16 Popular Nintendo Switch Survival and Adventure Games You Should Try

Pick your favorite one from this comprehensive list of Nintendo Switch Survival and Adventure Games.

Survival has always been one of the most entertaining and captivating genres, which is what makes Nintendo Switch Survival such a hot favorite with the masses.

However, since Nintendo Switch has many survival and adventure games that it’s easy to miss a few good ones among the crowd.

So without much wait, let’s jump on this adventure and help you take note of the best of the lot.

Top Nintendo Switch Adventure and Survival Games in 2024

Being a Nintendo fan myself, I’ve found these to be the most fun when it comes to honing those survival skills!

The Long Dark

You’re a crash-landed pilot trying to brave the chilly atmosphere, lacking supplies, wolves, and bears. You’ll instantly fall in love with The Long Dark if you’ve got a longing for loneliness, cold, and dark surroundings.

The survival mode makes you free in the wilderness, challenging you to survive it. And the story mode restricts you on the track to complete a strong narrative.

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a massive open-air adventure with wide-open fields and mountain peaks. You will die aplenty and learn to survive better in this action-packed aesthetic adventure.

There is a lot to learn and try on the way to rescue Princess Zelda. The game offers tons of weapons that you can use along with some magic tricks to thrive upon your enemies.

Fortnite

Fortnite is a PUBG styled survival-shooter game, although with a smaller map. You can play this solo or with up to 99 players.

The game starts with skydiving on an island. Thereafter begins your quest to survive and be the last one standing to win. The gameplay involves collecting resources and staying alive, which consists of a lot of scavenging, running, and shooting.

Resident Evil Revelations Collection

This is a dark horror zombie-survival-shooter. The first part gives you a storyline that starts in-between Resident Evil 4 and 5. The game involves running and gunning zombies on an abandoned cruise ship before heading to the devastated city of Terragrigia.

The second part, Resident Evil Revelations 2, starts with a mission to get out alive from a hostage situation while fighting weird-looking undead along the way.

You can play solo or team up with a player.

Breathedge

Breathedge is a single-player space survival odyssey. Your spaceship got crashed, and you’re stranded in outer space with a mortal chicken.

The storyline is based on hunting and crafting resources, all the while checking for adequate air supply. Not just diminishing oxygen, you’ll also have to survive against the freezing and overheating whenever you venture into the danger zones.

In addition, you’ll have to be on a constant lookout not to get killed by robots and lasers.

Pine

With Pine, you’ll feel similar to Breath of the Wild. It’s a solo open-air adventure filled with various creatures.

You can talk, craft, explore, collect, befriend, and fight with other species all the way trying to find a home for your human tribe to survive and inhabit.

ARK: Survival Evolved

ARK: Survival Evolved drops you on an island filled with dinosaurs. You’re supposed to collect and craft your way to survive and fight the monstrous animals.

You can play this solo or with up to eight players. Fighting and crafting weapons from the collectibles becomes easier as you level up.

This game allows you to kill and tame dinosaurs, making it easy to advance further. The storyline is about finding the three boxes to unlock the secret dungeon.

Dying Light: Platinum Edition

Dying Light is survival, shooting, and strategy rolled in one. You will parker through the roofs, crafting weapons in this open-world zombie survival game.

In the gameplay, you shoulder the responsibility to find a file that contains details about the cure to save humanity from the virus. You can play this solo or up to five members as a team.

There are a variety of zombies lurking everywhere. Your weapons get degraded with every fight, and this is where crafting comes into the picture. This action-packed, visually stunning game promises to keep you hooked if you somehow manage to stay alive.

Radiation Island

Radiation Island is based on the Philadelphia Experiment. You find yourself stranded in an alternate reality.

This gives you a chance to fight through zombies, lions, wolves, etc., while constantly hunting for food and collectibles to craft your weapons.

Being an open-world game, you don’t have to play in any set order. You can also set it to the exploration mode to just go through it without any dangers.

Dead by Daylight

Dead by Daylight gives you a choice–be a killer or run among the survivors. This is a dark-horror-survival game which you can play solo or up to four other players.

You could select from various profiles as a killer, master the craft, and begin hunting. Or, as a survivor, you can act alone or team up and find your way out of the arena.

Green Hell

You are separated from your partner and left alone to survive in the Amazon Rainforest–Green Hell. You can play in the story, survival, or challenges mode and see if you can muster the practical skills needed to live alone in the threatening wild.

Your task is to survive the mental breakdown, hostile tribes, wild animals, and depleting health. The gameplay doesn’t give you anything except the lonely wilderness.

It’s on you to learn recipes, find collectibles and craft valuables. You’ll be needing real-life survival skills to truly thrive in this solo green adventure.

Don’t Starve: Nintendo Switch Edition

You wake in the middle of the wilderness with only one objective–Don’t Starve. Played in an isometric view, you soon find yourself hunting for food and shelter.

It’s an endless survival odyssey that tests your mettle against enormous possibilities that can bring your untimely demise. Every death gives you some XP which you use to unlock different characters to start it all over again.

Little Nightmares Complete Edition

You are Six–a teeny tiny girl trapped in a vessel with giant merciless creatures trying to catch you as their next meal.

Each confrontation brings a Little Nightmare to the little girl who tries to escape the drowning vessel to get free to the open ocean.

At all times, you’ll be hiding, running, climbing, escaping, and solving puzzles in this dark survival to keep Six feed enough to carry on the quest.

This War of Mine: Complete Edition

This War of Mine is a survival strategy game based on how civilians survive in a war-torn city. You manage a group of guys with specific abilities and weaknesses who try to survive the limited resources.

The gameplay will test your moral code. You can make the gameplay easy by being selfish for the sake of advancing fast or choosing what’s right and suffer (or die), making everyday survival harder.

Your decisions will save or sacrifice individuals from your group and others. Once you play enough, you’ll be tempted to keep aside the moral conundrums and try your best just to survive.

Windbound

You start as shipwrecked, crafting and fighting through this aesthetically pleasing open adventure to stay alive and explore the secrets.

You build a boat, find food, and become Windbound to find the tower’s beacons on each island.

The gameplay pushes you to hunt down the resources to make weapons to fight wildlife and upgrade the boat. This is a solo sea adventure that emphasizes survival.

Subnautica

Subnautica is an underwater adventure-survival that begins with a crash landing on an alien planet.

And like all survival games, the focus is on finding food and crafting weapons. But it’s unique in its own might since most gameplay is focused inside the ocean.

You’ll be building underwater shelters to store weapons, vehicles, and other resources. The game compels you to fight dangerous sea creatures or run away for your dear life. The end goal is to escape from the alien planet while breathing.

If you feel interested, you can also check out the sequel: Subnautica: Below Zero.

The thing about survival games that makes them so addictive is that they create a sense of adventure, made even more relatable by all those survival movies that you must have surely watched.

Conclusion

These were some survival games that I thought very highly of.

A few of these also have sequels that you can buy together as a package.

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