While there were arguably survival games before Minecraft, its combination of randomness, crafting and scavaging - as well as surviving environmental threats - inspired the games industry, and before long lots of other titles were honing in on delicate inventory management, and environmental 'picking' even if they had set, defined maps. That's right, if you're looting, hoarding or crafting stuff, then you can probably trace back the inspiration for that title back to the survival genre, and the game which brought the concept into a household name: Minecraft. Therefore, we believe they deserve a list of the best survival games for iOS. As a matter of fact, if you look at some of the most popular current games, even Battle Royale games like Bandlanders or PUBG, you'll find them rife with mechanics which first found their feet in the survival genre. Survival games are a relatively recent phenomenon when it comes to gaming, it certainly wasn't around until very recently, but now there are elements of it which are permeating into other genres all the time.

Updated on January 26, 2023 - swapped 2 games. Original list by Jupiter Hadley, updated by Artur Novichenko.

Colony survival game death