9 Survival games like A Game About Digging A Hole that you should try

A 2D sandbox that is far more combat-driven than its look suggests: progression runs through boss fights, and each one unlocks a tier of materials. Building is deep but optional. It explains almost nothing — crafting chains, boss summons and biome requirements are opaque enough that most players keep a wiki open throughout.

Years of free updates turned it into a genuinely broad survival-exploration game: base building, freighters, settlements, multiplayer. The scale is unmatched. The core loop is still the criticism — planets are procedurally varied rather than designed, so after twenty of them the discoveries start to rhyme, and the inventory management never stops being fiddly.

A building sandbox where the physics are the point: vehicles you assemble actually flex, tip and fall apart under load, and getting a working machine is a genuine engineering problem. Creative mode is the strong half. The survival campaign has been in early access for years and remains unfinished, with long gaps between updates.

A voxel engineering sandbox with real physics: ships flex, break apart along stress lines and drift, and building something that survives its own thrust is the actual game. Deeply satisfying when it clicks. It is heavy on performance and light on direction — large builds tank the framerate, and there is essentially no guidance on what to do.

Unturned is a low-poly survival game providing single or multiplayer experience. The main action takes place on 6 different maps (Prince Edward Island, Yukon, Washington, Germany and Russia) flooded with zombies. The story begins in the random location of the chosen map and lasts till the death.

Don’t Starve is an uncompromising wilderness survival game full of science and magic. Enter a strange and unexplored world full of strange creatures, dangers, and surprises. Gather resources to craft items and structures that match your survival style.

Loddlenaut is an ocean cleanup adventure set on a vibrant alien planet. Play as an interstellar custodian who is tasked with cleaning up the pollution left behind by spacefaring mega-corporation.

A 2D space sandbox with a stronger sense of place than most: hand-written quests, distinct alien races and villages that feel authored rather than generated. Building is flexible. The combat is thin — most encounters resolve by mashing one weapon — and the mid-game settles into repeating the same planet-scan-and-loot loop.