Games Like Don't Starve: 13 Survival Picks on Steam

The best games like Don’t Starve bring back that feeling of standing at the edge of a strange forest with a few twigs in your pocket, watching the light fade and knowing you have not built a fire yet. Klei’s game turns survival into a slow, tense puzzle: what to eat, what to craft first, and how to keep your head when the world starts to look wrong. The picks below keep that pressure, some by staying close to Klei’s formula and others by moving it into colonies, caves, backyards and the deep sea.

Here are all 13 games like Don’t Starve in this list at a glance, with their Steam player modes and release dates.

What makes Don’t Starve so hard to put down?

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Don’t Starve, from Klei Entertainment, drops you into a hostile wilderness as Wilson, a gentleman scientist trapped there by a demon. The store page promises “no hand holding”, and it means it: you start with nothing and learn by dying. You gather grass, twigs and flint, craft tools that wear out, and research new recipes as you go.

Three things give it its identity:

• Several meters to juggle. Hunger, health and sanity all drain in different ways. Food spoils, and doing grim things or staying out at night wears down your mind, which makes the world itself turn stranger and more dangerous.
• The night is the enemy. A day and night cycle splits your time into gathering and surviving. Without a light source after dark, you will not last.
• Permadeath and random worlds. Permadeath means that when your character dies, the run is over. Each new world is randomly generated, so you cannot memorise a map, only get better at reading one.

Wrap that in a dark, storybook art style with 2D characters in a 3D world, and you get a survival game that feels part fairy tale, part endurance test. It is single-player, with full controller support and Steam Workshop mods, on Windows, macOS and Linux. The strongest games like Don’t Starve keep at least two of those three pillars: resource pressure, a threat that shapes your schedule, and runs that can end for good.

Games like Don’t Starve Together for co-op survival

If you want games like Don’t Starve that you can share with friends, start here. These keep the gather, craft and survive loop but let a group split the work.

Don’t Starve Together

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Why it fits: it is Don’t Starve, rebuilt as a standalone multiplayer expansion. The same world of odd creatures, hunger and nightfall is here, now set in “The Constant”, with friends beside you.

What you do: fight, farm, build and explore together. One player might run the farm while another hunts and a third scouts for resources before winter. You can host a private game, join strangers online, cooperate or strike out alone.

Who it suits: anyone who loved the original but wished someone could watch the fire while they foraged. It also plays solo if you prefer.

Player modes: single-player, online and LAN co-op, online and LAN PvP, full controller support and Steam Workshop. Steam also lists in-app purchases. Windows, macOS and Linux.

Core Keeper

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Why it fits: Core Keeper takes the “wake up somewhere strange with nothing” opening and moves it underground. You mine, build, fight, craft and farm to understand the ancient Core at the centre of the cavern.

What you do: dig through biomes, harvest relics and resources, grow a garden, fish, cook from a long list of recipes and take on huge bosses called Titans. Later you build automated machinery for mining and smelting.

Who it suits: Don’t Starve fans who loved the crafting and base building more than the constant threat of death. It is gentler in tone but still dangerous in the depths.

Player modes: 1-8 players, single-player and online co-op, full controller support. Windows and Linux.

Terraria

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Why it fits: randomly generated worlds, crafting gear that keeps evolving, and enemies that punish you for wandering unprepared. It is a sandbox, meaning there is no fixed path: you choose whether to dig, fight or build.

What you do: explore deep caverns for ore, craft better weapons and machinery, build a town for the allies you meet and hunt ever tougher bosses.

Who it suits: players who want a side-on 2D world with far more combat and gear than Don’t Starve offers, and endless room to build.

Player modes: single-player, online co-op, online PvP, full controller support and Steam Workshop. Windows, macOS and Linux.

Necesse

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Why it fits: an infinite procedurally generated world, crafting from mined ores, and a settlement that slowly turns survival into something sturdier.

What you do: crawl through dungeons, fight pirate kings, dragons and fallen wizards, and recruit settlers who farm, tend animals and gather resources without you standing over them.

Who it suits: players who always wanted Don’t Starve’s camp to grow into a real village with people working in it.

Player modes: single-player, online and LAN co-op, online and LAN PvP, full controller support and Steam Workshop. The store page also mentions dedicated servers for large groups. Windows, macOS and Linux.

Colony survival games like Don’t Starve

A colony sim puts you in charge of a group of people rather than one character. You give orders, and they eat, sleep, panic and sometimes fall apart. If what you loved was planning around scarcity, these games like Don’t Starve scale that up.

Oxygen Not Included

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Why it fits: it comes from Klei Entertainment too, and of all the games like Don’t Starve here it shares the most DNA. Instead of hunger and sanity for one scientist, you are watching oxygen, warmth and food for a whole colony buried inside an alien space rock.

