Best Games Like Barotrauma

Created by Finnish developer Undertow Games, Barotrauma is a side-scrolling survival horror game set in the remote future aboard submarines traversing lethal space oceans.

The game is best known for its brutal difficulty and unpredictable gameplay that gets wilder the more players you have on your submarine crew.

Anyone looking for more games like it is welcome to come along as we count down the best games like Barotrauma on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.

For more games similar to Barotrauma, check out our growing collection of curated gaming lists, and comment below with your favorite survival horror or co-operative game like Barotrauma!

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First up on our list of Barotrauma-like games is Hidden Deep, another side-scrolling sci-fi horror game with a similar art style and challenging gameplay.

Instead of operating a submarine, you’re tasked with exploring a vast sub-oceanic mining and research facility overrun with creatures.

Commanding a rescue team, you’ll have to cautiously navigate the facility while looking out for researchers, repairing equipment, and firing your gun at anything that moves.

The game is heavily influenced by the movie Aliens and The Thing as well as games such as Half-Life and is published by the same company as Barotrauma, Daedelic Entertainment.

If you visit Barotrauma for the co-op part, then you and your friends will certainly enjoy We Need To Go Deeper, a submarine game where 2-4 players cooperate to survive, which can be found here.

In it, you and your crew voyage into the deepest oceans of a Jules Verne-inspired submarine universe teeming with perilous creatures and hazards.

To stay alive, you’ll have to communicate and assign each person a task to successfully pilot, repair, and protect your vessel from whatever lurks in the water.

Similar to Barotrauma, the game tries to keep you on your toes with unpredictable threats that force you to react quickly while on high-risk expeditions in randomized biomes.

While mostly thought of as a meme these days, Among Us can also be a rather intense game with the right group and has a lot more in common with Barotrauma than one might think.

For one, it’s designed around cooperation as most of the players in your party are on the same space crew trying to carry out their tasks before the alien imposters take control.

Secondly, like Barotrauma, each person is in charge of completing specific tasks and notifying the rest of the crew of any dubious behavior.

You can even play the game with designated roles and introduce diverse gameplay modifiers to customize the experience to your preference.

Want another game like Barotrauma where you command a spaceship with friends? Allow us to put PULSAR: Lost Colony on your radar.

This collaborative space adventure title sees you teaming up with up to five players to operate a starship as it travels across a randomized galaxy and descends into chaos.

Taking on the role of Captain, Pilot, Scientist, Weapons Specialist, or Engineer, your crew will have to coordinate and operate various stations to keep things running smoothly.

This includes exploratory missions where you have to investigate abandoned stations, scavenge for components, and survive against severe weather conditions and dangerous creatures.

Sea of Thieves is another sea-faring co-op game, though admittingly not as dark and dreary in its atmosphere as Barotrauma.

With that said, there’s still plenty of peril and adventure to be had out on the open seas with your crew of roguish buccaneers.

Aside from sea monsters, reanimated skeletons, and other surprises in the water, Sea of Thieves throws PvP naval combat into the mix between hostile ships and pirates.

In order to retain your treasure, you and your team must split up tasks, watch for rival boats, and boost morale with a pleasant sea song occasionally.

Seeing as a substantial chunk of Barotrauma revolves around management gameplay, we thought why not include another challenging space game with complex systems and a steep learning curve.

In Stationeers, up to ten players can come together to build and operate giant space stations while also taking care of their character’s needs by providing food, warmth, and power.

To this point, it puts a substantial emphasis on resource-gathering and automated production via programmable machines you encounter in the world.

There’s also an innovative component to designing the look and layout of each of your stations just don’t forget to monitor your oxygen levels lest you turn into a frozen popsicle out in space.

If there’s anything Barotrauma’s taught us, it’s that space and the ocean have a lot in common, with the main similarity being that they both want to eradicate us.

However, anyone who’s managed to overcome the perils of Barotrauma’s hellish waters should have no trouble staying alive in Raft, another co-op-driven survival game.

Designed for 1-8 players, the game challenges you and your friends with constructing a vessel from wreckage and other scavenged materials you come across in the water and on islands.

The biggest threat comes from the deadly shark that’s constantly pursuing your crew and trying to snap off pieces of your ship for a tasty snack.

For recommended single-player games like Barotrauma, we suggest checking out Iron Lung by David Szymanski, best known for the vintage-style FPS game Dusk.

In it, you’re cast as a prisoner with a shot at freedom so long as they can successfully navigate a tiny submarine through an ocean of blood on an alien moon.

Much like Barotrauma, the game’s world is both terrifying and mysterious and will have you asking questions like, “Why is there an ocean of blood on the moon?” and “What’s that scary noise?”

While many of the answers are left up to the player’s imagination, there are enough unsettling reveals to get your heart racing and make you jump out of your chair.

If you’re going to make a list of underwater survival games, Subnautica has to be included somewhere by default.

Revered for its comprehensive toolbox and open-ended gameplay, Subnautica is more than just “underwater Minecraft,” and takes players on an adventure equal parts mesmerizing and terrifying.

Players set out to explore an alien ocean inhabited by peculiar and bizarre marine life, many of which want to turn you into their next meal.

Furthermore, anyone looking to get near to Barotrauma’s level of difficulty is encouraged to play Subnautica on Survival or Hardcore difficulty.

Arguably the most unusual title on this list, Arkane Studios’ immersive sim RPG shooter Prey does feature some components that will resonate with fans of Barotrauma.

For one, the story sees you taking on the role of a science researcher aboard a space station that becomes overrun with hostile extraterrestrials.

Secondly, a lot of the gameplay revolves around investigation, including the vessel’s exterior where valuable items and resources can be found guarded by said aliens.

The RPG elements allow you to shape the outcome of missions and the overall story as well as determine your character’s playstyle by prioritizing certain skills over others.

Going back to 2D side-scrollers, Oxygen Not Included is another challenging space survival game like Barotrauma that’s strictly single-player despite giving you control over multiple characters.

In it, you play as the commander of a space crew living beneath an alien planet’s surface where oxygen is not so easy to come by.

To make up for this, you’ll have to get creative by manipulating pockets of breathable air and other dwindling resources that can only be replenished by researching new technologies.

Similar to Barotrauma, practically everything in this game wants you dead, including the crewmates themselves who are prone to making mistakes.

We’re of the mind that you can never be too cautious or prepared in Barotrauma, so a game all about readying yourself for a world-ending catastrophe seems like a natural fit.

Strapped for cash and toiling to stay free, Mr. Prepper has a limited number of days to prepare for the apocalypse by building an underground shelter with all the amenities one could want.

From a gameplay perspective, this means examining every angle by repurposing everyday household items, trading with dubious neighbors, and breaking a few laws.

Did we mention there’s an authoritarian government with secret police out to get you? We would much rather deal with that than a pack of Crawlers in Barotrauma.