10 Best Games Like The Forest That You Should Know Update 04/2024

Survival games like The Forest challenge your ability to cope with the elements. They put you in a harsh environment and leave you to fend for yourself with a limited supply of supplies and tools to keep you going. If you want to thrive in these virtual worlds, you’ll have to figure it out for yourself.

Here are the top ten survival, crafting, and exploration-heavy games like The Forest. Some aren’t going to scare you as much as The Forest, but others are going to make you shiver. As you go, you’ll find that some of the games are easier than others. Because survival games can be so varied, it’s what makes the genre so enjoyable. Not to worry, we’ve collected the finest games like The Forest so you don’t have to browse through endless internet pages.

1. The Long Dark

The Long Dark

Wreckage and flames surround you when your plane crashes in an uninhabitable area. Does this sound familiar to you? If you’re a fan of The Forest, you’ll adore The Long Dark’s layout because it combines a strong episodic story mode and an open-ended sandbox mode in which you can explore, gather resources, and craft as you like.

Just like The Forest’s tropical island, the Canadian wilderness may be just as hazardous. If you’re afraid of cannibals, you’ll probably be more afraid of wolves and bears. While they’re not as horrifying as cannibals, they’re just as dangerous. Here, the environment is the star, and the stories that naturally develop from it are the real stars of the show. This is a fantastic survival game that doesn’t get in the way of exploring the planet, and it’s one of the best you can find right now.

2. ARK: Survival Evolved

The grind in ARK may be too much for some gamers, but if you enjoyed gathering resources and making items in The Forest, then it’s worth checking out. Awakening on a deserted island, you have one goal: to survive. However, your goals will broaden once you’ve established a reliable supply of food and water. Dinosaurs abound in ARK’s planet, making it equally captivating as The Forest. A T-Rex might well be the best protector in the world, but you’ll have a hard time taming most of them because they’ll be able to kill you in a matter of seconds if you’re not careful.

And it’s fundamentally a social experience. In the same way that The Forest excels when you team up with friends to accomplish your objectives, so too does this game. It’s certain that some people may try to spoil your fun, but if you’re a newcomer, you’re likely to meet an experienced player who’ll take you under his wing and let you fly on his Pteranodon.

3. Rust

Rust

The Forest’s cannibal gangs aren’t the only baddies in the game. With only a rock and a torch, you’re dropped into a massive multiplayer server to face human opponents rather than AI ones. Every step of the way is the same: smash rocks and trees with axes, assemble a workshop, collect rare materials, and level up your arsenal. As you go through the game, you’ll get access to more powerful weapons and armor. Rust is tight and exciting because of the other players, and there are plenty of chances for mischief.

Robbery of other players is a good technique to gain better loot. If you can catch them when they’re gathering resources, you can take out a couple of their heads with a few well-placed shots. It’s possible to wait for them to go offline and blow their base up, then snatch whatever valuables they have in their chest. Rust is a testament to the existence of other individuals in hell.

4. Conan Exiles

On this list, Conan Exiles is by far the most difficult survival game. Wolves, mammoths, and enormous club-wielding bosses aren’t the only ones who can get you. A broken leg and bleeding out in the scorching sun can leave your body parched. However, like The Forest, its universe begs to be discovered. The plot snippets scattered throughout the map keep you moving forward in The Forest, but here, the landscape is filled with wonder and mystery, ranging from lush woods to desert stretches to dangerous pathways across volcanoes.

It’s not for everyone, of course. A hard slog for materials is paired with brutal early hours, and creating some things involves hours and hours of harvesting. A friend joining you on a private server is a great way to explore the vast globe of World of Warcraft.

5. Don’t Starve

Don't Starve

Don’t Starve’s core is basic survival, whether you play it alone or with a friend: a harsh world where you must gather resources, avoid starvation, and fight monsters in the dark. Unique art style sets it apart, making what would otherwise be commonplace animals and rivers pop-ups straight out of a children’s fairy tale. Once you die, you’re forced to start the game over from the beginning again. But even though they’re not dangerous, you’ll want to avoid them at all costs, and your mind will start making adversaries out of the most mundane things.