What you do: dig out living space, route plumbing and power, manage temperature so nobody freezes or overheats, and keep your colonists (called Duplicants) happy. Stressed Duplicants react in their own destructive ways, a close cousin of Don’t Starve’s sanity system.

Who it suits: players who enjoyed the long-term planning side of surviving winter more than the combat.

Player modes: single-player. Windows, macOS and Linux.

Craft The World

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Why it fits: randomly generated islands, a day and night cycle, changing weather and dangerous creatures, all seen from the side. You still gather and craft, but you do it through a tribe of dwarves.

What you do: order dwarves to dig, fight and build, keep them fed and clothed, and use magic to help them in fights. You start with a single dwarf and gain more as you level up, digging down toward lava and hidden treasure halls.

Who it suits: anyone who wants Don’t Starve’s crafting loop with a light strategy layer on top.

Player modes: single-player, online co-op, Steam Workshop and a level editor. Windows and macOS.

RimWorld

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Why it fits: you begin with three shipwreck survivors on a distant world and fight for every day after that. Moods, wounds, illness and addiction stand in for Don’t Starve’s meters, and things go badly wrong in memorable ways.

What you do: build a base across forest, desert or tundra, tame animals, trade with caravans, fight raiders and wildlife, and try to stop your colonists from breaking down. An AI storyteller decides what trouble arrives next.

Who it suits: players who loved the stories their Don’t Starve runs produced. If this one clicks, our list of colony sim games like RimWorld goes much deeper.

Player modes: single-player and Steam Workshop. Windows, macOS and Linux.

Harsh solo survival where every mistake counts

Some players want games like Don’t Starve for one reason: the threat never lets up and the game refuses to save you. These two keep that edge.

Project Zomboid

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Why it fits: it opens by asking how you will die, which is pure Don’t Starve energy. Hunger, thirst, illness, boredom and depression all need managing, and no help is coming.

What you do: loot houses across a vast map loosely based on Kentucky, barricade a base, cook, farm, fish and craft weapons while avoiding hordes of zombies that react to sight and sound. Fire a gun and you will regret it.

Who it suits: players who want survival that stays hard for a long time, alone or in a group. Steam lists it under Early Access.

Player modes: single-player, online co-op, shared/split-screen co-op, online PvP, cross-platform multiplayer, Remote Play Together and Steam Workshop. If split-screen matters to you, see our best couch co-op games on PC. Windows, macOS and Linux.

The Long Dark

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Why it fits: no zombies, no monsters, just you, the cold and the wildlife after a geomagnetic disaster. It shares Don’t Starve’s belief that nature alone is dangerous enough.

What you do: explore a frozen wilderness, ration supplies, keep warm and decide when it is safe to leave shelter. The Survival Mode is open-ended, and there is also a story mode called Wintermute.

Who it suits: solo players who liked Don’t Starve’s winters most and want a slower, more thoughtful pace.

Player modes: single-player, full controller support and subtitle options. Windows, macOS and Linux.

3D survival games like Don’t Starve

A common request is “something like Don’t Starve, but in 3D”. These four games like Don’t Starve keep the craft-to-survive structure while letting you walk through the world in first or third person.

Valheim

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Why it fits: a procedurally generated world split into biomes, each with its own resources and dangers. Like Don’t Starve, you progress by crafting better gear from what each region gives you.

What you do: build longhouses, sail to new lands, and defeat regional bosses called the Forsaken to move forward in a Norse-inspired afterlife.

Who it suits: groups who want a big, shared adventure with clear goals. Steam lists its release date as Sep 9, 2026. More picks in our survival games like Valheim list.

Player modes: 1-10 players, single-player and online co-op, full controller support. Windows, macOS and Linux.

Grounded

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Why it fits: it shares Don’t Starve’s slightly odd, playful tone. You have been shrunk to the size of an ant, and a backyard full of giant insects is now your wilderness.

What you do: explore the pond, a termite den and the sandbox, build a base that creatures will still attack, and follow a story about how you got so small.

Who it suits: small groups who want first-person survival with a mystery to solve. The Shared Worlds feature lets friends keep playing even when the host is offline.

Player modes: single-player and online co-op with up to three friends, full controller support. Windows.

The Forest

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Why it fits: the day and night rhythm is almost a direct echo: explore and build while it is light, then defend your base after dark. You scavenge food so you do not starve, too.

What you do: survive a plane crash, chop trees for a camp, set traps, explore caves and face a society of mutant enemies, either by stealth or with crude weapons.

Who it suits: players who found Don’t Starve’s nights scary and want full horror instead. For more of that mood, see our upcoming survival horror games.

