The 20 Best Games Like This War Of Mine

There are many reasons why people like This War of Mine. Some people like the survival and gathering of resources, while others like the sad mood, and still others like how their actions have a bigger effect on the characters in the game, who seem very real.

Because this dark and frightening game is made up of so many moving parts, it is hard to find another game that is exactly like it. There are some games that might fill the gap through their gameplay, art style, or tone.

Fallout Shelter

Platform(s): Mobile, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Developer(s): Bethesda Game Studios
Release Date: June 15, 2015

In the Fallout games, each Vault had its own story. Some seemed like a success, while others were full of horrifying trials where people were treated like live test subjects in the worst way possible. So, the idea of being in charge of one’s own vault and modeling the lives of people who lived there was so appealing that many players would jump at the chance to play right away.

Players have to deal with some annoying microtransactions because this game is free-to-play, but that’s the only bad thing about an otherwise fun experience. One more thing that people might not like is how deep the game’s features are, but that’s something that most Bethesda games have, so it can be ignored as well.

Don’t Starve

Platform(s): Mobile, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, Xbox One
Developer(s): Klei Entertainment
Release Date: April 23, 2013

Don’t Starve is one of the first independent survival games that really impressed players with its unique art style and rough gameplay. The mood is by far the best thing about it. The dark and scary themes of this game really come out at night, when players need to hide and find light to protect themselves from the horrible things that happen to them when the sun goes down.

There are times when Don’t Starve is pretty hard, but once you figure out how it works, you’ll be a pro in no time. As players slowly learn how to play this famous indie game, surviving night after night is both hard and fun.

Disco Elysium

Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Developer(s): ZA/UM
Release Date: October 15, 2019

People who want a more “choice-driven narrative” should definitely check out Disco Elysium. Players are given a crime-ridden playground full of tough decisions and hot questions in this Indie hit from creator ZA/UM. Even though the gameplay loop is fun by itself, what makes Disco Elysium truly beautiful is its story. You can see and do a lot, and there are many stories and plots to find out.

Because of its unique skill system, Disco Elysium lets players see and experience things in a lot of different ways. This makes it feel like a really gratifying role-playing game.

Sunless Sea

Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, PC
Developer(s): Failbetter Games
Release Date: July 1, 2014

One thing that makes This War of Mine so captivating is how dark, scary, and lonely it is. Sunless Sea is a great game for people who want to play more “alone against the world” style games. It really makes the player feel like they are totally alone and in a terrible position. Players who are brave will have to explore the scary, waterlogged world and try to find supplies they can use to stay alive.

Playing Sunless Sea is both fun and scary, thanks to its roguelike features and creepy, sad environment.

The Long Dark

Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Developer(s): Hinterland Studio
Release Date: September 22, 2014

In This War of Mine, the goal is to stay alive. In this severely damaged world, players will have to do anything and everything to stay safe. It can be very interesting to think about how to live against all chances, and there are many games in this genre that do a great job of making the player feel like they’re barely holding on to life as they try to avoid monsters, the weather, and other threats.

The Long Dark is a great story about a person who survived a plane crash and is now trying to find their way through a frozen Canadian country. It makes you feel alone, anxious, and sometimes even scared.

Displaced

Platform(s): PC
Developer(s): Gamexy
Release Date: July 26, 2017

The idea of Displaced is a lot like the concept of This War of Mine. As they try to leave a country that has been hit by war, the player has to keep a group of people alive. People who play have to make tough decisions right away because they can only pick five people to help them escape the chaos.

From then on, players have to choose where to go, what to hunt, and how to react to different situations that come up. Which will they do? Save someone who is asleep in a house fire, or rob the building and let it burn down? To make sure the team stays alive, they have to make a lot of tough choices.

State Of Decay

Platform(s): PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Developer(s): Undead Labs
Release Date: June 5, 2013

In State of Decay 2, a lot of people are trying to stay alive during the zombie apocalypse. It’s not enough to just build a camp, gather resources, and kill waves of zombies. On top of that, there are other survivor groups that can help or hurt a player’s efforts to keep the colony alive.

The stories in State of Decay games aren’t as deep as those in This War of Mine, but the open world can be a nice change of pace. The player can also add new members to their group and slowly make the world of the zombies less dangerous.

Fear Equation

Platform(s): PC
Developer(s): Screwfly Studios
Release Date: January 15, 2016

In Fear Equation, an engineer is in charge of keeping people on a special train living while their fears try to kill everyone on board. The player has to figure out what the rider fears the most, build defenses, and fight the darkness.

The people will split up into groups and figure out their own ways to stay alive, which will make things even more difficult. Some are useful and some are not. So, players have to deal with dreams, political power grabs, and dangerous views in a tricky strategy game.

Rimworld

Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Developer(s): Ludeon Studios
Release Date: January 14, 2014

It’s funnier in Rimworld than in This War of Mine when it comes to dark themes, but it still has its share of fear and sadness. A group of colonists crash-lands on an unknown world and needs to figure out how to stay alive. The player is there to help them, but the colonists don’t always pay attention.

This makes for an interesting mix of modeling and story-telling. Players can see if the colonists do well with their help or if they fall apart and suffer. In the dark, there are aliens, pirates, crazy rabbits, and other dangers. But the colonists can also turn into monsters through slavery, killing, and being lazy.

Project Zomboid

Platform(s): PC
Developer(s): The Indie Stone
Release Date: June 20, 2011

There’s another zombie apocalypse game called Project Zomboid. It can be played alone or with friends. People have to look for goods, build a shelter, and fight the huge groups of zombies that are roaming the area.

