If you’re up to date on your games right now, you must have noticed the sudden influx of survival horror games. Now I’m not talking about your Resident Evils or even your Silent Hills, those days are (sadly) behind us. I’m instead talking about new, open world, multiplayer experiences where it’s not only zombies or demonic children on your heels, but other budding survivors like yourself. It all started with Dean Hall’s Arma 2 mod ‘Day Z’. Remember, where there is good, evil forces lurk in the distance and in this case, ready to try and tarnish the name of any gaming genre. So, I’ve decided I’m going to show you two of the best young and upcoming titles I think will definitely be worth your time. I’ll also show you two of the worst ‘offcuts’ of this trend’s produce.

THE GOOD

Survive the Nights – A2Z Interactive/Microsoft Windows

The rather aptly named ‘Survive the Nights’ looks very promising. If you know the likes of DayZ, you can look past the clunky mechanics and rather movements. Seeing as this game is only in pre-Alpha and has an arguably better crafting system than the aforementioned game, things are looking up for this project. The game itself has a beautiful look and the world is unique and dynamic, something we haven’t seen much of in these recent games as of yet. The video will take you through much of the core mechanics but relatively young additions to the genre like traps and using of the environment definitely brings the game’s appeal up. I say keep an eye on it.

The Forest – Endnight Games/Microsoft Windows

Seriously, this is such a unique game. What’s more fun than surviving a devastating plane crash and realising that you have limited supplies, you’re totally alone and “Wait a second, did that bush move?”. Yes, you are being hunted, fate has it that you are undeniably trapped on a stretch of land inhabited by none other than cannibalistic tribals. I have a feeling you won’t be accepting the ‘Their house their rules’ etiquette this time. All things about this one seem very good, unique animations and very fine, visceral surroundings shine out for me. When you feel you’ve prepared sufficiently, it is time to uncover what happened to the rest of the passengers…

THE BAD

ApocZ – SickKreations Studios/Xbox 360

The survival genre has arrived on the shores of the Xbox 360. ApocZ is a strange game indeed. It is an indie game for the Xbox marketplace. Nasty animations and a general lack of anything good in the world make this game bad. Inside the lobbies lurk kids, an enraging game chat system and not to mention there isn’t a lot to do in general. The map is rather small and no buildings are enterable. A lot of modding also goes down in this game and it’s hard to find positives in this game, but there is one – it doesn’t suffer from much de-sync as PC titles would… And that’s about it. Its priced at 69p on the marketplace, which isn’t much…but there are some things you just don’t spend 69p on.

Infestation: Survivor Stories/Microsoft Windows

Formerly known as ‘The War Z’, Infestation: Survivor stories is a massively controversial one. Dubbed a ‘rip off’ of Dayz, the game received hugely negative press on its release.  The now infamous Sergey Titov, the man behind this creation, proposed some very promising things from the onset. Features such as character customization (A complete niche in the genre at the time) and a new, expansive world made us all excited. But when they day of release came, character customization was a shabby mess, probably worse than GTA Online’s, and the world wasn’t as big as first hyped. As If hacker-ridden lobbies couldn’t any worse, Sergey also glorified PVP (Player vs. Player) and player Banditry – Something which many thought was a massive downside to survival games.  Made by bandits for bandits.