Survival

Survival games are games in which the player faces management of scarce resources to survive. The games typically feature mechanics such as regulating physiological needs such as hunger and thirst and crafting items.

The genre was popularized in the early-2010s following the success of open world survival craft games such as Minecraft, DayZ, The Forest and Don't Starve where the player faces survival in an open world, gathering resources to craft items and build shelter and defending themselves against other players or AI enemies. Survival games, however, encompass a broader spectrum of games, for example turn-based games such as NEO Scavenger, Dead State: Reanimated, UnReal World or Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead featuring scavenging and managing scarce resources, or survival city-building games like Frostpunk or Dice Legacy where the player is responsible for survival of entire communities.

The genre is closely related to survival horror in terms of the importance of resource management, however survival horror games involve driven goals, usually contain solving puzzles, fighting or running through enemies and traversing through "levels" in an attempt to complete the game. Whereas survival games tend to involve a single, usually vast, non-linear, wild or war-torn environments, usually being open-ended (or else end after a certain number of days regardless of what else the player has done) and are built around trying to top up one or several depleting mechanics.