I really enjoy The Long Dark. There are several modes of play for this one. The basic survival game, where you just try to live as long as possible. Challenge mode, where you have to accomplish certain goals. Finally, there is Story mode which has you play Will McKenzie. Will is a bush pilot who crashes his plane while carrying his estranged wife, who is a doctor. This version is not yet complete. You can play the first two chapters, which will probably take around 40 hours or so.
Subnautica is the other game most recommended, but I haven't tackled that one yet. I've played Salt instead, which was a lot of fun too.
Of course, if you want to mix zombies in with survival, then you can't go wrong with 7 Days to Die.
The Forest is survival vs cannibals. They've taken your son and he was alive when they took him. Will they just kill/eat him or will they fatten him up for a while?!
Lots of good choices. TLD has some role playing elements where you can pick feats, but you must have finished a few survival games to unlock said feats.
The big negative with most indie survival games; maybe all of them, is that they're not completely finished. In most cases, the devs are still pretty active. In a few cases, they just dropped it after a couple years in early access.