Games Like Under the Rust

A brutal survival management simulator set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Keep your faction of survivors alive, maintain your shelter and scavenge the ravaged world for resources. Befriend and trade with the factions you meet or conquer them by force.

Why similar: Colony Sim 32.1%, Post-apocalyptic 19%, Survival 13.8%, Resource Management 12.9%, Strategy 6.1%

Take command of your first colony as the Orc Prince. Dig, Build and Expand your colony deeper underground.

Why similar: Colony Sim 52%, Simulation 12.1%, Strategy 10.9%, Resource Management 8%, Survival 7.7%

In a collapsing world, safety is a memory. Guide a small group of survivors through the daily struggle of a bleak reality. Manage your shelter, craft essentials, and make soul-crushing choices. In Never Secure, winning isn't the goal—lasting one more day is.

Why similar: Colony Sim 38.2%, Survival 16.2%, Resource Management 12.8%, Post-apocalyptic 10.2%, Simulation 9.7%

The surface is gone. 11,581 survivors are crammed into an unfinished 10,000-capacity bunker. Balance 6 core resources, make critical choices on advisor reports, manage your workforce, and keep the shelter from collapsing.

Why similar: Text-Based 27.4%, Resource Management 18.1%, Simulation 12.5%, Colony Sim 12.5%, Post-apocalyptic 12.1%

Survival Bunker puts you as a lone survivor in a post-apocalyptic world. Manage an underground bunker, gather resources, and face various threats. Your choices have consequences, and death is not the end; a family member will take over.

Why similar: Colony Sim 31.5%, Post-apocalyptic 24.6%, Survival 15.5%, Strategy 9.1%, Building 6.4%

Maia is a colony building game set in the not-so-distant future. Your colonists make planetfall on a hostile world and you must ensure their survival and their safety, constructing their off-world habitat from almost nothing and sheltering them from a dangerous, often deadly environment.

Why similar: Colony Sim 49.8%, Survival 14.5%, Simulation 8.9%, Sci-fi 8.3%, Strategy 8%

Build, scavenge, craft, and perform occult rituals to survive in a demon-infested, post-apocalyptic colony simulation. Will you survive Judgment day?

Why similar: Colony Sim 40.5%, Post-apocalyptic 18.5%, Survival 15%, Resource Management 7.1%, Simulation 4.9%

Build an army, raid rival corporations, and defend your base while it keeps running without you. Research upgrades, arm your Titan, and dig into a moon that isn't as abandoned as it looks. Something was here first. Find out why it's gone.

Why similar: Colony Sim 37.3%, Text-Based 23.7%, Simulation 13.2%, Strategy 11.3%, Resource Management 6.9%

STRANDING ECHOES is a minimalist colony sim. Manage the non-corporeal creatures called echo to build your base and survive the heat.

Why similar: Colony Sim 45%, Resource Management 13.4%, Survival 9.7%, Strategy 7.9%, Simulation 7.1%

Ecopunk is a survival and colony management simulation game set in a post-apocalyptic world. Balance survival, resource management, and hope as you guide your colony through the ruins of civilization.

Why similar: Colony Sim 44.2%, Post-apocalyptic 19.8%, Survival 12%, Resource Management 8.8%, Simulation 7.8%

Your youth,your rules.From heated battles to heart-pounding romance. This is a life simulation game set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where young people live their youth while surviving.

Why similar: Colony Sim 40.3%, Post-apocalyptic 23.7%, Simulation 13.7%, Survival 13%, Resource Management 9.4%

Oxygen Not Included is a space-colony simulation game. Deep inside an alien space rock your industrious crew will need to master science, overcome strange new lifeforms, and harness incredible space tech to survive, and possibly, thrive.

Why similar: Colony Sim 51.1%, Survival 16.6%, Resource Management 13%, Building 5%, Simulation 4.1%

Build a settlement around the last flame. Gather, construct, and research by day, then defend against the Shadows at night. When a village falls, carry its records and memories into the next civilization and endure one night longer.

