Beyond Once Human: 10 Survival Games That Will Eat Your Free Time Like a Hungry Mutant

So, you've been sucked into the post-apocalyptic vortex of Once Human, have you? You've built your base, fought off Stardust mutants, and maybe even gotten a little too attached to your virtual pet. I get it. But let's be real—sometimes you need a palate cleanser, or maybe the servers are acting more temperamental than a cat in a bath. As a 2026 gamer, I've been around the survival block a few times, and let me tell you, the landscape is richer than a billionaire in a diamond mine. The core itch that Once Human scratches—that frantic scramble for resources with friends while the world tries to eat you—is a genre all its own. So, buckle up, because I'm about to take you on a tour of ten other worlds that are just as eager to test your will to live, from gothic nightmares to viking purgatories.

10. Don't Starve Together: A Tim Burton-esque Tea Party of Despair

Let's kick things off with a game that looks like it was drawn by a depressed Victorian cartoonist, but plays like a survivalist's fever dream. Don't Starve Together is the multiplayer version of the classic, and it's a masterclass in cooperative desperation. The art style is like a sentient inkblot test that decided to become a video game, all jagged lines and looming shadows. But beneath that eerie exterior lies a survival simulation so deep you could drown in it. Farming isn't just planting seeds; it's a delicate dance with the seasons. Building a shelter feels less like construction and more like performing delicate surgery on reality itself to keep the darkness at bay. For Once Human fans, the teamwork here is less about coordinated raids and more about a silent, shared understanding that if you don't find those carrots before winter, you're both going to be a Deerclops' snack. It's the perfect game for when you want the survival tension without the high-fidelity mutant models.

9. Valheim: Your Viking Saga, Now with More DIY

If the sci-fi horror of Once Human has you craving something more... beardy, then Valheim is your mead-hall. This game is a love letter to Norse mythology and chopping down trees until your virtual arms fall off. You and up to nine friends are dumped into a procedurally-generated purgatory that's as beautiful as it is deadly. The progression here is immensely satisfying. You start off whacking greylings with a club and end up sailing serpent-infested seas to take on gods. The building system is less like construction and more like digital Lego for adults with a Viking fetish—you can create anything from a cozy longhouse to a fortress that would make Odin himself nod in approval. The scavenging and crafting loop is pure comfort food for survival fans, and the sense of shared accomplishment when you finally bring down a towering troll is unmatched.

8. Fallout 76: The Wasteland's Greatest Comeback Story

I know, I know. In 2026, the rocky launch of Fallout 76 is ancient history, like trying to remember dial-up internet. But hear me out. What exists now is a sprawling, bizarre, and deeply engaging online wasteland. It's the phoenix of the gaming world, rising from a pile of broken server code and questionable canvas bags. The map is massive and packed with stories, both from NPCs (added in later, glorious updates) and environmental storytelling. You can build your C.A.M.P. almost anywhere, creating a personalized oasis in the radioactive desert. While it has co-op, it shines as a solo experience where you can occasionally bump into other players—some friendly traders, others just weirdos in clown costumes playing the banjo. Compared to Once Human's constant threat, Fallout 76 lets you breathe and explore the melancholy of the apocalypse at your own pace, which is a nice change of scenery.

7. State of Decay 2: Zombie Apocalypse Community Manager Simulator

This game asks the important question: "What if surviving the zombie apocalypse was mostly about managing people's feelings and finding a quiet place to use the bathroom?" State of Decay 2 is a brilliant mix of survival, light base management, and character-driven storytelling. You control a community of survivors, each with their own skills, traits, and debilitating emotional baggage. The 4-player co-op is fantastic—instead of just fighting together, you're helping each other manage resources, clear out plague hearts, and deal with that one survivor who's always starting fights because they're "stressed." It's less about PvP competition and more about collaborative community building under extreme duress. If Once Human is about forging a new world, State of Decay 2 is about desperately clinging to the shreds of the old one with the people you've got left.

6. 7 Days to Die: The Ultimate Pressure Cooker

Ah, 7 Days to Die. The game that turns the survival genre into a weekly stress test. The core loop is beautifully simple and brutally effective: you have seven in-game days to prepare for a blood moon, where the zombie horde descends upon your location like locusts with a serious bone to pick. This creates a rhythm of frantic scavenging by day and terrified base-fortifying by night that's incredibly addictive. The PvP and PvE elements mirror Once Human well, but with a more predictable (and therefore more anxiety-inducing) cycle of doom.

