Green Hell.
Greeeeeen Hell....it's pretty good.
Most survival games are honestly pretty simplistic when it comes to the survival part of the whole equation, which probably has to do with a three-way conflict between how complicated real life survival actually is, wanting a unique game (like exploring an ocean) on top of the survival mechanics, and the desire to not overwhelm the player. A lot of survival games in general seem to have just three bars of food, water, and sleep along with health. There's a lot of games that have the survival aspect nailed to an existing game...or don't go as far as they could.
Green Hell seems to be a game that wants to directly counteract that and I'd say it succeeds. The game really is just trying to survive in a hostile environment. One thing that I really really like is the fact that you don't just have a "food" meter. You gotta eat protein, fats, AND carbs. It means you can't just hog one food source and live off that. Nah son, you gotta find a complete breakfast. And it is always commendable when a game makes it clear just how much we take for granted in our modern day. Playing this game with a machete right away would be like playing resident evil 3 (the original) on easy mode.
There's also a bunch of little things you can do to make your life easier, lots of little survival tricks, fire is a genuine advantage, and it doesn't NEED to introduce aliens or a super secret mystery. Just carving a living out of the dense dangerous jungle is enough but the story mode they have is pretty good. Plus the resources you use to make stuff seems to be pretty "realistic" no workbench made out of a collection of random stuff.
If you like survival games, give it a shot!
If I had to play just one survival game...it would be Subnautica. If I could play TWO this would be the second one.