Why similar: Colony Sim 49.1%, Survival 16.4%, Post-apocalyptic 10.2%, Simulation 8.2%, Strategy 7%

Survive and thrive in a post-apocalyptic future — resources are scarce, but opportunity calls! Build the ultimate disaster proof colony, protect your colonists, and restore civilization to a devastated world.

Why similar: Colony Sim 34.1%, Post-apocalyptic 25%, Survival 15%, Simulation 9.4%, Strategy 9.3%

Rebuild civilization in a world consumed by the blight. Manage survivors, defend against the dead, and transform a fragile camp into a thriving frontier settlement.

Why similar: Colony Sim 45.9%, Simulation 10.5%, Survival 10.2%, Post-apocalyptic 9.6%, Resource Management 8.4%

A space colony survival sim. Build a station room by room, lay the wires, pipes and ducts that carry power, water and air, and keep a crew fed, rested and sane. Build it how you like and keep it running.

Why similar: Colony Sim 43.7%, Simulation 14%, Strategy 11.6%, Survival 8.1%, Resource Management 5.6%

We live in a troubled world. Viruses, military conflicts - you never know what danger the world will face tomorrow. It's time to get ready now! Lead a bunker network and start developing society after a global disaster.

Why similar: Colony Sim 31.7%, Post-apocalyptic 16.2%, Strategy RPG 10.9%, Survival 10.7%, Turn-Based Tactics 7.8%

Guide fragile homunculi with limited lifespans through humanity's final bid for survival across six hostile worlds.

Why similar: Colony Sim 46.1%, Survival 15.7%, Simulation 9.9%, Resource Management 8.2%, Sci-fi 7.8%

Survive in a cruel world, build and expand your village, and descend into the darkness below. Gather resources, make difficult choices, and uncover the unspeakable truth hidden deep within the cave in this dark incremental game.

Why similar: Colony Sim 35.7%, Text-Based 14.6%, Survival 13%, Resource Management 12.5%, Simulation 6.3%

You command a drilling train, leading a dwarf clan through the underground depths toward the planetary core. Manage the crew, complete expeditions, gather resources, upgrade gear, and make tough choices to reach the abandoned city and bring your people back home.

Why similar: Colony Sim 47.5%, Survival 15.2%, Resource Management 11.2%, Simulation 8.9%, Building 6.7%

The Colony is a city building game where the player must manage their resources in order for the population to survive and thrive. Constructing buildings and assigning jobs to villagers, you can gather resources like wood, food, stone, tin, and copper and use them to grow your village.

Why similar: Colony Sim 76%, Simulation 12.6%, Strategy 11.4%

A colony sim with turn-based tactical combat, set in a lush, living apocalypse. Build a community of humans and robots while a bioengineered jungle devours the world around you and rogue machines fight you for what's left.

Why similar: Colony Sim 34.2%, Post-apocalyptic 16.5%, Survival 11.4%, Resource Management 9.9%, Turn-Based Tactics 8.2%

Your time machine is broken. And it looks like you are stuck in the past. Try to create your own civilization and return home!

Why similar: Colony Sim 55.7%, Survival 17.8%, Simulation 10%, Strategy 6.9%, Building 5.5%

Build a living colony beneath a dying surface. Dig rooms, organize workers and keep food, power and morale in balance. Face breakdowns, earthquakes and difficult choices as you explore the deep and turn a fragile refuge into a civilization.

Why similar: Colony Sim 45.7%, Survival 13.4%, Post-apocalyptic 10.1%, Resource Management 9.9%, Strategy 7.4%

Buoyancy is a city-building strategy game where you build, manage, and move a floating city on an oceanic world. Explore and scavenge resources scattered around the endless waters. Keep your villagers nourished and happy while combating fires, sickness, and pirate attacks.

