Survival game
Survival games are a subgenre of action games which are often set in hostile, intense, open-world environments. Players generally start with minimal equipment and are required to survive as long as possible by finding the resources necessary to manage hunger, thirst, disease and/or mental state. Many survival games are based on randomly or procedurally generated persistent environments; more recently, survival games are often playable online, allowing players to interact in a single world. Survival games are generally open-ended with no set goals and often closely related to the survival horror genre, where the player must survive within a supernatural setting, such as a zombie apocalypse.
Not to be confused with Survival horror or Survival mode.History[edit]
In a general sense, survival elements have been around since the beginning of the video game industry. The basic concept of survival can be found in sports video games (as early as Pong in 1972), fighting games and adventure games,[8] while survival scenarios can be found in classic arcade action games (such as Space Invaders in 1978 and Pac-Man in 1980) and survival horror games (such as Resident Evil in 1996).[9] A more specific modern survival game genre began to emerge in the 1990s, but was not clearly defined until the early 21st century.
An early example of the survival game genre is UnReal World, which was created by Sami Maaranen in 1992 and is still in active development. The rogue-like game used ASCII graphics 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 World's only goal was to survive as long as possible against wild creatures and the dangers that the snowy weather created.[10] Another early example of the survival game genre is the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game SOS, released by Human Entertainment in 1993.[11]
Wurm Online contains elements that have ultimately influenced a number of survival games. Being a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), the game sets players as characters in a medieval setting, allows them to terraform the land, create buildings, and effectively develop their own kingdoms. Rolf Jansson and Markus Persson began the initial development of the game in 2003, and although Persson left around 2007, the game is still in active development.[10] Persson became instrumental in developing Minecraft, which many consider to have popularised the survival game genre.[10] From its initial public release in 2009, Minecraft focuses on resource-gathering and crafting in a procedurally-generated world, and requires the player to defend themselves during night cycles while gathering resources at other times.[10]
Another key title in the survival genre was DayZ. It was originally released as a mod for ARMA 2 in 2012, but was later released as a standalone game, making over $5 million in one day once it became available.[12] The game sets the players in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, where they must avoid hordes of zombies while scavenging through the remains of human civilization for resources.[10] As a result of the financial success of Minecraft and DayZ, numerous titles of the survival genre were released from 2012 onward. Some believe that the market has become saturated with titles based on the same post-apocalyptic setting, clones of more popular titles, and titles released as a quick attempt to make money using early access models.[13][14] The research firm SuperData estimated that survival games brought in over $400 million in revenue over the first six months of 2017, making the genre one of the largest markets in the video game industry.[15]