The popularity of survival games has grown exponentially over the past decade or so, to the point where finding a good one amongst the hoards of generic clones can sometimes be pretty difficult. This isn't at all helped by the fact that many of the very best survival games have a habit of starting out incredibly slowly.
RELATED: 10 Open-World Games That Are Amazing (After A Rough Opening Few Hours)
This is perhaps an unfortunate side-effect of the genre's core mechanics; with crafting, base building and, in some instances, even exploration often requiring a considerable amount of both time and resources to achieve. Those who persevere through these difficult opening stages, however, can often find an incredible experience that will keep them entertained for hundreds of hours, if not thousands.
10 Outward
Fast travel mechanics and quest markers can be incredibly immersion breaking, but many now see them as one of gaming's necessary evils. Outward is a great example of how important they can be, with their absence in the game making its opening stages considerably more difficult than they really need to be.
Fans of realism may not be too bothered by this, but traversing the game's huge open world for the first few times can be quite a daunting prospect. Players do not even show up on the map, so, until they've familiarized themselves with the landscape and the few notable landmarks it contains, getting from A to B will likely be incredibly time consuming for those who are new to the game.
9 The Long Dark
One of the things that really sets The Long Dark apart from its peers is its excellent story mode. Unlike many of the other titles that populate the crowded genre, players are constantly being provided with objectives and will often find themselves pushing onward just to find out how the next story beat is going to unfold. This does introduce one or two problems though.
While the latter stages of the story are incredibly fast-paced and well written, the first few episodes were a little dry at launch. Although the team at Hinterland Studio has since addressed this to some extent, it still takes quite a while for the game to establish a compelling narrative that's really worthy of any further investigation.
8 Subnautica
One of Subnautica's biggest strengths is its depth, with players given a seemingly endless ocean to explore and survive in. In the game's early stages, however, the extent to which players are able to survey these depths is severely limited by the technology and oxygen capacity that they have at their disposal.
RELATED: The 10 Best Open-World Games Made By Indie Developers
Base building also plays a fairly significant role in the game and this too can take quite a while to really open up to players. Gathering the resources required to build bases and outposts can take hours on end and this can further hinder the player's ability to explore the game's world.
7 The Forest
Although the mystery of Eric's missing son is introduced fairly early on in The Forest, getting to the bottom of it takes far longer than it really needs to. Players will come across Timmy's kidnapper a number of times in the first hour or two of the game, but his constant fleeing prevents any meaningful progress from being made.
As the narrative begins to unfold, things do start to become interesting and although the gameplay can at time be frustrating, those who enjoy a good challenge should feel right at home on the forested peninsula. Finding more blueprints for the survival guide also vastly improves the experience. Much like the game's narrative progression though, this too will take time.
6 Valheim
One of the biggest issues with survival games that are centered around crafting mechanics is the near constant need to gather resources. Some players may not mind repeatedly punching trees all that much, but those hoping to dive right into the action may be a little frustrated by Valheim's humble beginnings.
Defeating the game's first boss will almost certainly require weapons and equipment, not to mention a healthy amount of food. Unfortunately, gathering the resources needed to craft all of these things is going to take time, which in turn will likely necessitate the building of a basic base as well. To make matters worse, this must all be done without the use of a pickaxe, as players aren't able to craft one until after they have defeated Eikthyr.
5 ARK: Survival Evolved
While the game itself experienced a rather rough opening few months, subsequent updates and patches have completely transformed ARK: Survival Evolved. One thing that they haven't changed all that much, however, is the game's painfully slow beginning.
RELATED: 10 Things That Make No Sense About Ark: Survival Evolved
Although players are dropped right into the action, many of the game's strongest features will be out of their reach for quite a while. Any dinosaur that's actually worth taming is going to require players to be at a fairly high level, while finding the blueprints and resources needed to build a half decent base will also take a substantial amount of time.
4 Rust
Assuming that players can actually survive long enough to get their bearings, quite a bit of work is needed in order to get the best out of Rust. Players start the game with nothing, which, together with the game's irradiated wildlife and the many players who shoot on sight, can seriously stunt early game progress.
Finding or crafting the tools needed to defend oneself is far from easy and although a basic base can be knocked together fairly quickly, building one secure enough to withstand any would-be raiders will take significantly longer. Playing with others can sometimes help in this regard, but those who prefer to go it alone will likely be in for a frustrating first few hours.
3 Grounded
While many survival games typically begin with players having to grind for resources, Grounded manages to avoid this pitfall for the most part. Where it does stumble a little, however, is through its questionable implementation of perks and mutations.
Unlocking these game-changing features typically requires players to complete a series of mundane tasks like killing a certain number of enemies or cutting down grass. As a result, players will likely find themselves grinding for mutations in the game's opening stages rather than hunting down resources.
2 Don't Starve Together
Don't Starve Together is one of the best survival games out there and a big part of this is down to its challenging difficulty. Food is scarce throughout the game and the lack of a traditional leveling system means that players must rely on their skill alone rather than simply pumping up their stats. Unfortunately though, this challenge can take quite a bit of time to arrive.
While this is no doubt by design and does serve as a good way of easing players into things, it takes quite a bit longer than it perhaps should for things to really get going. After a few weeks of carefree nights things do finally start to heat up a little, but getting to this point can be a little boring; even for those who are new to the game.
1 Minecraft
One of the oldest and most popular survival games on the market, Minecraft introduced a lot of elements and mechanics that would go on to become staples within the genre. In doing so, however, the game also uncovered some of the potential pitfalls and problems with this style of game.
Granted, speedrunners have since shown that Minecraft can be "completed" in a matter of minutes, but experiencing the best that the game has to offer typically takes quite a bit longer. Acquiring enchanted armor, weapons and tools and building an awesome base of operations will require both resources and XP; neither of which can be acquired all that quickly by new players.