ClapBack: Game Rant’s Survival Lists Suck

Game Rant dropped two survival game lists recently that are so bafflingly off-base, I had to stop what I was doing to bitch about them here and not in the newsletter, where my ranting would have doubtlessly made issue #4 a mile long. Look, Game Rant is somewhat (widely?) regarded as a content mill cesspool, and while I’m shifting toward not linking to them at all, these two pieces perfectly demonstrate how gaming journalism is eating itself—and taking genuine chat about survival games down with it.

Article: 6 Hardest Open-World Survival Games, Ranked

Their list:

• 6: The Long Dark
• 5: Sons of the Forest
• 4: Green Hell
• 3: Rust
• 2: DayZ
• 1: Project Zomboid

Where do I begin? They never clarify if this is actual difficulty ranking or just the order they plucked games from their collective ass. I have to assume it’s ass-plucking order, because I cannot fathom a universe where you put Sons of the Forest and Green Hell over The Long Dark.

“While the game doesn’t have the traditional building system like many other titles in the genre do, The Long Dark has many crucial survival mechanics that can be unforgiving if not properly managed in the lonely and desolate great white north.”

I’ll never understand why The Long Dark is constantly criticized for lacking building, especially since the “traditional building system” idea is all sorts of dumb.

The survival game that bitchslapped players with permadeath, impactful broken ribs, cabin fever, and frostbite needs to apologize for not playing into the idea that the recently stranded are just going to start throwing up a house, Laura Ingalls style? Outside of a few zones, you’re well able to utilize existing structures and caves for a good portion of your living. Yanno, like I would do in real life.

But what really grinds my gears is their Sons of the Forest analysis: “What starts as a simple search and rescue turns into a full-on matter of life and death, where scavenging, crafting, and building are required in order to survive the mysterious island and the various monsters crawling around. Its survival systems and scary atmosphere are just as unforgiving as the first game (if not more so).”

*briefly sets aside the sequel* WHAT SURVIVAL ELEMENTS WERE UNFORGIVING IN THE FOREST? Was it the carpal tunnel from opening endless cans of soda for hydration? Eye strain from examining your magic tarp that holds hundreds of pounds of gear in your pocket? The “unforgiving” freedom of a building mechanic that’s interesting from a development perspective but largely useless from a gameplay one?

The only thing Sons of the Forest requires for survival is a working foot to pilot your golf cart across the map while invalidating travel, exploration, and combat in one stroke. Maybe throw in swallowing your guilt at letting Kelvin do all the heavy lifting while you ogle Virginia.

Look, I love DayZ hardcore, but if you remove griefing and PvP from both DayZ and Rust, you’re not left with much in terms of survival mechanics. DayZ has solid bones but falls short of its potential. It could have been a fantastic survival game, but it wallowed in guns and more guns, plus lately weird DLC choices that copy amazing community maps and somehow make them worse. (So much worse. But! The modding scene can elevate it to a really solid experience, with the right server.) Where is SCUM? Is this because of all the penises?? 🍆

This isn’t a “hardest survival games” list. It’s “popular titles people recognize so that we can cram this piece with 20 links to other Game Rant articles.”

And what is this nonsense on the sidebar? BRUTAL EXPLORATION!!!1111

Is that like…

Video: 8 Best Survival Games For Challenging Exploration, Ranked

This isn’t even an article—it’s a video that ranks games from eight to number one: No Man’s Sky (Survival Mode), Valheim, Don’t Starve, Subnautica, Sons of the Forest, Project Zomboid, Green Hell, and The Long Dark.

I think the video would have been stronger- or at least more tolerable- if they’d just done a top 3. Their reasoning behind the top 3 actually makes sense, especially The Long Dark at number one. But the rest of this list is garbage.

Skipping Don’t Starve, where I don’t have enough hands-on time to provide side-eye properly, No Man’s Sky (Survival Mode), and Valheim are as brutal as traversing an empty room. They point out that Valheim biomes get harder as you progress, and you need to craft special things to survive.

Did everyone miss Classic WoW twenty years ago? Zones got harder as you progressed. Sometimes, you had to craft breathing potions or protective cloaks for specific dangers. Sure, these games don’t literally label zones with required levels, but this is bare-bones video game logic with zero nuance. “I went to slay a thing with a stick, but it killed me, so I came back with a shield and a bigger stick.” There’s nothing that can’t be solved by basic video game logic and some kiting. If I’m playing a game that literally bills itself as survival, I feel like the effort required to survive, the friction and consequences of survival, should have more impact and depth than the basic video game skills we’ve been employing since before Mario met a girl. (Even though they’re just friends.)

I’ve long been dying on the hill that “Valheim isn’t a survival game” anyway. (Why should I call it survival when the studio doesn’t?)

I watched the Subnautica section three times, and as best I can tell, the game ranks it as challenging exploration because “there are mobs that try to kill you.”

Holy shit, I hope no other game discovers this secret—putting mobs in the world to interfere with players. (Also, you have to “juggle” maintaining oxygen, which is kind of a joke in Subnautica, Icarus, NMS…)

Sons of the Forest showers you with easily accessible traversal systems—like the fucking golf carts—and literally hands you a GPS with POIs marked. The only way this could be easier is if one of Virginia’s outfits were a chauffeur hat.

Game Rant, do better. Or do less. Do both.

The Real Problem

Look, this isn’t just me being a dick about bad lists. (It’s not only me being a dick about bad lists.) This is algorithmic slop masquerading as useful shit, and it’s everywhere.

Game Rant treats survival games like interchangeable content widgets to fill whatever list format their SEO demands that week. “8 Best [Genre] Games for [Trending Keyword]” – just swap out the variables and hit publish. Then people new to survival gaming get steered toward shallow, popular experiences (I DIDN’T EVEN NAME NAMES) while genuinely challenging games get buried under this content mill garbage. (You know, like when the same five titles get recommended to every single WHAT SHOULD I PLAY thread in /SurvivalGaming.)

That’s the hill I’m dying on. We can do better than this lazy bullshit.

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