It's the perfect game for when you want that "backs against the wall" feeling with your friends, screaming as you repair the last wall before the wave hits.

5. Sons of the Forest: A Beautiful, Terrifying Vacation Gone Wrong

Looking for more of those "what in the genetic mutation is THAT?" moments from Once Human? Sons of the Forest delivers in spades. This sequel drops you (and up to seven friends) on a cannibal-infested island that's equal parts stunning and stomach-churning. The creature designs are the stuff of nightmares—mutants that crawl, slither, and skitter through the dense forests. The building system is incredibly flexible, allowing you to construct anything from a simple lean-to to a multi-story treehouse complex. It's a game of contrasting moods: serene moments of fishing in a lake juxtaposed with sheer terror as a multi-limbed horror chases you through a cave. There's a mysterious story to uncover, but the real narrative is the one you create with your friends, usually involving a lot of panicked yelling and poorly planned escape routes.

4. Rust: The Sociopath's Playground

Rust is the pure, unadulterated essence of PvP survival, distilled into a form so potent it should come with a warning label. This is the game where trust is a liability and every rock is a potential weapon. The world is beautiful, but everything in it—from the bear in the woods to the naked man with a spear—wants you dead. Starting from scratch on a server is like being reborn into the world's most hostile kindergarten. The stakes are sky-high, similar to the tension in Once Human's contested zones. You'll spend hours gathering resources to build a base, only to have it raided by a group while you're offline, reducing your hard work to a smoldering pile of rubble. It's brutal, unforgiving, and for a certain type of player, utterly irresistible. Playing Rust is like trying to bake a cake in a kitchen where everyone else is trying to steal your eggs and set the oven on fire.

3. DayZ: The Grandaddy of Despair

You can draw a direct line from DayZ to almost every survival game that came after it, including Once Human. It's the genre's foundational text, written in blood, bandages, and canned beans. Even in 2026, it holds up as a uniquely tense and atmospheric experience. The learning curve is steeper than a cliff face, but that's part of the appeal. This isn't a game about "winning"; it's about enduring. A single life can be a multi-hour epic of cautious travel, tense player interactions, and narrow escapes. Will you be a friendly medic, a stealthy scavenger, or a ruthless bandit? The post-apocalyptic Chernarus is the ultimate sandbox for role-playing and emergent stories. A simple trip to find food can turn into a multi-player saga of betrayal, alliance, and tragic misunderstandings. It's slower and more deliberate than Once Human, but the emotional weight of every encounter is ten times heavier.

2. ARK: Survival Evolved - Taming Your Inner Child's Dinosaur Obsession

Remember when you were a kid and dreamed of having a pet dinosaur? ARK: Survival Evolved says, "Here you go, now try not to get eaten by it." Waking up naked on a beach with a T-Rex in the distance is a core gaming memory for many. This game takes the survival template and scales it up to prehistoric proportions. The taming and breeding mechanics are deep and rewarding—there's nothing quite like flying across the map on the back of a Pteranodon you raised from an egg. The building allows for massive, creative bases, and the tech progression takes you from stone tools to futuristic weaponry. It shares Once Human's loop of scavenge-craft-build, but replaces mutants and Stardust with bioluminescent caves and giant apes. It's a fantastic change of theme while keeping the core survival satisfaction fully intact.

1. Tom Clancy's The Division 2: The Tactical Looter-Shooter Fix

Okay, this one's a bit of a curveball. No mutants, no supernatural threats. Just a beautifully rendered, pandemic-ravaged Washington D.C. So why is it on this list? Because if you love the loot-driven, cover-based combat and team tactics of Once Human's more intense missions, The Division 2 is that experience refined to a razor's edge. This game is a loot piñata wrapped in a tactical shooter, and hitting it with friends is endlessly satisfying. The moment-to-moment gameplay of advancing through enemy territory, using skills, and coordinating flanks is top-notch. The endgame is packed with challenging missions, raids (called "Strongholds"), and a constantly evolving world. For Once Human fans who sometimes wish the game would just let them focus on the shooty-shooty, cover-based action without having to worry about their carrots rotting, this is your paradise. You can play solo, but tackling the hardest content with a coordinated team is where the game truly sings.

So there you have it. Ten worlds, ten different flavors of desperation and camaraderie. Whether you're building with friends in Valheim, betraying everyone in Rust, or just trying to keep your community from eating all the snacks in State of Decay 2, there's a survival experience out there waiting to consume your free time. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go check on my base in Once Human... just for a few minutes. I swear.