This isn't the first time a genre has flourished and consequently sort of dissolved into meaninglessness, at least temporarily. This has the effect of making "survival" as a genre less useful to us in communicating what exactly we mean when we use the word. Many of the games I've listed are quite different from each other, and the extent to which they utilise survival features and manage difficulty varies.
Heck, you could even argue that the Souls series has survival elements, and there's certainly been a resurgence of interest in survival horror after a few very poor years.
If you want to stretch the definition, any number of rogue-likes feature survival elements. There are many, many more, both big and small, which I could mention. Outside of strict zombie sandboxes, and arriving variously before and after DayZ, there's Rust, Fortnite, The Long Dark, Frontiers, The Forest, Nether, Miasmata, Minecraft, Terraria, Starbound, Sunless Sea, Don't Starve, and any number of imitators. State of Decay actually predates DayZ, having been announced in 2011 as Class 3, as does Dead State, which was announced in 2010, but both have similar themes. We've seen scores of imitators - The War Z (now Infestation: Survivor Stories) comes immediately to mind, but there's no point pretending H1Z1 is anything but a DayZ follow on. There are several definitions for what constitutes a survival game, but I'd say the essential feature is that the players is granted limited, non-replenish-able resources - ammo, or health - without which they will likely reach a game over screen.Īlthough they were obviously popular before it, ever since DayZ blew up, gaining a huge following even while it existed in the reasonably niche world of a PC-only mod, survival games have been big time. I'm talking, of course, about survival games. I feel like I should have been able to predict that Dying Light would strike such a chord, because it has several features in common with a number of other popular games. It is succeeding on its own merits, and people are enjoying playing it and talking about it. Absolutely nothing else came out worth mentioning, and resting in solitary splendour on the "new release" shelf no doubt gave an early sales boost to TechLand's zombie parkour sim.īut that only accounts for one week of sales, and Dying Light, despite having a definite end, is proving enduringly popular - even before the modding scene kicks off and potentially makes it immortal.
Let's be real, Dying Light got pretty lucky releasing in January. Luckily, the industry looks set to deliver.įrom TechLand, the creator of Dead Island.įeatures a day night cycle wherein zombies are far more dangerous at night. Dying Light just goes to show that the market is hungry for games that challenge.
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