too. It also introduces a stamina gauge, too—a feature that can only be boosted by eating, sleeping, and replenishing supplies. Given the fact that said supplies aren’t entirely commonplace in Primal, either, this makes the overall journey thrice as tough — something that ought to give fledgling survivalists a good run for their money, for sure.

So, what’s your take? Will you be picking up any of the above five survival games on PlayStation Plus this month? Let us know your thoughts over on our socials here.