Surviving the Abyss on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Earth, 1976. You have been tasked with managing a deep-sea science facility working to perfect cloning. Explore the darkness and keep your crew alive in this hardcore survival colony builder. And beware. The darkness hides untold horrors.
Surviving the Abyss is a city builder, colony sim and exploration game
developed by Rocket Flair Studios
and published by Paradox Arc.
Released on November 05th 2024 is available in English only on Windows.
It has received 975 reviews of which 634 were positive and 341 were negative resulting in a rating of 6.3 out of 10. 😐
The game is currently priced at 19.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Surviving the Abyss into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
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System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Windows 7 64-bit or newer
- Processor: Intel Core i5-3570K or AMD FX-8310
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 950 or Radeon HD 7970
- Storage: 8 GB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
This game has been on my list for a while and i finally got around to trying it. i have completed a normal difficulty run and while overall i am a big fan, here are some pros and cons: Pros: 1) the atmosphere is fantastic. i recommend playing with headphones. the sound the light towers make when they power up is *chef's kiss*. the ambient sounds are all fantastic and add a lot to the air of "danger" (more on that later). but yeah the visuals and sounds come together wonderfully. i cannot overstate this. 2) i like the worldbuilding. i think it's neat how the mechanic for increasing your population is the story motivation. 3) the early-game is very engaging. i like the race to get clones to man your rapidly-growing facility, which enables the facility to further grow, which prompts the need for better clones, and onwards. 4) the art and environment is beautiful, and i like the building designs (the tier 2 housing building is the only one that doesn't really fit with the more industrial feel of everything else). 5) the design of the anomaly is very cool. Cons: 1) for some reason, the anomaly aggression is set to the minimum on both normal and hard difficulties. the anomaly is supposed to be the main antagonist of your facility, and i was very surprised how little it came up during my run. the atmosphere worked so well because i knew that there was a scary monster out there, and as it barely bothered me as i conquered the map, i became very unafraid of it. By the time you run into it frequently, you already have control of the entire map. 2) performance issues. by the time i had 200 clones, my computer was having obvious trouble keeping up where it had not before. it felt like i was progressing further than intended, and being punished for success. 3) the "keeping the population happy" mechanics are lackluster. at a certain point, it seems impossible to keep the number above 50%, what with the eternal "death" debuff from clones dying. 4) there's not much to the clones. they're just your population increase with various potential minor debuffs. 5) There's a distinct lack of a satisfying endgame. like, alright, i have my immortal clones. now what do i do with them? perfecting cloning technology was the entire point of the game, and now i've done it! the end to the story is a pretty big let-down if you're invested. 6) the ui can be difficult to work with. a) the submarine ui/map sucks. you use right-click-drag to move around normally, but it's left-click-drag on the map. it always opens really zoomed in. it doesn't show your buildings. it does not rotate to match your orientation. it's a flat 2d graphic. AND the filters while searching for something are not good enough. b) employment ui is clunky. the game tells you to make sure that your crew be in appropriate roles, but makes that very difficult to actually manage because the type of role is not shown in the population tab. c) the various genetic material is also very hard to keep track of as your facility grows. 7) research peaks in the midgame and there's no good end-game research on the tree. i ended my run with like 9000 research points and nothing to spend them on. 8) good early-game, but plateaus in the late-game Notes: 1) sonar towers should have more range 2) better employment management 3) more in-depth population mechanics 4) the unemployment aspect seems very one-dimensional; there should be a way to keep unemployed people occupied and happy while they have no job to do. 5) it would make sense if there were aspects of social life that you had to manage. after all, with the clone story, i imagine there would be really interesting ethical and social conflicts among the crew as the clone population grows and improves. a dlc with extra mechanics surrounding this would make me a very happy gal. 6) it was really disappointing to not be able to have a more zoomed-out view of the world because it is *gorgeous* to look at 7) the game discourages you from making clones with mutations, but the mutations are boring. we're playing with splicing deep-sea and human dna! some depth to the types of mutations, with both positive and negative effects, would be very cool to see. like having there be different tiers or sub-types for each type of crewmember. 8) i think there should be a whole other "employment" tab to manage the various types of jobs to be done, and an ability to filter what types of crewmembers can perform certain job slots (ie. making sure a scientist doesn't keep getting autofilled to a basic role in the early game). it gets really overwhelming once you have enough buildings. 9) a menu solely to manage habitats would be welcome 10) resources should be easier to see when they're lit up, not harder 11) more tiers of tech to research basically, i think there's a lot of stuff in this game that could be much more fleshed-out. I really enjoyed my time with this game, and i think i will be back for a hard-mode run, but it feels half-baked in quite a lot of ways. i think the atmosphere and early-game click really really well, but the experience drops off as you continue to explore and grow your facility. it's worth a gander if you enjoy colony builders, even at full-price.
