Home / Games / Plains of Pain
Plains of Pain
Survive a brutal open world alone or with friends. Explore a procedural wasteland scorched by chaos. Build and defend your base, trade for what you need, complete deadly quests, and fight to claim faction outposts before someone else does.
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Score via Steam as of 2026-09-02 · quoted reviews as of 2026-05-13.
What reviewers agree on
57 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“It's starting to feel a lot more like 3rd person Kenshi which is great! Give us the ability to join factions, and have roaming faction patrols that end up fighting each other in the open field, not just the outpost…”
“Even at its early stage the game is quite entangled. It has its own apocalyptic atmosphere and sizeable game world that will allow me to explore, fight and build for hundred hours or (hopefully) a lot more. The…”
“Super chill game, keeps surprising me with every play session. Im playing in a solo world. -Graphics 6/10, nothing to ride home about, but fits the vibe of the game. -Map 6/10, The only negative I can really find and…”
24 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“I never post reviews but this one deserved it! I really enjoy this game. I've played lots of survival games and I got tired of the medieval-vicking theme. The post-apocalyptic wasteland is lovely for a change and it…”
“I have just over 150 hours in so far and I don't think there has been a day where I have not seen something new in this game. It has been very entertaining, played a little on a public server but have mostly played on a…”
“The game isn't too bad by yourself but a lot more fun with friends. There's tons to do! You can run around trading if that's your thing. You can set up your own outpost and fly your own flag with loyalty to nobody but…”
15 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“Even at its early stage the game is quite entangled. It has its own apocalyptic atmosphere and sizeable game world that will allow me to explore, fight and build for hundred hours or (hopefully) a lot more. The…”
“I never post reviews but this one deserved it! I really enjoy this game. I've played lots of survival games and I got tired of the medieval-vicking theme. The post-apocalyptic wasteland is lovely for a change and it…”
“Last few updates made me decide to buy this again after refunding the first time. The customizable difficulty options is the biggest reason.”
11 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“Even at its early stage the game is quite entangled. It has its own apocalyptic atmosphere and sizeable game world that will allow me to explore, fight and build for hundred hours or (hopefully) a lot more. The…”
“I never post reviews but this one deserved it! I really enjoy this game. I've played lots of survival games and I got tired of the medieval-vicking theme. The post-apocalyptic wasteland is lovely for a change and it…”
“Game looks great but you cannot lower your mouse sensitivity beyond a trivial amount. Unplayable for someone like me. I'm just not interested in installing third party software, or lowering my DPI below 600 to be able…”
10 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“Even at its early stage the game is quite entangled. It has its own apocalyptic atmosphere and sizeable game world that will allow me to explore, fight and build for hundred hours or (hopefully) a lot more. The…”
“I have just over 150 hours in so far and I don't think there has been a day where I have not seen something new in this game. It has been very entertaining, played a little on a public server but have mostly played on a…”
“The game seems pretty good for its genre (for those who have a ton of free time — something like a month of playing 8 hours a day without breaks) — lots of crafting (which are locked, and if you manage to open 1…”
32 of the 104 reviews raise this · 24 of them still recommend the game.
“I never post reviews but this one deserved it! I really enjoy this game. I've played lots of survival games and I got tired of the medieval-vicking theme. The post-apocalyptic wasteland is lovely for a change and it…”
“I know it's in Alpha and some things are a bit janky, but I'm absolutely loving it. Can't wait until it get's polished because I've already put 40 hours in, and it's just Alpha.”
19 of the 104 reviews raise this · 13 of them still recommend the game.
“Northern Territory, Australia Simulator. The concept is great, The game feels solid, Very well optimised and has servers in regions most over look. Its downfall is onboarding and retention, The game feels like its…”
“Amazing game. Technically very mature for an early access game. Very well designed with a gameplay loop with interesting resource trading. Obviously also some design issues - meteor showers are just annoying Content is…”
“I enjoyed it, not for a Solo player though. Also wished it had more admin controls for my world. Still in EA though so that could be coming soon.”
13 of the 104 reviews raise this · 8 of them still recommend the game.
“Northern Territory, Australia Simulator. The concept is great, The game feels solid, Very well optimised and has servers in regions most over look. Its downfall is onboarding and retention, The game feels like its…”
“The game seems pretty good for its genre (for those who have a ton of free time — something like a month of playing 8 hours a day without breaks) — lots of crafting (which are locked, and if you manage to open 1…”
“This game has that "just one more hour" gameplay to it. Graphically it is like an early PS2 game, rather basic but with some good lighting and real time shadows, textures are quite basic but serve their purpose. It is…”
12 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“I don't refund a lot of games, but the real Plain of Pain was the gameplay. Jokes aside, this needs a lot of work. Even for a an early access title. I'll take another look when it hits 1.0 but I can't recommend it right…”
“I really want to like this game but there is just so much jank with how enemies knowing exactly who you are right away while you can't tell which faction they are until you're close. Additionally, there are many other…”
“coming back after some days my world doesnt load anymore. this feels like some dudes first professional 3d project with major design flaws and not much more. low variety of models and sounds and really anything to be…”
7 of the 104 reviews raise this · 6 of them still recommend the game.