The default mode is sandbox, however there is an adventure option if you wish to learn more about the world around you. It’s also amazing in co-op, just like in The Forest. Rebalancing goods and making the game even better is what Don’t Starve Together brings to the table.

6. Minecraft

On the surface, Minecraft appears to be a basic and peaceful game. However, when the difficulty is increased, it becomes a brutal survival game. If you take on too many skeletons, you’ll be killed and lose all you’ve worked so hard to acquire. If you mine the wrong block, you could end up in the lava and lose whatever valuable diamonds you might have. The sound of an explosive creeper’s hiss can make the hairs on the back of your neck rise up, especially if you’re in the woods at night.

Like in The Forest, Minecraft’s building tools are freeform and allow you to create anything from a shack to a recreation of the Pyramids of Giza, so if you’re looking for a similar experience, this is the game for you. Once again, Minecraft has you covered if you’re itching for some cavern-based fun: you’ll be able to slip through old mine shaft tunnels, deep ravines, and winding canyons in quest of treasures, all while slaughtering creatures. Although it lacks a narrative, Minecraft is the ideal game for gathering resources, surviving hazardous biomes, and creating the house of your dreams.

7. Subnautica

Subnautica

There are few survival games that attempt to combine traditional gameplay with an engaging tale as The Forest does. Subnautica, on the other hand, employs the same strategy and, if not better, does so in a way that maintains a sense of mystery while also revealing enough of a broader story to keep you going. There are fewer strategic possibilities for where to establish your base when you’re at sea than when you’re on land. You will, however, find the tools to be enjoyable, and you will be able to place stuff exactly where you want them, as you begin to build your HQ.

Unfortunately, co-op isn’t an option, but there’s plenty to do as a lone player with resource management and ocean exploration. Even though it’s packed with colorful fish, don’t worry about it being too kid-friendly since you’ll need to change your diving suit when you see a deep-water tentacled monster in your peripheral vision.

8. Green Hell

On this list, Green Hell is possibly the most reminiscent to The Forest. Many trees may be found in this game, as can native human foes, crafting and resource management, a sanity system, and an engaging tale. But it goes further than even The Forest dares in terms of survival features.

As well as keeping track of your daily caloric intake, you must also keep track of a slew of issues affecting each of your limbs, all of which are displayed on a high-tech watch. On your left arm, you might find a terrible spider rash; on your right, two blood-sucking leeches. However, despite its lack of ghoulishness, this is a hostile environment that features vicious beasts that will rip you apart at the slightest opportunity. In addition, the story is well-crafted, with well-crafted cutscenes that remind us of a AAA action-adventure film.

9. Raft

Raft

Even though Raft is still in Early Access, it’s one of the best primitive open water survival games to emerge in recent years. You begin with nothing more than a hook in your hand and four squares of wood under your feet. You cast your hook into the sea, snaring garbage and barrels of treasures that you may use to create water purifiers, grills, fishing rods, and other useful items. You’ll soon be completely self-sufficient, and the only thing keeping you awake at night will be the constant presence of a man-eating shark.

When you visit an island, you may run into other animals like this shark, which keeps the danger level high. You risk your life if you abandon your raft. As with The Forest, you may customize your construct to your heart’s content, thanks to the game’s open-ended building mechanism. And just like in The Forest, teaming up with a friend makes a game that could have been terrifying into something that’s hilarious.

10. No Man’s Sky

A palate cleanser, No Man’s Sky can be compared to a colorful dessert after you’ve had your fill of cannibals, infinite death and dismal sorrow. Since its first release five years ago, Hello Games has continuously added new content and features, transforming the space opera into what it is now. On a procedurally generated cosmos with nearly endless resources, you must scavenge for sustenance while avoiding being eaten by enormous alien predators.

While it’s not quite as expansive as The Forest, it does have a sense of narrative that makes it apparent what you should do next, even as the stars draw you in. Even so, if you’re into resource collection and intricate crafting, this is the game for you. It’s possible to mine and crack a wide variety of strange resources, then turn them into your very own space base, complete with spinning gadgets and gizmos. It’s a world apart from The Forest in many ways, yet fans of both will like it.