Best Survival Horror Games on Steam
Horror games about limited resources, vulnerability, exploration, and oppressive danger.
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1Left 4 Dead 2 - Set in the zombie apocalypse, Left 4 Dead 2 is a co-operative action horror FPS takes you and your friends through the cities, swamps and cemeteries of the Deep South, from Savannah to New Orleans across five expansive campaigns.
Nov 16, 2009
In this game, you can…
- play as the infected in multiplayer, coordinating ambushes and hunting your friends as special monsters.
- have a giant brute show up mid-fight and start throwing cars at you in the middle of your escape route.
- run the same campaign twice and get different enemy spawns, item placement, lighting, and even weather, changing every fight and route.
- rip through a crowd with a chainsaw, then swap to a frying pan and keep clearing zombies up close.
- get grabbed by a long tongue and dragged around a corner while your team has to sprint after you.
- startle a crying witch, and she instantly mauls the nearest survivor.
- get vomited on, and it immediately calls a horde straight onto your whole team.
- race to fill a generator with gas cans while the other team tries to stop you, turning the match into a frantic objective sprint.
2The Forest - As the lone survivor of a passenger jet crash, you find yourself in a mysterious forest battling to stay alive against a society of cannibalistic mutants. Build, explore, survive in this terrifying first person survival horror simulator.
Apr 30, 2018
In this game, you can…
- get knocked out, dragged through the forest, and wake up trapped in a cave you have to escape.
- watch cannibals scout your camp, retreat to call reinforcements, and come back as a coordinated raiding party.
- fight off a base siege where mutants smash your walls and one rips up a whole tree to use as a weapon.
- wake up after a plane crash and hunt for your kidnapped son by following clues through caves, boats, and survivor camps.
- build treehouses, cliff forts, and spiked walls, then have a falling tree smash your own structure to pieces.
- craft gear by gluing teeth to your axe, wearing bones as armor, and turning skulls and bodies into lamps and defenses.
- creep through pitch-black caves, squeeze through flooded passages, and surface missing gear with enemies still hunting you.
- turn the crash site into a long-term fortress, or build rafts and dock houses into a whole river-and-coast base network.
3Don't Starve Together - Fight, Farm, Build and Explore Together in the standalone multiplayer expansion to the uncompromising wilderness survival game, Don't Starve.
Apr 21, 2016
In this game, you can…
- get turned into a ghost when you die, then haunt specific items to resurrect yourself back into your body.
- steal a giant bird egg, keep it from overheating by the fire, and hatch it into a baby that follows you around.
- discover a friendly pig village, use it as a safe base, and then watch the pigs turn into werepigs later.
- turn a tiny camp into a real settlement with farms, spider dens, bee hives, and even a beefalo herd.
- build a trap-filled room just to protect a stolen egg from spiders until it finally hatches.
- bring friends back from death with things like a heart, an amulet, a touch stone, or the starting portal.
- watch a one-eyed giant arrive in winter with ground-shaking footsteps, smash your camp, and force you to survive in the dark.
4Lethal Company - A co-op horror about scavenging at abandoned moons to sell scrap to the Company.
Oct 23, 2023
In this game, you can…
- sell every last scrap, then haul a teammate's body to the counter for the final few credits to hit quota.
- stay on the ship as mission control, use the terminal to open doors and spot threats, and talk your team back alive through the maze.
- listen to your friend's voice get muffled and cut off mid-sentence as a monster grabs them in proximity chat.
- hear a teammate dying over the radio while you keep scavenging, and the person guiding you keeps talking after they're already dead.
- open a trapped teleporter room, watch one rescue turn into a chain of monster attacks, and still have to find a way out.
- step into a mineshaft because your friends told you to, then they later find you cocooned and hanging from the ceiling.
- watch a teammate calmly warn you about a landmine, then immediately scream about a spider and get blown up mid-run.
- buy gear like jetpacks, ladders, and stun grenades, then accidentally turn them into hazards that kill your own crew.
5Dying Light - First-person action survival game set in a post-apocalyptic open world overrun by flesh-hungry zombies. Roam a city devastated by a mysterious virus epidemic. Scavenge for supplies, craft weapons, and face hordes of the infected.
Jan 26, 2015
In this game, you can…
- swing across the skyline with a grappling hook that opens up entirely new routes.
- outrun night hunters, flash an ultraviolet light to buy seconds, then hide in a pipe until the chase ends.
- dropkick enemies off rooftops so they ragdoll down six-story drops.
- chain parkour into kills by vaulting a zombie and instantly drop-attacking for a finisher.
- turn the city into a weapon by luring zombies into spikes, fires, and exploding barrels.
- risk going out at night for bigger rewards, then sprint safehouse-to-safehouse when the world flips into hunt mode.
- craft melee weapons with elemental effects that set zombies on fire or shock them on hit.
- join a friend in co-op and race rooftops together, turning escapes into shared, chaotic near-misses.
6Project Zomboid - Project Zomboid is the ultimate in zombie survival. Alone or in MP: you loot, build, craft, fight, farm and fish in a struggle to survive. A hardcore RPG skillset, a vast map, massively customisable sandbox and a cute tutorial raccoon await the unwary. So how will you die? All it takes is a bite..