Why similar: Colony Sim 57.4%, Post-apocalyptic 12%, Survival 10.4%, Strategy 8.2%, Resource Management 7.1%

Rebuild a shattered colony, send your survivors on missions to explore and find key resources, and discover the truth about what happened to your son. A story-driven post-apocalyptic strategy sim where every choice comes with a cost.

Why similar: Colony Sim 49.5%, Post-apocalyptic 11.8%, Strategy 11%, Resource Management 10.4%, Survival 7.7%

Stack Epoch is a settlement-building card game. Stack cards to gather resources, construct buildings, and battle various creatures. Stack character cards on trees to get wood. Combine wood with other cards to craft huts and expand your territory!

Why similar: Colony Sim 46.1%, Survival 16.6%, Resource Management 16%, Strategy 7.6%, Simulation 7.2%

Night Frontier is a survival-management game about building a camp, preparing squads, and sending them into a dangerous and cursed wasteland. Gather resources, craft equipment, manage injuries and disease, and decide how much risk your people can survive.

Why similar: Colony Sim 25.8%, Post-apocalyptic 16.6%, Survival 13.3%, Strategy RPG 12.8%, Resource Management 12.7%

A Sci-Fi turn based resource management game where you mine, craft and ship resources across the galaxy while trading, spying and battling NPCs along the way.

Why similar: Colony Sim 44.1%, Text-Based 15.8%, Simulation 10.3%, Turn-Based Tactics 10%, Strategy 9.1%

Build, survive, explore. Design your city, manage resource chains and workers, Send ships on expedition, trade with cities, discover mysterious dungeons and uncover secrets of ancients.

Why similar: Colony Sim 50.3%, Survival 17.3%, Resource Management 12%, Simulation 7.4%, Strategy 6.9%

Between a child's first cry and someone's final breath, a tribe's history takes shape. Place its people in buildings, answer unexpected events, and lead the tribe for as long as it can endure in this turn-based tribal survival rogue-lite.

Why similar: Colony Sim 34.7%, Survival 19.2%, Simulation 17.7%, Strategy 12.4%, Resource Management 8.6%

1,000 sleepers, 100 waking hands and 1,500 light years of emptiness. As commander of the Aurora Core you assign your crew, ration oxygen and make decisions no one should survive. Will you bring your colony to Thalassa?

Why similar: Text-Based 25.4%, Resource Management 20.9%, Survival 16.5%, Strategy 11.5%, Simulation 10.4%

The spirit of the space race lives on in this Mars based colony sim. Mine, craft and research in order to build up your initial lander into a self sustaining colony. Keep oxygen levels high and CO₂ levels low. Discover and grow a variety of plants to balance out colonist nutrition.

Why similar: Colony Sim 48.4%, Survival 14.7%, Resource Management 13%, Simulation 10.1%, Building 4.5%

Embark on a space voyage with your ragtag crew of civilians in search of a new home. Build spaceships tile by tile, create optimal gas conditions, manage the needs and moods of their crew, encounter other space-faring groups, and explore the universe in this spaceship colony simulation.

Why similar: Colony Sim 34.2%, Post-apocalyptic 13.7%, Survival 12.4%, Resource Management 10.1%, Simulation 6.1%

Goblins live for about 20 days. Build a colony that outlasts them. Grow food, dig into the hillside, organize workshops and hauling, and prepare for raids. Raise the next generation and turn a woodland settlement into a fortress of their own.

Why similar: Colony Sim 48.5%, Resource Management 14.4%, Survival 11.1%, Simulation 8.3%, Strategy 7.8%

ZOMBIE MOTEL 96 is a tycoon at the end of the world. You check in, ration, quarantine, evict, scavenge and shoot to keep a roadside motel running. Every guest is one more gun on the fence, one more mouth to feed, one more noise the horde can hear. So, manager: how many people, for how many weeks?

Why similar: Colony Sim 37%, Post-apocalyptic 17.2%, Survival 13.6%, Resource Management 9.6%, Simulation 8.3%

Build and Manage your city. Raise your island from a small village to a big kingdom!

