Isometric graphics found their place in video games mainly through strategy games. However, it didn’t take long for other genres to start realizing the potential of this semi-3D perspective. Survival games have their own kind of strategy to them, one where it pays to have a good lay of the land. Isometric graphics give players just enough of a view of their surroundings, while constricting the camera angle to let the game keep a few good surprises up its sleeve.

This mix of 3D and 2D graphics also gives game developers a lot of opportunities to get creative with their visuals. A well-executed isometric game can be drop-dead gorgeous, with detailed level designs like the world’s best trick-out diorama. Here are some survival games that utilize all these strengths for amazing results.

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7 Ocean Keeper

The Ocean Floor Is Beautiful Yet Deadly

• Release Date: Coming Soon
• Publisher(s): RetroStyle Games
• Platform(s): Steam
• Genre(s): Roguelike, Survival, Time Management

Survival games don’t need to be all darkness and tight spaces to have good tension. In Ocean Keeper, players explore the ocean floor, filled with beautiful blues and greens, interesting visuals, and diverse wildlife. It just so happens that all of that wildlife is trying to kill them.

Ocean Keeper is an absolutely stunning roguelike that mixes not one, but two old-school gaming perspectives. Most of the meched-up shoot-em-ups happen with an isometric perspective, while other sections go the route of the classic 2D platformer. It’s a wonderful blend of something old and something new, with lots of something blue.

6 Don’t Starve

The Darkness Is Closing In

Don’t Starve is a survival horror game with the gothic cartoonish stylings of Tim Burton. Players awake in a strange wilderness filled with deadly creatures, limited resources, and perilous encroaching darkness closing in on all sides. They need to scavenge for supplies while staving off madness and starvation and building up their home base.

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The game uses its isometric layout beautifully. Everything is intentionally designed to look like flat hand-drawn sketches with a rotating camera fixed at a certain angle. The end result makes the 2D graphics feel like they exist in a 3D world.

5 Project Zomboid

If At First You Don’t Succeed, Die, Die Again

This classic Steam game is a zombie survival horror where players seek to survive countless undead hoards. Players can loot buildings for supplies, build up their defenses, all while avoiding swarms of zombies. It’s all too easy to end up surrounded and gobbled up like a gummy bear in an ant hill.

The isometric graphics also bring a nostalgic reminder to earlier gaming generations, especially the original Resident Evil. Both games force players to explore dangerous rooms and tight corners from a fixed camera angle. Players can never be too sure when they’ll come across a zombie, and by then, it’s too late.

4 Dysmantle

If Fallout Was A Lot Cleaner

In this 2021 isometric open-world game, players survive the apocalypse in their cozy little fallout shelter before ascending to the surface. Everything is now fair game, from the ivy growing on the walls, to the walls themselves. Players can hunt, fish, build, destroy, and fend off radioactive beats, all at their own leisure.

The visuals of Dysmantle are so breathtaking that at times, it’s sometimes hard to remember that the world has ended. Most players are so busy fishing under palm trees or exploring new locales. The isometric camera angle really helps to take it all in (while also checking to see if those pesky giant spiders show up again).

3 The Wild Eight

Trapped In A Cold, Cruel World

When most gamers think of scenarios where their plane crashes and the survivors are forced to fend for themselves in the middle of nowhere, most picture a deserted island. Not the frozen wilderness of northern Alaska. At least an island has plenty of coconuts and endless beach days. But in The Wild Eight, players can look forward to deep snow, hungry wolves, and the necessity of doing a lot with very little.

Speaking of doing a lot with very little, The Wild Eight’s graphics keep things nice and simple. Everything is stylized to have that cel-shaded, chunky charm, which pairs well with the isometric camera angle. It also helps players explore their surroundings from multiple angles at a time as they explore their frigid surroundings for food and other survival supplies.

2 Kenshi

To Survive Is To Struggle Onward

Kenshi is a game that strips down the concept of “survival” down to its base elements. As players explore this wide, barren wasteland of an open-world sandbox, choices are slim. Either link up with a good squad to search for resources and fight as one, or struggle alone. Players can become powerful warlords, prosperous traders, or merely food for the cannibals.

Kenshi is a stellar example of how modern games can use an isometric camera perspective, even with fully rendered graphics. Choosing to play at this camera perspective shows how empty and alone the world can feel, which further shows how important it is to stick with a herd.

1 How to Survive

Bite-Sized Zombie Survival

These days, most gamers looking for some open-world survival games set in the zombie apocalypse look to 7 Days to Die. But ten years ago, that honor went to How to Survive. This game is basically like if 7 Days had the same isometric perspective as the original Fallout.

Players need to survive the zombie hoards by exploring their surroundings for food and supplies. Craft bows and arrows out of sticks. Hunt local wildlife for meat. Set up a good base camp, and maybe make some friends. There’s also plenty of skill customization and co-op for extra fun.

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