Picture a Survival game… but it’s not violent? This does not sound possible, but survival is not only about bleeding, starving, fighting the zombies or wild animals, and trying to survive from the morning till the evening. Survival games are not all about having to fight for your life, although that is one of the best feelings to have.
Survival is also about building, going out into the wilderness, hunting and gathering and creating a new life for oneself amidst the wilderness. Hunting and fishing, creating your tools and weapons, growing your own food supply, cooking your meals, and turning a shelter into a cozy home with a roaring fireplace is the ultimate goal of any survival game: It is what makes all those hard fights worth it.
Survival games are also filled with inventive systems you should be able to appreciate even if you’re not a fan of shooting. Well, why not switch that combat off and play in a much nicer world instead? Fortunately, most of the top survival games allow you to do exactly that. Here are the some great hardcore survival games you can play in peaceful mode.
Vintage Story
There are a lot of ways to configure Vintage Story so that you can have the game you want, such as disabling seasons (so you don’t have to play through winter), increasing the number of resource nodes that spawn in the world, and changing the behavior of mobs so that they won’t attack you unless you attack them first. There are also mods for those who want to completely do away with hostile mobs in their world. I only stumbled upon this game myself fairly recently and, yes, it does appear to be a Minecraft clone.
Project Zomboid
Suppose you are in search of some of the most profound and intricate survival mechanics in games but, oh boy, you have had it with zombies. No problem! In sandbox mode, the notoriously brutal Project Zomboid lets you simply switch zombies off if you want to. Play it your way, in other words, though be warned: that does not mean that your life will be a picnic because there is always something to break, an injury to get, or an illness to contract. If you want the crafting, building, foraging, farming, and exploring of this game without the hordes of zombies chasing you, 7 Days to Die’s sandbox mode is a highly immersive survival game.
Ark: Survival Evolved
Sounds weird for a punishing survival game filled with angry dinosaurs and murderous players, but for a long while Ark: Survival Evolved is how I’d spend my leisure time when I am done with my daily activities. I wasn’t battling players or fighting dinos or restlessly working my way through the tech tree to unlock new gear and weapons: I only had a small house by a lake with a bunch of prehistoric beavers and I’d bake, sew, feed my animals and occasionally take a very cautious little trip out into the world every now and again. Fortunately it was on a private server so I was not bothered by other players but you can get the same experience playing with friends only or in singleplayer.
Icarus
Icarus has a very fun crafting and building system, and an outpost mode where you can stun predators by playing on easy. But really, if you remain in the initial biome in Open World mode, you can still get most of the game’s safety, with perhaps a bear or a wolf now and then.
Sons Of The Forest
Carefully integrated into the horror survival game, you can turn Sons of the Forest’s peaceful mode on in the options for the difficulty level. Once it’s on, mutants and cannibals will not appear in the world at all—though the hostile animals will, so you may still find yourself having to fight while you’re out and about. Since SotF’s advancement is predicated on defeating bosses, you will also have to provoke bosses if you want to progress through the whole game, but if you just want to build, hunt, cook, and chill with Kelvin while not being chased by terrifying cannibal tribes and monsters, Sons of the Forest’s pacifist mode is a truly fantastic way to enjoy the game.
Raft
You’re not gonna have an easy time in the first few hours of Raft: you’re scrambling to grab whatever resources are available as they swim past, eat, drink, sleep and avoid that relentless, ever ravenous shark. However, in Raft there is a peaceful mode, with which animals will not attack you if you do not attack them first. A gentle playthrough of Raft is a wonderful experience: only sail through the sea, develop your raft as you wish, look after your requirements, go to the small islands you come across as and when you want and fight only when you want to.
Valheim
Valheim has come a long way since its early access release in 2021: it’s introduced new biomes, more bosses, and most importantly, much more variety to allow you to tune the game to the level of difficulty you prefer. Besides using Valheim cheats to switch to creative mode there is a setting called “Casual” which means creatures are still present in the world but they won’t attack if you don’t attack them first.
