Steam celebrates the popular genre of survival games with a major genre sale. The “Steam sale for survival games” runs until August 8, 2022, and offers many great discounts. MeinMMO author Maik Schneider wants to introduce you to a strong title that he personally failed at, but every genre fan should try out.
My career as a survival gamer began in a small wooden cabin in Minecraft shortly after the release of the block hit on PlayStation 3. It was 2013, and I was still afraid of the zombies in the game.
Since we didn’t have any beds yet, we spent all night in the cramped enclosure waiting for the liberating sunshine.
A lot has happened since then. I have played dozens of survival games, killed thousands of zombies, and built gigantic automated train stations in Minecraft that could organize the public transport of entire metropolises.
During this time, I experienced only one survival title that really took me down. A survival game I no longer want to play. It broke me: Don’t Starve and the cooperative version Don’t Starve Together.
If you enjoy challenges and like figuring out how to progress in a survival game on your own, then I highly recommend this title and will briefly introduce it to you. If that’s not your thing, then at least now you know how to take me down.
Don’t Starve is part of our best co-op games of 2022 and still receives updates and content. We present the latest DLC in the video:
Don’t Starve – A blemish on my survival career
The game is currently on sale on Steam for a mere €2.08. The co-op version Don’t Starve Together is also discounted, for only €5.09.
I don’t want to deter you with my assessment – on the contrary. Don’t Starve is an excellent survival game that has all the mechanics to be a classic of the genre:
- Build a base
- Craft tools
- Grow food
- Tame animals
- Smash enemies
- Research upgrades
- Survive the darkness
- Seasonal changes
- Large, randomly generated world
However, you can’t just starve, as the title of the game suggests. Almost everything in the world wants to kill you. You can even get too scared and die from it.
And that’s exactly where the game froze me cold. The first round in co-op back then with my crew was a constant state of scarcity marked by ongoing need – we had too little of everything.
I enjoy the challenge; it was a real battle to survive the first year. At that point, I was still having a lot of fun.
But we couldn’t overcome the scarcity threshold. Worse, in winter, an unforeseen event occurred. I don’t want to give too much away, but I can say it practically destroyed all our progress.
That evening, we ended the game, and I was never ready to start a serious new round again.
Ultimately, we didn’t use a mechanic properly, which put us at a significant disadvantage. But after a dozen hours of grind and a life on the brink of existence, I was out of steam. Don’t Starve left a lasting impact on me.
And if you look at a few pictures without knowing the background, you might even think it’s a game for kids. A blemish on my survival career.
Nonetheless, Don’t Starve is one of the best survival games on Steam. It is hard and rough, it explains nothing, and it constantly tries to kill you. Perfect conditions for a bold adventure.
Sometimes, however, a small oversight, a little stupidity, can turn fun and joy into “I’ll never touch this again”.
For €2 and €5, respectively, it’s worth a try. A top game of the survival genre with deep mechanics and its own charm. But you won’t get me back into this nasty dream world.
Leave me your thoughts on Don’t Starve Together and feel free to let me know where I stand on the fool scale for you.
If you’re always looking for new survival adventures, check this out: The 25 best survival games of 2022 for PlayStation, PC, and Xbox
