FromMinecrafttoDayZ, thesurvival genreis wide-reaching and incredibly varied in style. Games, where the main task is to try and survive, have been around as long as gaming itself. However, the genre of games that focus on crafting bases and weapons in order to survive in a dangerous world has recently become a much more popular style.
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Despite a wide variety ofenemies that players can come up against in survival games, some still stick out like sore thumbs as particularly unusual. From underwater monstrosities to crazy zombies and everything in between,survival game villainshave become as far-reaching as the survival genre itself.
6Creeper (Minecraft)
Players are used to the sight of theCreeperby now. One of the more iconic additions to the world ofMinecraftas a survival game, the Creeper is a fairly unique concoction. Made to look like a walking cucumber but with an explosive blast that has frustrated countless Minecrafters over the last decade, the Creeper is essentially a baffling beast.
The entire goal of a Creeper is to kill the player, but their only possible way to do this is to destroy themselves. The motivations of Creepers are entirely unclear, and while players will have to continue avoiding the now iconic creatures throughout theirMinecraftadventures forevermore, it will never really make any sense. Still, though, it is impressive how Creepers have managed to become such an iconic part of a game likeMinecraftwhich hasso many mobs trying to kill players.
5Warper (Subnautica)
Subnauticais one of the more iconic survival games, daring to set itself almost entirely underwater as the player falls into an ocean planetfilled with various terrifying lifeformsand plenty of danger. As players swim deeper into the dark, foreboding ocean territory, they will run into more deadly enemies such as the leviathan-class Reapers, which are terrifying and confusing enough in their own right.
But the most unusual enemy inSubnauticaisn’t the giant reaper, or even the ghost leviathans circling the edge of the map. It is actually theWarper, a smaller but still hugely dangerous creature. Warpers are agents of the planet, set to defend it from outside lifeforms. Triggered by the virus that is present on the planet, the warpers will attack the player when they come near, but often just sit idly in the water watching the player and never doing anything. A particularly unusual sort of enemy that attacks so randomly and is out and about trying to stop the disease from spreading, Warpers just don’t make a lot of sense.
4Red Soldier Ant (Grounded)
The point ofGroundedis to have unusual creatures becoming dangerous enemies. But of all the creatures that players will have to contend with at a minuscule level, theRed Soldier Antis the most unusual. It simply doesn’t make a lot of sense why, out of all the creatures inGrounded, the Red Soldier Ant is the dumbest by far.
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Dangerous in battle, but seemingly ridiculously stupid, the Red Soldier Ant can be tricked into staying docile and neutral when faced by the player if the player is wearinga complete set of Red Soldier Ant armor. Of course, this begs the question: are the ants convinced that the player is one of them, or are they merely terrified of an enemy bold enough to wear their carcasses?
3Shadow Creatures (Don’t Starve)
Don’t Starveis a precursor to a lot of great survival games, and while there are a number of ridiculously strange enemies present in the game, there are some particularly weird mechanics that surround theShadow Creatures.Sanity is a very real probleminDon’t Starve, which hasn’t been used as a mechanic in many other survival games.
Shadow Creatures make the player’s dropping sanity a real problem. They slowly become more “real” as the player’s sanity drops, and will eventually attack after they have drained the sanity of the player a sufficient volume. It gets even stranger inDon’t Starve Together, when Shadow Creatures will begin following whichever player has most recently attacked them. These creatures are the closest thing a survival game has created to the feeling of being followed by a demonic creature in a horror movie.
2Unicorn (Terraria)
Terrariaalso has a huge list of enemies that players can face off against, and these include many normal enemies that players will be used to fighting in various types of games. However, theUnicornis something else entirely. A recognizable fantasy creature, the Unicorn is often depicted as brightly colored and happy.
The problem withTerrariais that the Unicorn is still brightly-colored and happy looking, but it is also violent, and fast, attempting to trample players at every opportunity. Perhaps the worst part about the Unicorn enemy inTerrariais the small chance that they will drop a“Unicorn on a stick” itemupon death.
1The Worm (The Forest)
The Forestis a brutal survival-horror game where the player crashes on an islandfilled with cannibals and monstrous creationswhich, mostly, resemble humans to some degree. Experiments performed on the island created terrifying abominations such as the Armsy, Virginia, and Cowman.
However, there is one much moreconfusing and rare enemythat players might have to face off with in their gameplay.The worm, a chain of worm-like creatures which can bind together to create a larger entity, which can fly, appears occasionally in the late-game. The worm never appears in any cave systems, but a potential encounter can happen outside on the island after day 40. Not really obeying the laws of physics, the worm will smash off the ground and split into many pieces which players will need to fight individually to kill it off, making it the strangest survival game villain ever.