One dark thing about this game is that everyone will die. There is no way to heal, help, or save them. The player will have to fight to stay alive until they die of hunger, an accident, or the hungry zombies.

Sheltered

Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Developer(s): Unicube
Release Date: August 4, 2015

In Sheltered, players have to protect a family of four from harm after the end of the world. To keep them alive, people need to make sure that the house and all of its parts are in good shape. To do this, players must send family members out to get things, bring back food, or gather knowledge that will help them stay alive.

It’s like This War of Mine in that people in Sheltered do everything they can to stay living. The characters have to go out into the dangerous world and bring back what they can so that the shelter stays together and everyone stays safe. They know that each trip could be their last.

Papers, Please

Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita
Developer(s): Lucas Pope
Release Date: August 8, 2013

The game Papers, Please takes place in a dark world. As workers for the government, players’ job is to watch the border to make sure enemies don’t get in. This means that they have to make decisions about each character based only on the information in their documents, which could be fake, and what they have on them.

If the player character makes a bad decision, they could let in a terrorist, which would cost lives and get them in trouble, or they could turn away an innocent person who just wants to talk to their family. In games like This War of Mine, Papers, Please, the player has to make tough moral choices that put them in a bad spot.

Dead In Bermuda

Platform(s): PC
Developer(s): CCCP
Release Date: August 27, 2015

This War of Mine is a survival game with a lot of raw feeling. Dead in Bermuda doesn’t have that much.The goal is to keep a group of people who survived a plane crash living while they look into what happened on this strange island.

The early Skibidi Toilet is more fun for players than the late game, but some people might like the strange secrets and story turns. It’s a short game that could be a nice break for someone who’s tired of dark games.

Zafehouse: Diaries

Platform(s): PC
Developer(s): Screwfly Studios
Release Date: September 28, 2012

This is another survival game where players have to fight zombies and their own small group of survivors. Along with protecting goods and beating off hordes of zombies, players must also keep up with their ties with the other five characters.

While it’s mostly text-based, it adds a new aspect where each character’s action or contact with another character changes how they act or interact with others. If a player decides to end the suffering of an infected player, their friend might turn against them. If they refuse, the other players in the group might turn against them and kill the infected person anyway. They have to deal with tough questions and doubts about their own values and ethics when they have to fight for the group’s survival.

This Is The Police

Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Developer(s): Weappy Studio
Release Date: August 2, 2016

This Is The Police lets the player be a soon-to-be-retired police chief. Their goal is to save $500,000 for retirement while keeping the city and police force together. Things are becoming more and more crooked, and criminal groups are getting into the mayor’s office, the department, and even the main character.

This is another game where players have to find a balance between what’s right for themselves and what’s right for everyone else. To get that $500k, you’ll have to pay bribes, be blackmailed, or make deals that don’t go over the table. But it’s worth it to protect the player’s friends and family and the place they care about.

Rebuild 3: Gangs Of Deadsville

Platform(s): Mobile, PC
Developer(s): Northway Games, Sarah Northway
Release Date: May 29, 2015

The mobile game Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville has a lot of complexity that you might not expect. During a zombie apocalypse, players are not in charge of a small group, but of protecting a city full of survivors. In addition to waves of zombies, players have to defend their town against robbers, gangs, and other scary things.

But the survival and dark tone are still there. It’s a bit bigger and more strategic than This War Of Mine as a 4X game. To rebuild the world that was lost, you have to take back the city one block at a time. This can only be done by a strong leader.

Distrust

Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4
Developer(s): Cheerdealers
Release Date: August 23, 2017

In Distrust, players have to stay living in the dangerous Arctic Research Station. The station is full of scary animals that get stronger and more common whenever the player goes to sleep. These monsters were heavily inspired by the movie The Thing. But they are less able to handle the horrible things that happen when they don’t get enough sleep.

As they try to figure out what’s going on, gather supplies, and stay alive, they are racing against time to get tired. They can also play with a friend because it’s a co-op game. This is probably the only game on the list that makes it scary to fall asleep.

Orphan Age

Platform(s): PC
Developer(s): Studio Black Flag
Release Date: July 3, 2018

Even though Orphan Age is still in early access, the video is showing that It’s a lot of fun for people who liked This War of Mine. It’s kind of like the DLC The Little Ones, where players have to keep a group of kids living without any adults around.

In a cyberpunk world that is at war, these kids are locked up in a prison. In this game, they have to grow the camp, gather supplies, look for other children in the city, and try to keep up with their childhood while the war is going on.

Beholder

Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Developer(s): Warm Lamp Games
Release Date: November 9, 2016

For Beholder, players take a very different view and, for the most part, become the bad guy. As the owner of an apartment building, players are required by the government to keep an eye on their renters and tell the police about any wrongdoing.

Bad things can happen if they don’t, and the main character could even die. There are a lot of murky areas in this game, as players spy on, steal from, bribe, and force their renters to make the government happy. Some people say that power corrupts, and this game shows that they are right.

Frostpunk

Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Developer(s): 11 bit studios
Release Date: April 24, 2018

This War of Mine’s developers made Frostpunk, which is one of the best games that people should really think about getting if they liked This War of Mine. In this “society survival” game, players have to protect the last city on Earth from a harsh ice age and keep it alive.

To keep the city alive, players have to do more than just manage supplies and fight off enemies who want the heat the city gives off. They also have to make tough choices. Should they be strict and risk rebellion, or should they let people be free and risk not being able to do their jobs well, which could put out the fire?