survival game not to be confused with battle royale video game survival game part of a series onaction games subgenres actionadventure game action roleplaying game open world stealth game survival game survival horror battle royale beat em up fighting game platform game platformadventure game metroidvania shooter game firstperson shooter thirdperson shooter hero shooter light gun shooter roleplaying shooter shoot em up tactical shooter rhythm game topics capture the flag cover system firstperson shooter engine free look quick time event wasd keys lists list of beat em ups list of fighting game companies list of fighting games list of firstperson shooters list of freeware firstperson shooters list of thirdperson shooters list of shoot em up game companies list of survival games list of gun games list of maze video games list of platform games vte survival games are a subgenre of action video games set in a hostile intense openworld environment where players generally begin with minimal equipment and are required to collect resources craft tools weapons and shelter and survive as long as possible many survival games are based on randomly or procedurally generated persistent environments morerecently created games are often playable online allowing multiple players to interact in a single persistent world survival games are generally openended with no set goals and are often closely related to the survival horror genre in which the player must survive within a supernatural setting such as a zombie apocalypse gameplay survival games are considered an extension of a common video game theme where the playercharacter is stranded or separated from others and must work alone to survive and complete a goal survival games focus on the survival parts of these games while encouraging exploration of an open world they are primarily action games though some gameplay elements present in the actionadventure genresuch as resource management and item craftingare commonly found in survival games and are central elements in titles like survival kids at the start of a typical survival game the player is usually placed alone in the games world with few resources it is not uncommon for players to spend the majority or entirety of the game without encountering a friendly nonplayer character since npcs are typically hostile to the player emphasis is placed on avoidance rather than confrontation in some games however combat is unavoidable and provides the player with valuable resources eg food weapons and armor in some titles the world is generated randomly so that players must actively search for food and weapons often provided with visual and audible cues of the types of resources that may be found nearby player experience survival games are nearly always playable as a single player but many are designed as multiplayer experiences with game servers hosting the persistent world that players are able to connect to the openended nature of these games encourages players to work together to survive against the elements and other threats that the game may pose when there are no opposing players within the same world this dynamic is often referred to as player versus environment or pve however when opposing players are present within the same world this is known as player versus player or pvp this generally leads to players forming alliances constructing fortified structures and working together to protect themselves from both the dangers presented by the games world and from other playercharacters crafting many survival games feature crafting by combining two or more resources the player can create a new object which can be used for further crafting this enables gameplay where the player can collect resources to craft new tools that enable them to access better resources that will eventually lead to better tools and weapons a common example is creation of pickaxes of various levels of hardness wooden pickaxes allow stone to be mined but not metallic ores however a pickaxe made from collected stone can be used to mine these ores the same concept applies to weapons and armor with those made out of moredifficulttoacquire materials providing better offensive and defense bonuses often the crafting system includes durability factors for tools and weapons so that the tool will break after repeated use crafting systems may not give the player the necessary recipes for crafting requiring this to be learned through experimentation or from game guides objectives there is rarely a winning condition for survival games the challenge to the player is to last as long as possible though some games set a goal for survival time as such there is rarely any significant story in these games beyond establishing the reason why the playercharacter has found themselves in the survival situation some survival games provide quests to help guide the player to learn the games survival mechanics and lead them to more dangerous areas where they can acquire better resources because of the openworld nature and crafting systems some openworld games can allow for usermade creations to be built minecraft for example allows players to place blocks to construct crude shelters for protection but as they gather more resources and readily survive players can create massive structures from the games building blocks often modeling realworld and fictional buildings survival games typically feature nonreplenishing resources though the player can take steps to allow new resources to become available for example in terraria chopping down a tree will eliminate that tree from the game but the player can replant seeds that will allow new trees to grow presentation and mechanics many survival games are presented in the firstperson perspective to help immerse the player in the game other titles have taken other methods of presentation games like terraria and starbound are presented as twodimensional side views while dont starve uses sprites rendered in a threedimensional isometric projection further while survival games are considered action games there are other genres that feature the survival theme such as turnbased roleplaying games dead state and neo scavenger and the storydriven firstperson shooter stalker series history an early example of the survival game genre is unreal world this game was created by sami maaranen in 1992 and still in active development at the present the game was based on a roguelike approach using ascii graphics that computers were capable of at the time and placed the player in the harsh conditions of finland during the iron age unlike traditional roguelike games where there was a goal to reach unreal worlds only goal was to survive as long as possible against wild creatures and the dangers that the snowy weather created wurm online contains elements that have ultimately influenced a number of survival games as a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game mmorpg the game set players as characters in a medieval setting allowing them to terraform the land create buildings and effectively develop their own kingdoms initial development began in 2003 by rolf jansson and markus persson and though persson left around 2007 the game continues to be operated and expanded another key title in the survival genre was dayz it was originally released as a mod in 2012 for arma 2 but was later expanded to a standalone game the game sets the players in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse avoiding hordes of zombies while scavenging through the remains of human civilization for resources list of survival games battle royale game vtevideo game genres listaction beat em up hack and slash fighting maze pacman clone platform shooter firstperson thirdperson light gun shoot em up tactical survival battle royale actionadventure grand theft auto clone immersive sim metroidvania stealth survival horror psychological horror adventure escape the room interactive fiction interactive movie visual novel mmo mmofps mmorpg mmorts mud roleplaying action roleplaying dungeon crawl roguelike tactical roleplaying simulation construction and management business city government life simulation dating sim digital pet god social simulation sports strategy 4x multiplayer online battle arena realtime strategy tower defense time management realtime tactics turnbased strategy turnbased tactics wargame vehicle simulation flight simulator amateur combat space racing kart racing sim racing submarine simulator train simulator vehicular combat other genres artillery breakout clone digital collectible card game eroge exergame incremental music rhythm nongame party programming puzzle sokoban tilematching related concepts aaa game advertising arcade game art game audio game casual game christian game crossover game educational game fmv gamification indie game multiplayer video game nonlinear gameplay open world nonviolent video game online game browser game multiplayer online game online gambling socialnetwork game pervasive game serious game toystolife twitch gameplay video game clone 