Why similar: Colony Sim 77.4%, Simulation 7.1%, Resource Management 6.1%, Strategy 6.1%, Management 2.1%

You're not just surviving — you're leading. An isometric zombie survival and colony sim: scavenge a world where loot never respawns, build a base that holds, and keep a community of survivors alive. The dead are slow, drawn by sound, and they never stop.

Why similar: Colony Sim 39.6%, Post-apocalyptic 18.5%, Survival 17.9%, Resource Management 8.7%, Simulation 7.8%

BUILD. DEFEND. SURVIVE. An alien menace has ravaged Earth. Humanity has scattered to the wind. But hope remains. A resistance is organizing. Build your new settlement, defend your people, and fight to reclaim what was lost.

Why similar: Colony Sim 43.8%, Post-apocalyptic 13%, Survival 12.5%, Strategy 8.3%, Simulation 8.3%

Endzone 2 is a post-apocalyptic survival colony builder, where you embark to secure humanity's survival after a cataclysmic disaster. Discover and repopulate the last habitable grounds, while the survival of your people hinges on your wits, foresight, and resilience in a harsh and unforgiving world.

Why similar: Colony Sim 37.1%, Post-apocalyptic 19.5%, Survival 13.4%, Resource Management 9.3%, Simulation 6.2%

Frostpunk is the first society survival game. As the ruler of the last city on Earth, it is your duty to manage both its citizens and infrastructure. What decisions will you make to ensure your society's survival? What will you do when pushed to breaking point? Who will you become in the process?

Why similar: Colony Sim 32.9%, Post-apocalyptic 18.8%, Survival 16.9%, Resource Management 14.4%, Strategy 7.1%

A full reimagining of Frostpunk, the groundbreaking survival city builder, packed with new content. In a world ravaged by endless frost, become the Captain of the last city on Earth. Manage its people and infrastructure while facing cruel weather and even crueler choices.

Why similar: Colony Sim 31.7%, Post-apocalyptic 18.6%, Survival 14%, Resource Management 13.1%, Strategy 6.9%

A detailed zombie-survival colony sim where you create a settlement on an infested island. Guide your workers as they build walls, grow crops, dig trenches and plant their flag in the land. Help them to fight hordes, form families, and uncover old technologies. Write their story...

Why similar: Colony Sim 54.6%, Survival 15.2%, Simulation 12%, Strategy 9.5%, Resource Management 8.7%

A first-person survival colony sim. Scavenge, craft and repair a broken colony. Recruit survivors to help you produce valuable resources and defend against a constant barrage of deadly attacks.

Why similar: Colony Sim 38.2%, Post-apocalyptic 19.7%, Survival 15%, Resource Management 9.9%, Simulation 5.7%

Survive in a world drowned by disaster. Explore by day, hide by night, fight zombies, scavenge resources, build your shelter, and trade with other factions. Your survival, your strategy.

Why similar: Colony Sim 42%, Post-apocalyptic 19.6%, Survival 16.9%, Strategy RPG 8.4%, Strategy 7.8%

Wasteland Train is a 2D train management strategy game set on a post-apocalyptic rail network. Command an expanding mobile base, trade between isolated cities, recover crystal cores, develop technology, and survive raids, broken tracks, acid rain, and toxic fog.

Why similar: Colony Sim 34.7%, Post-apocalyptic 17.3%, Simulation 10.8%, Strategy 10.6%, Survival 8.2%

Winter 1920. As a village leader during the War of Independence, you must manage resources to survive the frost. At the breaking point, will you be a savior or a tyrant? Every choice writes a story in the snow. In pursuit of the story.

Why similar: Colony Sim 36.7%, Survival 17.3%, Text-Based 12.3%, Resource Management 12.3%, Simulation 8.1%

This is a free version of Oxygen, featuring the first 50 game-days. Build your city around the Oxygen Center and ensure your people's survival in a post-apocalyptic future, threatened by crack explosions, deadly winds, droughts and frosts. Lead your people and keep the Oxygen Center running!