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This is a single playthrough colony builder/survival game, similar to IXION. I did enjoy it, hence the recommendation, the eerie atmosphere is definitely there, the cloning concept is a nice puzzle to hack with multiple ways to fine tune your population. The story is adequate to push the game further, and the pacing is finally fixed compared to its early access times. Some bugs still exist (tunnels start to bug when you have a huge spiraling colony. Fixed by adding a dock to the bugged section then deleting it) If you're into colony builders/survival then you'd definitely enjoy it, just keep in mind this game is no Surviving Mars when it comes to scale, and not IXION when it comes to story and script. Its a short enjoyable eerie experience for those who don't mind the asking price.
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Highly recommend giving this game a solid play through. On any difficulty level there are challenges and obstacles to overcome that always bring me more joy when overcome. Currently hold all achievements currently available for this game (07/27/2025) and I am still adding hours to the game. Looking forward to what else is in store for this great game!
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Paradox Arc is a publisher that has 'Small studios that create games which capture the Paradox DNA.' Comparing the game to Mars or Aftermath, it cannot compare to those expectations. On the one side, the gameplay is minimal, and very little replay value. On the other one, there is no content locked behind DLC, or superfluous and parasitic content in the aformentioned. The story is very average, if it has one at all, but worth the money at half off, full price if you feel generous. Overall, it's just very upsetting that it shares a name with the 'Survive' series, once again, setting up false expectations, especially since it is a small studio, instead of the main one.
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I hope there will be a Surviving the Abyss 2! The game is okay tier, with an interesting mix of Frostpunk and Subnautica, but it unfortunately lacks a true survival aspect. Once you understand the mechanics, the challenge disappears—everything pretty much runs itself. You can even "cheese" the game by linking all the outposts together (since the map is small) to create one big base. There’s no real distance management for the crew; they teleport everywhere (even to outposts that aren’t directly connected), except for the construction submarines. Even the big monster that appears isn’t particularly scary or dangerous. It breaks a few structures and then leaves, so you just repair and move on as if nothing happened. Overall, the concept feels underutilized. Another major flaw: zero replay value. Even on hard mode, the only difference is a few adjusted parameters—there’s just a single scenario, with no real gameplay variation. That said, the game is engaging, and you’ll have a good time playing it. The sound design, from music to immersive ambient noise, is particularly well done. My advice: Play a throwaway first run to learn the mechanics, then start over and build a nice, well-optimized base… because that’ll probably be your one and only playthrough. But damn, I need a sequel—this time with a real challenge!
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Frequently Asked Questions
Surviving the Abyss is currently priced at 19.99€ on Steam.
Surviving the Abyss is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 19.99€ on Steam.
Surviving the Abyss received 634 positive votes out of a total of 975 achieving a rating of 6.31.
😐
Surviving the Abyss was developed by Rocket Flair Studios and published by Paradox Arc.
Surviving the Abyss is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Surviving the Abyss is not playable on MacOS.
Surviving the Abyss is not playable on Linux.
Surviving the Abyss is a single-player game.
Surviving the Abyss does not currently offer any DLC.
Surviving the Abyss does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
Surviving the Abyss does not support Steam Remote Play.
Surviving the Abyss is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Surviving the Abyss.
Data sources
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 25 January 2026 18:07 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 26 January 2026 17:17 |
| Steam price | 29 January 2026 04:25 |
| Steam reviews | 28 January 2026 21:57 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Surviving the Abyss, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Surviving the Abyss
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Surviving the Abyss concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Surviving the Abyss compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
3
Developer
Rocket Flair Studios
Publisher
Paradox Arc
Release
05 Nov 2024
Platforms