Games like The Forest and Rust
Looking for games like both The Forest and Rust? Below are 24 Steam games ranked by imho.run's hybrid recommender for players who enjoy both titles. Both The Forest and Rust share Action, Indie, Adventure roots, making the overlapping player base a strong signal for what to play next. Each pick is scored by combining collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries — players who own The Forest and Rust also tend to own these — with content overlap on genres, categories, and storefront tags, plus review-mined vibe embeddings that catch tonal similarity even when genre labels differ. No Steam login required.


Best matches for fans of both games
Ranked by collaborative filtering, genre overlap, and review-mined vibes — the same signals that power imho.run.
- 1

Don't Starve Together
Top pick for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Strategy with both games.
Fight, Farm, Build and Explore Together in the standalone multiplayer expansion to the uncompromising wilderness survival game, Don't Starve.
- 2

Green Hell
Second pick for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Indie with both games.
Plunge into the open-world survival simulation set in the extreme conditions of the uncharted Amazon jungle. Use real-life survival techniques to craft, hunt, fight, and gather resources, set a makeshift shelter, or raise a fortress. Survive alone or team up with your friends and challenge the jungle together.
- 3

Satisfactory
Third pick for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Strategy and Indie with both games.
Satisfactory is a first-person open-world factory building game with a dash of exploration and combat. Play alone or with friends, explore an alien planet, create multi-story factories, and enter conveyor belt heaven!
- 4

Sons Of The Forest
Ranked #4 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Indie with both games.
Sent to find a missing billionaire on a remote island, you find yourself in a cannibal-infested hellscape. Craft, build, and struggle to survive, alone or with friends, in this terrifying new open-world survival horror simulator.
- 5

No Man's Sky
Ranked #5 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Adventure with both games.
No Man's Sky is a game about exploration and survival in an infinite procedurally generated universe.
- 6

Subnautica
Ranked #6 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Indie and Adventure with both games.
Descend into the depths of an alien underwater world filled with wonder and peril. Craft equipment, pilot submarines and out-smart wildlife to explore lush coral reefs, volcanoes, cave systems, and more - all while trying to survive.
- 7

ARK: Survival Evolved
Ranked #7 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Indie with both games.
Stranded on the shores of a mysterious island, you must learn to survive. Use your cunning to kill or tame the primeval creatures roaming the land, and encounter other players to survive, dominate... and escape!
- 8

- 9

Grounded
Ranked #9 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Adventure with both games.
The world is a vast, beautiful and dangerous place – especially when you have been shrunk to the size of an ant. Can you thrive alongside the hordes of giant insects, fighting to survive the perils of the backyard?
- 10

Don't Starve
Ranked #10 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Indie and Adventure with both games.
Don’t Starve is an uncompromising wilderness survival game full of science and magic. Enter a strange and unexplored world full of strange creatures, dangers, and surprises. Gather resources to craft items and structures that match your survival style.
- 11

ARK: Survival Ascended
Ranked #11 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Indie with both games.
ARK is reimagined from the ground-up into the next-generation of video game technology with Unreal Engine 5! Form a tribe, tame & breed hundreds of unique dinosaurs and primeval creatures, explore, craft, build, and fight your way to the top of the food-chain. Your new world awaits!
- 12

Project Zomboid
Ranked #12 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Indie and Simulation with both games.
Project Zomboid is the ultimate in zombie survival. Alone or in MP: you loot, build, craft, fight, farm and fish in a struggle to survive. A hardcore RPG skillset, a vast map, massively customisable sandbox and a cute tutorial raccoon await the unwary. So how will you die? All it takes is a bite..
- 13

Dying Light
Ranked #13 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and RPG with both games.
First-person action survival game set in a post-apocalyptic open world overrun by flesh-hungry zombies. Roam a city devastated by a mysterious virus epidemic. Scavenge for supplies, craft weapons, and face hordes of the infected.
- 14

7 Days to Die
Ranked #14 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Strategy with both games.
7 Days to Die is an open-world game that is a unique combination of first-person shooter, survival horror, tower defense, and role-playing games. Play the definitive zombie survival sandbox RPG that came first. Navezgane awaits!
- 15

Valheim
Ranked #15 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Indie with both games.
A brutal exploration and survival game for 1-10 players, set in a procedurally-generated purgatory inspired by viking culture. Battle, build, and conquer your way to a saga worthy of Odin’s patronage!
- 16

SCUM
Ranked #16 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Indie with both games.
Traverse punishing environments, looting, crafting and evading the constant threats to your life. The unprecedented levels of character customization and progression are your ultimate tools for survival.
- 17

Conan Exiles
Ranked #17 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Strategy with both games.
An online multiplayer survival game, now with sorcery, set in the lands of Conan the Barbarian. Survive in a vast open world sandbox, build your home into a kingdom, and dominate your enemies in single or multiplayer.
- 18

Dig or Die
Ranked #18 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Strategy with both games.
Crash land on a hostile planet where you'll have to build the strongest defenses if you wish to live to escape from it. But be warned... this planet is merciless. Build strong, and smart; else physics may flood or destroy your only hopes of survival.
- 19

DayZ
Ranked #19 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Adventure with both games.
How long can you survive a post-apocalyptic world? A land overrun with an infected "zombie" population, where you compete with other survivors for limited resources. Will you team up with strangers and stay strong together? Or play as a lone wolf to avoid betrayal? This is DayZ – this is your story.
- 20

Factorio
Ranked #20 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Strategy and Indie with both games.
Factorio is a game about building and creating automated factories to produce items of increasing complexity, within an infinite 2D world. Use your imagination to design your factory, combine simple elements into ingenious structures, and finally protect it from the creatures who don't really like you.
- 21

- 22

Crestfallen: Medieval Survival
Ranked #22 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Strategy with both games.
👑 Hail to the King! In Crestfallen: Medieval Survival, players clash for dominance over the realm through strategic castle 🏰 building and fierce combat. Craft epic armor, forge deadly medieval weapons⚔️, and build a kingdom worthy of legend 📜. Create a Guild 🐉, trade goods, and prevail! 🌟
- 23

Out of Reach
Ranked #23 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Indie with both games.
You’re a castaway stranded in the middle of nowhere. Storm is gone, the worst certainly not. Look for food and resources, craft gear, make shelters. These are the basics, you need much more to stay alive on this cut-off-the-world, yet not desert island. Build & burn, sail & explore, be Out of Reach!
- 24

Voidtrain
Ranked #24 for fans of both The Forest and Rust. Shares Action and Indie with both games.
Become a crew member of an Interdimensional Express Train! Discover a new world full of mysterious creatures, enemies and places. Upgrade and customize your train, gather new materials and build better weapons. Play solo or online сo-op with up to 4 people.