Terraria at ₩5,500, Zomboid at ₩17,750 — Steam dumped its survival games all at once

Steam put its survival games on sale all at once this week

Five of the eight games above are survival-crafting titles. Don’t Starve Together, Terraria, Sons Of The Forest, Project Zomboid and Grounded all dropped in the same week. That isn’t a coincidence — Steam bundled the genre into one sale, which means the real question this week isn’t “what should I buy” but “which survival game should I buy”.

Prices are as of recording, and four of those five end on September 7.

The first fork is whether it works alone

Survival games all look alike from outside, but they split hard on one question: does it still work when you launch it by yourself?

Seven of the eight run solo. Project Zomboid was built around dying alone in the first place, and Terraria and Grim Dawn treat solo as the default. Bodycam, on the other hand, is multiplayer-only — no people, no game. It’s the only title here with that condition attached.

Even among the solo-capable ones, some lose half their appeal without company. Don’t Starve Together and Grounded are both designed around co-op, and most of the joy in their reviews comes from the “with a friend” part. Sons Of The Forest is also far more bearable with at least one other person, simply because the map is so large.

They’re all “unfriendly”, but in different ways

Every one of these five gets called unfriendly, and the unfriendly part is different in each. That’s the axis that actually decides which one suits you.

The ones that won’t teach you — Don’t Starve Together and Terraria. No objectives, no tutorial, just dropped in. Their solutions run opposite, though: Don’t Starve has a culture of veterans grabbing new players and coaching them, while Terraria reviews keep repeating the same advice — bring one friend who has already played.

The one that needs prep — Project Zomboid. Mods are treated as effectively mandatory, and every update breaks them. This is the type where you have work to do before you even launch.

The one that loses you — Sons Of The Forest. The map is big enough that travel itself becomes the wall, and cave navigation is the single most common reason people cite for nearly quitting.

By contrast, Grounded is the gentlest of the group. Raising a tool tier visibly opens up places you couldn’t reach, so if survival is new to you, start here.

The time they ask for is wildly different

The prices look comparable, but the unit of time each one wants is not.

Terraria is a game where someone past 1,200 hours still writes “I don’t really get it yet”, and Grim Dawn will quietly eat hundreds of hours of skill-tree tinkering. Project Zomboid doesn’t have a defined end at all. Those three are closer to picking up a hobby than buying a game.

Bodycam sits at the other extreme: the core complaint in Korean reviews is that you’ve seen it all in 30 minutes. That’s less “the game is bad” and more that it’s still in early access, with modes limited to deathmatch and bomb defusal.

Whether you can clear a whole weekend, or only an hour a night, completely changes which of these you should buy.

Three where the overall score and the Korean score disagree

Steam’s overall rating and its Korean-language rating don’t always match, and three games here split that way.

Bodycam is the clearest case. Overall it sits at Mostly Positive across roughly 51,000 reviews, but the Korean reviews on their own come out Mixed. The complaint that there isn’t much to do relative to those viral graphics lands especially hard domestically.

Sons Of The Forest and Space Marine 2 also rate a step lower in Korean than overall. Sons gets constantly measured against The Forest, and Space Marine 2 has reviews near the top from people who bought it expecting a horde-slaying power fantasy and ran into parry-centric combat instead.

None of the three is badly reviewed. It just means the gap between what buyers expect and what they get is wider here than elsewhere on this list — so be clear about what you’re buying it for.

What to buy now, and what can wait

The end dates split this week.

Don’t Starve Together, Terraria, Sons Of The Forest, Project Zomboid and Grounded all end on September 7. Five deals dying on the same day means if you’re considering them, decide over the weekend.

Grim Dawn (September 12), Bodycam (September 10) and Space Marine 2 (September 14) have a few more days, so you can settle the first five and come back to these.

The two new releases aren’t discounts. Halloween: The Game launches September 8 and CONTROL Resonant on September 24, so for now these are wishlist-and-wait entries.

Check these before you buy

Almost every game here comes with one string attached.

Grim Dawn wants the DLC too. Reviews repeatedly warn that the base game alone is half the experience. Grabbing just the discounted base will have you buying the rest later.

Terraria has no official Korean. You’ll need to install a fan translation patch, and if that sounds like a hassle, this is the one to drop from the list.

Project Zomboid has been in early access for over ten years. Buying now isn’t buying a finished game, and if you plan to host a multiplayer server, budget plenty of RAM.

Bodycam is early access and multiplayer-only. With nobody to play with, it’s better held off for now.

The prices above are as of recording, and each discount disappears on that game’s end date.