Originally posted by Zep Tepi:

You could try The Forest on peaceful mode. I didn't really bother with the story and just walked around setting up camp and doing survival things. The only thing that will attack you in that mode are the alligators. It also has VR.

The story in The Forest is pretty decent, and well reflected in the worldbuilding. Exploring the caves, finding items and observing the cannibals AI, is the meat of the game imo. Too bad its very much an unfinished game. I can still recommend it.

Try Empyrion.

The forest is the gold standard for survival games that are actually good (so no rust and ark)

Dont starve is amazing too but its very unique and brutally hard.

tribes of midgard coming out tomorrow

Although you mentioned not really liking most Zombie Apocalypse games, one I haven't seen recommended yet is State of Decay 2.

Several maps to choose from, also with the option of roads that can take you to any of the other maps once you tire of your first map choice, multi-player available (Up to 4 player co-op), has a side game of surviving waves of zombies, find other communities (NPC's) to join and build up a base camp, or kill for their supplies, and several types of super zombies.

tribes of midguard comes out in 2 days take a look at that

Raft (not to be confused with the janky knockoff Survive on Raft) is good for survival not focused on combat. It is Early Access. You're a scout sent out into a mostly flooded near future world looking for others.
It's focused on surviving and progression is tied to the story. Instead of making a stationary base you build on your raft which is the center of your world, with brief visits to ever larger islands and other locations. It starts with a scramble for basic supplies but as you progress you learn the tools to make your most pressing issues easier so you spend less time just trying to eat and drink and more building and exploring. Like water goes from small batches scooped and distilled with a lot of manual time and effort through a few upgrades to eventually an electric automated system you occasionally need to change batteries for. All the other "chores" typical of survival games are the same.

Thank you for all the great responses, guys! You're giving me some good options, I'll definitely check out Raft and I had no idea The Forest had a more chill mode you could play on!

Originally posted by Jinx:

Thank you for all the great responses, guys! You're giving me some good options, I'll definitely check out Raft and I had no idea The Forest had a more chill mode you could play on!

Bingo, Raft will definitely do it for OP.

7 days to die?????? zombies yes, but the survival factor is quite intense the first 10 times playing through it, and best part is you can do it alone, online, or private too.....but it does have its issues.....space engineers was amazing if you can get over the decent learning curve.

Originally posted by Zep Tepi:

You could try The Forest on peaceful mode. I didn't really bother with the story and just walked around setting up camp and doing survival things. The only thing that will attack you in that mode are the alligators. It also has VR.

The story in The Forest is pretty decent, and well reflected in the worldbuilding. Exploring the caves, finding items and observing the cannibals AI, is the meat of the game imo. Too bad its very much an unfinished game. I can still recommend it.

Originally posted by Harry Gun:

Originally posted by Zep Tepi:

You could try The Forest on peaceful mode. I didn't really bother with the story and just walked around setting up camp and doing survival things. The only thing that will attack you in that mode are the alligators. It also has VR.

The story in The Forest is pretty decent, and well reflected in the worldbuilding. Exploring the caves, finding items and observing the cannibals AI, is the meat of the game imo. Too bad its very much an unfinished game. I can still recommend it.

OP doesn't like zombies, so I figured that mutant cannibals were probably close enough to zombies that they're rather avoid them. I'm not fond of fighting semi-realistic humanoids in games either. (especially in VR) But the terrain and wildlife in that game was pretty, and base building was enough of a challenge to be interesting.

Another suggestion would be Empyrion. I haven't played that in a long time, so I'm not sure about the current state of updates, but the survival aspects will keep you on your toes and the base and ship building were pretty advanced. A little like No Man's Sky but with more challenge.

Have you looked at Conan Exiles? It's a much grittier take on a very similar style of gameplay. Having been around for much longer its content is tremendously more fleshed out but also quite overwhelming.

Whether you enjoy that though will probably depend on what you liked about Valheim. It is playable solo but is tuned greatly in favour of playing in a larger community. The combat is pretty clunky but not much more so than Valheim. It uses a large handcrafted world rather than a procedurally generated one.

I've been trying it to get past this huge content drought. It is definitely one of those games that won't pay out a lot of gratification until you've pushed past those first few hours to learn the systems,

It is on Steam but is also available in the PC version of xbox game pass if you have that. Be warned though, when I say gritty I mean gritty. Full frontal nudity, cannibalism, slavery. It treads very, very close to themes that other franchises wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

You could try The Forest on peaceful mode. I didn't really bother with the story and just walked around setting up camp and doing survival things. The only thing that will attack you in that mode are the alligators. It also has VR.

Green Hell also has a lot of customization options. You can turn off various enemies by category if you find them too annoying. You can still do story mode with the easier settings. (The original anyway, not sure about the SOA part that they're adding.) But it does have problems making some people motion sick.

I also like Escape the Pacific, but it is still very early access, so you might not like it. It's more like hanging out in a tropical paradise, sailing to different islands, and building bases while having decent survival metrics to keep an eye on. More of a vacation than a challenge, but still needing to watch nutrient ratios, temperature, and secure fresh water.

If u can stomach the realistic way you have to deal with infection, illness, and wounds you might take a look at Green Hell. Is on my wish-list because a friend recommended it to me. The info I have seen and read seems to indicate a high squeamish level.

The Forest,
Stranded Deep,
The Infected,
Raft,
Project Zomboid,
Conan,
CDDA,
Scum,
Don't Starve,
Subsistence,
Unreal World