“Northern Territory, Australia Simulator. The concept is great, The game feels solid, Very well optimised and has servers in regions most over look. Its downfall is onboarding and retention, The game feels like its…”
“I've updated this to a positive review. I still don't know if I'd recommend it to people that are frustrated by gamified mechanics that add arbitrary difficulty compared to actual skill issues, same with the bugs. My…”
“Spent about 8 hours running around like a headless chicken, trying to figure things out. Proceeded to slowly put together the vehicle you find in the first area, with a lot of effort. Just as its built and i set up a…”
Counted across 104 English reviews, sampled to match this game's 83.2% positive rating · as of 2026-05-13
“Cool concept and gameplay, but needs A LOT of QOL (for example inventory management stuff like chest labelling and autosort) and bug fixes (personal vehicles dissappearing). Feels like it takes parts from 7 Days to Die, Fallout: New Vegas, and Atom RPG. All games which I like.…”
— a player, Steam review · 313 hrs played“I have been playing this game for about 3 weeks now and love this true open sandbox, survival game! Explore, gather, build, craft and lots of combat...there is so much content which keeps me logging in every evening when I get finished with work. I still have so much to explore…”
— a player, Steam review · 133 hrs played“*Editing my original comment to better address my issue, and clear up the comment, to better respond to the Dev's reply. I removed various other issues I originally posted, and will stick to the one, biggest problem I've seen with the game - that is honestly game-ruining for me.…”
— a player, Steam review · 27 hrs playedPlayer activity
Monthly average concurrent players. Live data self-collected from the Steam API · history through 2026-07 via SteamCharts.
Achievement stats
Global completion rates across all Steam players — a data view of how far people actually get. Source: Steam official stats · as of 2026-09-19.
Price tracking
US-region pricing (USD), sampled twice daily by our own tracker since 2026-08-12. Steam prices vary by region — always confirm your local price on Steam.
Regional prices at last sample, in local currency — Steam sets each region's price independently.
Cheapest → most expensive, converted to USD at ECB reference rates (2026-09-18). Relative comparison only.
Latest official news
Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.
Regular Update v0.8.20.29.0 Balancing and Server Optimization
Regular Update v 0.8.20.29.0 Balancing, Fixes and Server Optimization Another regular update is here. Since v0.8.20, we have been watching how the new systems behave in real gameplay, gathering your f
Hotfix v0.8.20.28.5
Hotfix v0.8.20.28.5 A quick hotfix is now live. We discovered a UI related issue that could negatively affect FPS in certain situations, and we have now fixed it. Thank you to everyone who keeps repor
QoL Update v0.8.20.28 Inventory Locking
QoL Update v0.8.20.28 We are not stopping. Just a few days after the Major Update, we are already bringing another quick patch based on the community feedback we have been gathering since release. Thi
Major Update v0.8.20 Production and Relic Traders
Major Update v0.8.20 There is a point in development where an update stops being just a collection of new features and starts changing what future updates can become. For us, v0.8.20 is one of those u
Dev Blog - Next Major Update in Development
The Wasteland Does Not Wait Next Major Update in Development Survivors, today we are not releasing a new update. Today we want to share a small but important message about what we are working on behin
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Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-05-13.
| Genres | Action, Adventure, Indie, Massively Multiplayer, RPG, Simulation, Early Access |
| Player tags | Early Access · Survival · Massively Multiplayer · Multiplayer · Open World · Action · Post-apocalyptic · PvP · Sandbox · Crafting · Third Person · Shooter (SteamSpy community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Multi-player · PvP · Online PvP · LAN PvP · Co-op · Online Co-op · LAN Co-op |
| Languages | English, Czech, Spanish - Spain, Portuguese - Brazil, German, French, Ukrainian, Korean, Polish, Japanese, Russian, Simplified Chinese |
| Achievements | 4 |
| Official site | https://www.plainsofpain.com |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS *: Windows 7 Processor: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system Memory: 10 GB RAM Graphics: GTX 670 2GB / AMD R9 280 better DirectX: Version 11 Network: Broadband Internet connection Storage: 7 GB available space