Why similar: Colony Sim 36%, Survival 14.6%, Resource Management 13.2%, Post-apocalyptic 8.9%, Simulation 8.1%

IdleZomb: Manage a ruined hospital, create zombies, evolve them, or sacrifice them for DNA. Every decision counts in this post-apocalyptic management game. Early Access focuses on the basics, with content available up to level 20.

Why similar: Colony Sim 46.3%, Post-apocalyptic 16.5%, Simulation 15.3%, Strategy 8.9%, Resource Management 8.5%

An open-world colony sim based on stories of the first men. Infinite possibilities await your very own Adam and Eve as they embark on a generation-spanning adventure. How will you shape their future?

Why similar: Colony Sim 51.5%, Survival 10.1%, Tactical RPG 10%, Resource Management 7.8%, Simulation 5.6%

Through an "accident" seafarers arrive on an island where they have to fight for their survival. Help them by building and managing a tree house for them.

Why similar: Colony Sim 42%, Survival 15.2%, Resource Management 14.6%, Simulation 7.3%, Strategy 6.3%

Forged over 9 years, The Vanguard Expanse 4065 is a deep, text-based incremental 4X RPG that refuses to hold your hand. Survive a procedurally evolving universe. Build massive industries, command fleets, or rule the black market. It is difficult, rewarding, and you play however you want!

Why similar: Colony Sim 41%, Strategy RPG 16.9%, Tactical RPG 13%, Strategy 10.5%, RPG 4.9%

A group of colonists from a distant world have arrived at their new home. Equipped with advanced technology but limited resources, they must build to survive. Sigma Draconis is a colony simulation game which focuses on building and resource management.

Why similar: Colony Sim 45.2%, Strategy 13.2%, Simulation 12.2%, Resource Management 11.7%, Sci-fi 7.8%

Explore alien planets with carefully designed ecosystems, weather, resources, dangers and unique phenomena. Hunt animals for food and collect resources to craft equipment and repair devices on your ship. Escape each unique planet and unlock crew members and new ships.

Why similar: Colony Sim 41.6%, Survival 16.4%, Resource Management 9.1%, Simulation 7.5%, Strategy 7.3%

Explore a fantasy ocean-punk world, braving the deep with steam-powered marvels. Discover mysterious underwater treasures, but scarcity and ecological crises test survival. Rise, build, confront foes in this pixel-art ocean survival journey!

Why similar: Colony Sim 30.4%, Post-apocalyptic 21.8%, Survival 11.3%, Resource Management 10.5%, Simulation 5.5%

Inspired by the deep simulation of Dwarf Fortress, the open world survival of Minecraft, and the social interactions of The Sims. Embark is a colony management game with a focus on complex simulation in a huge living 3D world.

Why similar: Colony Sim 62%, Survival 11.7%, Simulation 7.7%, Strategy 7.4%, Building 5.2%

Devouring City is a top-down management game about a living city that swallows giant minerals whole. Guide residents and organs as they digest matter, then turn visible resources into power, structures, inhabitants, and weapons. Balance expansion, production, and defense as your organism grows.

Why similar: Colony Sim 43.7%, Resource Management 14.9%, Survival 11.4%, Strategy 8.1%, Simulation 7.2%

Breadoria is a survival colony sim where tiny Breads gather, build, craft, and defend their home from hungry invaders. Take control of any Bread, or automate your colony as you plan its next expansion.

Why similar: Colony Sim 50.1%, Survival 16%, Simulation 8.7%, Resource Management 7.5%, Strategy 7.5%

New Cycle is a city building game with focus on survival. After an apocalyptic series of solar flares, human society has been thrown into disarray. Establish a settlement and develop it all the way from humble beginnings to industrial metropolis.

Why similar: Colony Sim 32.3%, Post-apocalyptic 16.8%, Survival 13.2%, Resource Management 10.4%, Strategy 6.3%