Best Base Building Survival Games to Play in 2024

Some games drop you directly into the middle of the action, instantly granting you godlike power over the rank and file. The titles let us set off on a power fantasy, leaving a trail of mayhem and destruction behind us. Then there are games at the opposite end of the spectrum, where you work up from nothing to fulfill your potential and rule a land you built with your own digital hands.

Nothing illustrates the latter of these ideas as well as base building survival games. Beginning with little more than the shirts on our backs, the best base building games task us with earning our power. Base building survival games have us master our landscapes, our enemies, and ourselves as we rise from loner to leader.

The landscape of the base building survival games in 2024 is better than ever before, with something on offer no matter your tastes. From playing alone on a PC to gaming together with friends on your phone, the spectrum of titles available today covers nearly every concept and idea imaginable.

With that in mind, let’s jump into the best base building survival games of 2024, and explore which new and old worlds you could call home. Remember to plan your strategy carefully, consider the leader you want to be, and most importantly, find a comfortable throne.

The Best Base Building Games of Today 🔥

With so much on offer from the gaming market today, you can rest assured that there's something available for everyone. No matter your gaming system or taste in titles, our following list will offer something to appeal to your survival instincts.

Minecraft

We had to include it on the list, so why not get the obvious answer out of the way? Still standing as one of the best base building games of all time on PC, Minecraft has you mine, craft, and combine the two into an always-enjoyable brick-like adventure.

Minecraft might be the simplest looking base building survival game on this list, but that's also one of its strengths. While many sandbox games reflect a specific and deliberate style, Minecraft's look leaves it open to our imaginations and creativity, as we build incredibly complex structures from simple tools.

Mojang’s mega-hit also finds a place as one of the best multiplayer base building games out there. Whether you’re more of a builder, an explorer, or a fighter, Minecraft’s ease of connectivity makes it perfect for playing with friends. Availability on mobile systems like Android doesn’t hurt either!

Palworld

Launched into early access in January 2024, Palworld isn’t just a hit in the base building survival games genre, it’s one of the biggest and best overall PC games of the year. Lovingly referred to as "Pokémon with guns", Palworld is actually so much more.

Armed with the ability to capture a vast range of creatures, and wield actual guns, Palworld is part brilliant survival base building game and part bizarre experiment. Cute, quirky, satirical, and engaging, we’ve no doubt this title will stand the test of time. At the rate it’s developing, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it in the realm of eSports soon too.

Even in its early access state, Palworld provides a wide world to explore and many things to do, aided in small part by the player’s captured pals. Have them help you build, race, or send them into battle as you live out your slightly more realistic pocked monsters fantasy than what anime would suggest is possible.

Project Zomboid

Our first foray into the land of the living dead begins with Project Zomboid. This top-down isometric game was first released in 2014 but still sees an enormous number of players and reliable updates through clear love from the developer.

The concept of Zomboid mirrors common zombie movie survival tropes, where you find yourself in an entire town surrounded by the living dead. Over time you'll work to fight off starvation and thirst, heal injuries, learn skills, and build the ultimate defensive structure. Project Zomboid has a steeper learning curve than many of the games on this list, but those who stick with it will find some of the deepest and most rewarding gameplay available, especially if you love RPG elements.

As great as the base Zomboid experience is, mods also help maintain the title with fresh content and challenges. With a highly customizable game world that can be as relaxed or as hardcore as you like, flexibility is king with this base building game. It's also available on OS X and Linux, while players hope for an iOS release sometime in the future.

Raft

We tend to think of building a base as digging into the foundations of the earth and creating a solid home in which to live. Raft offers a different take, as it tasks players with extending a simple square of floating wood into an immense fortress in which you fight the ocean.

The narrative of Raft makes for an engaging story, as you hop from island to island in a flooded world while seeking out the last remnants of civilization. You'll uncover mysteries along the way, craft weapons and equipment, and spend your time searching below the waves.

Hunted by an ever-present shark that hungers equally for both raft wood and human flesh, Raft inspires cooperation like few titles can. You're all locked to one single base, which fosters a real sense of community and togetherness. It's so popular it's even inspired a slew of mobile games on Android and iOS if you want a similar portable version of what's on offer.

Sons of the Forest

Acting as a sequel to the 2014 survival and base building hit, Sons of the Forst saw its full release in February of 2024. Like the first game, you’ll find yourself stranded on an island filled with cannibals, mutants, and cannibal mutants.

Gameplay in Sons of the Forest has you building your base by day and hunkering down at night, fighting off any who would see you as a delicious interloper. Together with your friends, you'll uncover the mystery of the island by diving deep into the island's caves and trying to avoid getting lost. A terrifying experience that also includes more than its fair share of goofy moments, Sons of the Forest is a game that probably won't help your enthusiasm for camping.

Valheim

Another title that adopts a Norse-inspired setting, Valheim was a huge hit when it was released in 2021, and it's still great today. Landing in the afterlife, players in Valheim contend with monsters and a beautiful and unforgiving landscape as they build and expand their wooden bases and portal networks.

What sets Valheim apart as a base building survival game is its emphasis on atmosphere. The game combines simple graphics, beautiful effects, and charming music to make you feel like you’re really striving for a place in Valhalla.

Valheim also offers a robust level of modding support that extends gameplay systems and even makes it a viable VR game. Just don't be surprised if you find yourself sitting in front of the fire on a rainy night and watching the moon go by.

Terrarria

Often called 2D Minecraft, this positive moniker also undersells Terrarria's unique identity. While this title is just as focused on exploration and crafting, it also has a greater emphasis on special events and bosses, while not losing the all-important content that base building survival games require. As a 2D tile-based sprite game, Terrarria lets you journey alone or with friends to uncover new areas, trade with NPCs, and build the most comfortable base in one of the more casual games on this list.

This is one of those titles that also thrives on mods which can do everything from overhaul graphics to generate entirely new worlds. Playable on iOS, Android, PC, Switch, PlayStation, and a huge range of other game platforms, Terrarria is a welcoming experience no matter how you choose to play.

Conclusion

The best survival games are more than just fun adventures. They're explorations of creativity and instinct. They let us live out a type of fantasy that we hold deep in the core of our beings, without the discomfort that wilderness survival implies in real life. They give us a chance to announce what we would make of a new world if we were given the opportunity to lead by example and light the way ahead.

Sometimes these games are classic titles dating back over a decade, where we can get our hands on the feel of retro experiences and design. Other times we play free survival games from the modern era for a more contemporary twist, and to see how far the genre has come. Whatever we choose, the core of these games remains the same. They may start out about surviving, but we end up thriving, fulfilled by the steps we took along the way.