Player modes: single-player, online and LAN co-op, VR supported. Windows.

Subnautica

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Why it fits: crash-land, take stock and build from nothing. Your oxygen supply works like Don’t Starve’s meters, quietly forcing every trip to have a plan.

What you do: find water and food, craft diving gear and submersibles, and build bases on the sea floor while managing hull strength as you go deeper.

Who it suits: solo players who loved the exploration and discovery side most. Some ocean life is friendly; much of it is not.

Player modes: single-player, full controller support, VR supported. Windows and macOS.

How to choose among these games like Don’t Starve

Every pick here has crafting and survival, so the useful question is which part of Don’t Starve you would miss most. A quick way to decide:

1. You loved the meters and the slow dread: Project Zomboid or The Long Dark.
2. You loved planning around scarcity: Oxygen Not Included, then RimWorld.
3. You loved crafting and building camps: Core Keeper, Terraria or Necesse.
4. You want it with friends: Don’t Starve Together first, then Valheim or Grounded.
5. You want 3D: Valheim for adventure, The Forest for horror, Subnautica for solo exploration.

A worked example

Say you played Don’t Starve solo, died a lot in your first winter, and the run you remember most fondly is the one where you finally had a farm, a stocked icebox and a ring of fire pits. You enjoyed being prepared more than being chased. Among the games like Don’t Starve above, that points toward Oxygen Not Included, where the whole game is building systems that keep people alive, and away from Project Zomboid, where preparation only delays the end. If you also want a friend along, Core Keeper is the softer co-op option that still rewards a well-built base.

Trade-offs to weigh

• Difficulty versus comfort. Project Zomboid and The Long Dark keep the pressure on. Core Keeper and Necesse give you more breathing room once your base is up.
• One character versus many. Colony sims trade the tension of controlling a single survivor for the stress of managing a group.
• Platform. Grounded, The Forest and Core Keeper are not on macOS according to Steam, so check the table if you play on a Mac.

Mistakes people make when picking a follow-up

• Choosing by art style alone. Plenty of gloomy, whimsical-looking titles have none of the survival pressure that real games like Don’t Starve share. Look for hunger, scarcity or a day and night threat instead.
• Assuming every co-op survival game supports the same group size. Grounded tops out at four players total, while Valheim takes up to ten.
• Skipping the early hours. Most of these games, like Don’t Starve, feel rough until the basics click. Give a new pick a few runs before deciding.

Want more after these games like Don’t Starve? Browse our best survival games on Steam, the crafting games that are like Minecraft list, or our full set of games like the ones you love.

Questions and answers

What genre of game is Don't Starve Together?

Don't Starve Together is a wilderness survival game with crafting, built as the standalone multiplayer expansion to Don't Starve. You gather resources, build a camp, farm and fight while keeping your character fed, healthy and sane. Steam tags it as Action, Adventure, Indie, RPG, Simulation and Strategy, and it supports online and LAN co-op as well as PvP, so you can survive with friends or against them.

What are the top 5 survival games like Don't Starve on Steam?

For players coming from Don't Starve, five strong starting points are Don't Starve Together for co-op, Oxygen Not Included for Klei's colony-style survival, Core Keeper for a cosy but dangerous mining sandbox, Project Zomboid for unforgiving solo or group survival, and Valheim if you want a 3D world with bosses to beat. Each keeps the gather, craft and survive loop at its core.

Is there a co-op game like Don't Starve?

Yes. Don't Starve Together is the obvious one, since it is the same survival game rebuilt for multiplayer with online and LAN co-op. Beyond Klei's own game, Core Keeper supports 1 to 8 players, Valheim supports 1 to 10, Grounded lets you play with up to three friends, and Project Zomboid adds split-screen co-op on one PC alongside online play.

What survival game never gets boring?

Games with randomly generated worlds and open-ended goals hold up longest. Don't Starve Together, Terraria, RimWorld and Necesse all generate new worlds, so every run plays out differently, and RimWorld's AI storyteller keeps throwing fresh trouble at your colony. Project Zomboid's sandbox settings also let you reshape the challenge whenever a run starts to feel familiar.

Are there free games like Don't Starve on Steam?

None of the games in this list is listed as free to play on Steam. If you already own Don't Starve and want more of it, Don't Starve Together is the closest step. Many of the other picks go on sale from time to time, so adding a few to your Steam wishlist is a simple way to keep track of them.

Is Don't Starve hard for beginners?

Yes, by design. The store page promises no instructions and no hand holding, and you start with nothing. Expect early deaths while you learn which plants are safe, how to get through the night and how to prepare for colder seasons. Most players treat those first runs as lessons, and the game becomes far more rewarding once the basics click.