The  Games  that  I  play

Subsistence

Subsistence is a sandbox, first person, solo or co-op, PvE open-world survival game. Struggle through changing seasons to build a base, develop technology and gear-up in the hostile environment.

Defend yourself from wildlife, the elements and AI hunters (who also build bases in the world). 

The game has a good level of customisation for your gameplay: choose your starting month, the number of days in a year, whether you have hunters (the enemy AI) turned on or off, if you have them on you can chose to have no attacks, revenge attacks only (if you raid their base or kill one of them) or revenge and periodic attacks.  You can also chose to play in “easy”, “normal” or “hardcore” modes.  This affects things like the RNG, and the aggro range of predators.

If you chose to have hunters turned on, then you will have 3 bases built (4 if you are on a multiplayer save) as well as rogues who show up in a location for one day before moving on.

Beware: early days are a GRIND!  Most of us who play spent many attempts before we lasted more than a day, and watching other people play on YouTube (for example) sure helps you to understand the mechanics of the game!

Sunkenland

A  Waterworld-themed survival game with modular base building, sunken city scavenging, crafting, base defense, and invasions of NPC clans for resources and territory.

This early access game has only been out since September 2023 but is already building a loyal fan base. Despite the to-be-expected glitches of a new launch, it has great potential.

You can chose to have enemies enabled or not, chose the size of the “garrison” at each base, chose the level of difficulty and chose if you want raids or not.  All of this makes the game quite customisable to individual game play style.

If you like looting, then this is the game for you! It doesn’t feel as grindy as some other survival games but you do need to do a LOT of looting to progress!

I’m excited to see how this game develops.

The Long Dark

The Long Dark is a “thoughtful, exploration-survival experience that challenges solo players to think for themselves as they explore an expansive frozen wilderness in the aftermath of a geomagnetic disaster. There are no zombies — only you, the cold, and all the threats Mother Nature can muster.”

I have a special place in my heart for this game as it is the first survival game I ever played!

The Long Dark: Survival Edition gives you pure focus on the Long Dark’s Survival Sandbox, the free-form, non-narrative version of The Long Dark.  It includes stand alone challenges which can test the most experienced of players. You can also chose The Long Dark which gives you both the Survival Mode and the award-winning episodic narrative mode, Wintermute which is where I started.  At the time of writing there are four episodes of the story, with the fifth and final one being in development.