Open world survival craft

Open world survival craft games place the player in a singular, perpetual world with the sole goal of surviving as long as possible by constantly gathering and crafting resources to replenish perpetually decreasing or increasing mechanics. The genre was heavily influenced by Minecraft and became popular in the PC market in the early-2010s following the success of games such as DayZ, The Forest, and Rust.

The games emphasize exploration of the world to find resources necessary for survival. The most common example is constantly trying to find or create food to decrease a continuously increasing hunger mechanic briefly. In some games, several of these mechanics work against each other (for example, eating a green-cap mushroom in Don't Starve will stave off hunger for a while but also decrease the character's sanity), and the player constantly has to balance these to stay alive. Base-building is also a mechanic often featured in the games in which the players use the gathered resources to construct shelters. They can be used to defend themselves against other players or AI enemies. Another common trope is a day-night cycle where, at night, the environment typically turns more hostile (e.g., spawning specific aggressive creatures in Valheim), and the usage of a light source is needed to illuminate the darkness.