Nov 8, 2013
In this game, you can…
- look down from a skyscraper roof at thousands of zombies swarming below, then get trapped inside and survive by rationing food.
- trade Sonic fan fiction for gasoline in multiplayer, then crash the car and die four minutes later.
- kill your bitten friend after he turns into a zombie, using a frying pan on the side of a highway.
- load a car with supplies, drive out for a VHS-store run, and find a pristine video store packed with tapes after clearing the street.
- press one wrong key, accidentally shout, and pull the whole neighborhood into your base like a siren.
- turn a lumber mill into a fortified co-op settlement with roof crops and water projects, then lose it to a kitchen fire and a converging horde.
- loot a gun store, get chased deeper into the city by a helicopter, fight from a rooftop until the door breaks, then jump off and keep going on a shattered leg.
- level skills by doing physical work like dismantling furniture and electronics, stripping car parts, and even practicing first aid by bandaging your own injuries.
7Subnautica - Descend into the depths of an alien underwater world filled with wonder and peril. Craft equipment, pilot submarines and out-smart wildlife to explore lush coral reefs, volcanoes, cave systems, and more - all while trying to survive.
Jan 23, 2018
In this game, you can…
- throw a fish to distract a predator, then have it come back carrying scrap metal for you.
- pilot a giant submarine you can live in, including growing food onboard for long expeditions.
- take a mech suit into extreme depths and outfit it with a drill and grappling hook to mine and swing around.
- crash onto an alien ocean world and start with only a lifepod.
- keep pushing deeper until the surface stops feeling reachable.
- get trapped in twisting underwater caves where there's no straight swim back up.
- scan wrecks and fragments to unlock new tools and vehicles, turning scavenging into a tech tree you build yourself.
- leave a crashed spaceship because you lack the tools, then return later with new gear to open more of it up.
- build modular underwater bases that store vehicles, generate power, and start leaking if the pressure gets too high.
8PEAK - PEAK is a co-op climbing game where the slightest mistake can spell your doom. Either solo or as a group of lost nature scouts, your only hope of rescue from a mysterious island is to scale the mountain at its center. Do you have what it takes to reach the PEAK?
Jun 16, 2025
In this game, you can…
- shoot a teammate with a blow dart, stick them to a cactus, and then eat them.
- die and keep playing as a ghost, floating alongside your team and guiding them upward even though you can't touch anything.
- play in a modded lobby with up to 20 climbers, coordinating rescues and supplies while the whole group screams in voice chat.
- help each other up ledges with hand boosts, ropes, and climbing spikes so the route you build becomes the route your friends climb next.
- hear a friend's screams fade in proximity chat as they fall off a cliff and their voice disappears into the distance.
- start on a beach and climb through jungle rain, a stamina-draining blizzard, lava mountains, and an almost-vertical volcano crater escape.
- find survival gear in suitcases and shrines, including rare items that only show up if everyone in the party is still alive.
- use a lollipop to reach an otherwise impossible ledge, then drop a rope to teammates who are starving below.
- slip on a banana peel that spawns when you feed someone a banana, sending them off a cliff if they're standing too close.
9Resident Evil 4 - Survival is just the beginning. Six years have passed since the biological disaster in Raccoon City. Leon S. Kennedy, one of the survivors, tracks the president's kidnapped daughter to a secluded European village, where there is something terribly wrong with the locals.
Mar 23, 2023
In this game, you can…
- stun a villager and follow up by suplexing them onto the ground.
- board a minecart and ride it through a combat-heavy escape sequence that plays like an action set piece.
- hunt down regenerating enemies that crawl and leap at you while you search for their weak points.
- parry attacks with a knife instead of just getting grabbed.
- stun an enemy with a shot, then roundhouse-kick them into the crowd.
- sneak behind enemies and take them out with a silent kill.
- scavenge jewels and valuables, sell almost anything, then rebuild your weapons and upgrades chapter by chapter.
- fight a chainsaw-wielding maniac during an early village assault that turns into a full-on survival set piece.
- get thrown into a giant lake monster encounter where the water itself becomes a threat you have to respect.
10SCP: Secret Laboratory - Deep within a secure underground facility, a sudden containment breach allows many of the secured anomalies to escape from their chambers. Assist the Foundation in re-securing the facility, help the Insurgency in their goal to capture it, or wreak havoc as an SCP in a frantic bid to escape.
Dec 29, 2017
In this game, you can…
- die, then spectate as a monster uses your own recorded screams to lure other players into the same trap.
- play a wall-walking monster that kidnaps people into a pocket dimension where they must pick doors before they bleed out.
- touch-kill players as a plague doctor, then resurrect the people you killed so your victims come back as your team.
- sit in an elevator with an enemy, play music, and die together when the nuke goes off.
- upgrade your keycard, get swept into a nine-soldier escort squad, loop the facility lost, and still get wiped by the armed warhead.
- take hostages at gunpoint and run a "Family Guy Trivia" game where wrong answers get you shot.
- trigger a chain of chaos by leaving a blast door open, watch two monsters pour in, then get "adopted" by the statue and escorted to an endgame keycard.
- arm the nuke, weave through an infected horde you helped create, and sprint for the exit as the countdown hits zero.
