2026 -The Year of the Survival Crafter?
We've had lot released recently, and a large number entered into Early Access. 2026 has even more arriving and EVEN MORE still releasing from Early Access...
A Brief History of Survival Crafting
Survival Crafting games as a genre have been around since the early 90's, but since Minecraft in 2009 the genre has really started picking up speed, until today (2025) where the future is looking "bright" this is what I wanted to discuss in this blog today.
Full Disclosure, I love Survival Crafters - if anything was my Genre it would be this. My Current favourites are :
- Enshrouded - Love the fast paced action and the building is honestly so easy to pick up
- Valheim - Heavier, more realistic feeling combat.
- Runescape Dragonwilds - More RPG Focused, very similar build mechanics and combat
The above three games are all ones I can see me playing for longer (Valheim is already my most played at almost 400 hours). All three have similar mechanics and all are in early access, and this is the crux of the situation, they have another thing in common.....
2026 is THE year
All three of the above listed games, Enshrouded, Valheim and Runescape are scheduled to release out of early access in Early 2026 - naturally this may change - and probably will. But these aren't the only ones that 2026 will bless us with.
I don't think I'll have enough money for Survival Crafters!!!!
The good news is I already have the three above, but looking through my Steam Wishlist (this is by no means an exhaustive list of 2026 survival Crafters just ones I've seen) Guardians of the Wild Sky, Windrose, Light no Fire, Among the Trolls, Under a Rock, Subnautica 2 and there is also Cloudheim and The Last Caretaker which have just come out (or will be in a few weeks)
Also, I'm aware that some of these aren't officially Survival Crafters, but they're similar enough I'm classing them as such (Cloudheim is one such game)
Some others that aren't quite as well known include Outbound a Cozy survival crafter where you drive around in a Camper Van (small RV?) and collecting materials, make your van your home. Railborn a trainbound Survival crafter but unlike Void train there are plenty of materials around and your train is more like a traditional base, looks different enough from Void Train to pique my interest anyway. There is also sequels to both the Long Dark (Blackfrost: The Long Dark 2) and also the sequel to Breathedge the imaginatively titled Breathedge 2.
About Subnautica 2? I am not entirely sure it will actually launch in 2026 since all the lawsuits may postpone this. As a huge fan of Open World Survival Crafting games, I just know I'm going to be eating well in 2026 and am fully looking forward to this, and you know where you'll be able to see someone playing through all of the above games?!?!
Why Here, not specifically here... but over on my twitch/youtube.
See you there!
