Looking for free survival games to dive into this year? Whether you enjoy base building, open-world exploration, scavenging for resources, or simply surviving in the wilderness, here’s a comprehensive list of the best free-to-play survival games worth checking out in 2025.
Teora Beginning: Simple Yet Engaging
Teora Beginning is a sandbox open-world survival game with unique characters and a solid-building system. Even though this game is actually a demo of the full game Terror Survival, it still offers quite a lot for a free game. In a massive open world, players can build and upgrade bases while surviving a zombie apocalypse. In this game, you’ll gather resources to craft tools and vehicles to interact with. One of the greatest benefits of it is that it does not require high-end device.
Wildlands: A Colorful Survival Experience
Bohemia Interactive’s Wildlands has a somewhat casual and colorful approach to the survival genre. The players start on stranded little islands in the game and now must explore the game, craft tools, build shelters and survive against environmental threats and wild animals attacking them. Instead of survival, the game is all about a cozy sandbox experience. The deep editor lets players create their very own game modes while building ships and rafts lets them travel between islands. Wildlands is the free creative open-world game that is well optimized for low-end PCs.
Beach: The Free Alternative to Rust
Beach offers an open world survival shooter experience similar to Rust, but completely free. While players fight their way against others they can also explore a large land, loot, chop trees, craft tools and create a shelter. You can build up your base to protect yourself from enemy raids or raid the bases of other players. Thanks for this Game named Beach, it a free indie survival game. Even though it’s already 3 years old the player base is reduced but overall it is still a good game to play especially with friends.
Muck: Chaotic Survival Fun
The creators of Muck started with a joke but ended up making a genuinely fun free-to-play open-world survival roguelike. The game was created by a famous content creator and its chaotic and goofy theme works in its favour. Players start on an island created randomly where they need to collect resources and craft tools. At night, you get attacked by strange enemies. Surviving is no longer enough. Now, you have to battle and upgrade your gear. In this roguelike, death means starting completely over. The game has low-poly visuals which makes it very easy to play on a low-end pc. It is most fun when played in co-op mode.
Arid: Desert Survival Challenge
In Arid, you play as a pilot who, in the 1930s, has crash-landed in the Atacama Desert. Players will have to survive in realistic elements like hydration, temperature, fatigue, sunburn and more. Also, explore caves and abandoned mines. There aren’t many resources and crafting is minimalistic in gameplay, so you will be on your toes trying to survive. This single-player game gives a taste of hardcore desert survival, and it’s totally free to play!
Dead Frontier 2: Zombie Survival MMO
Dead Frontier 2 is one of the best free-to-play zombie survival MMO on steam. It offers great moments in a dark post-apocalypse environment. The gameplay consists of gathering supplies, clearing buildings, slowly-moving zombies and other dangerous enemies. Just like the good old Resident Evil games but online RPG-like also allows players to level up, upgrade weapons, exchange with other people and combine forces for missions. Although the story is not terribly deep, the multiplayer is worth checking out with friends.
Unturned: Deceptively Deep Survival
Unturned, while blocky and Minecraft-like on the outside, has tons of gameplay. In a world where zombies walk, you will be scavenging weapons, food and gear while escaping zombies and other players. Depending on the server, the game merges PvP and PvE elements. Players can build their base, set traps, and raid. With significant mod and map activity, Unturned holds a daily concurrency of ~15K. Thus, making it one of the most popular free survival games available to players.
Stalker Online: Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland
Stalker online (Build to Live Online) is an interesting Eastern European post-apocalyptic survival game. Gaming is where all types of players choose a class like shooter, engineer, hunter to step into a wide-open wasteland with mutants, bandits, anomalies, and other players. The game is an unforgiving place where PvP and PvE collides. Players loot for scraps, craft gear, and slowly upgrade gear as well. Stalker Online may have a clunky MMO feel that requires effort to learn but has 800-1000 users making it among the best free survival MMOs on Steam.
Stay Out: Soviet Wasteland Survival
In Stay Out players are the scavengers of the graveyard of a post-Soviet world having mutants, radiation zones, and more. The game has no overall narrative, but it does have quests and factions. The combat should feel clunky at first, but once you get some nice gear, it becomes much better. The game loop will consist of crafting, trading, looting, and inventory management. Players will also need to survive starvation and injuries. Stay Out may be challenging for beginners, but the game still boasts about 18,000 players right now.
Once Human: Cosmic Horror Survival
Once Human is arguably one of the best free-to-play survival games to be released in recent years. This game draws from the cosmic horror genre and is a multiplayer massively open world survival game. The game takes place in a gigantic post-apocalyptic world that has been corrupted by the stardust.
In this game, you gather resources, craft weapons, build bases, and much more, but with more variety. There are PvE and PvP zones, quest areas, and dungeon-style zones. Once Human has garnered over 35000 daily concurrent players due to its tight combat mechanics and an interesting back story. The game also recently received a cross-play update allowing mobile and PC players to team up. As a result, it is currently the most popular free survival game on Steam.