Survival mode, or horde mode, is a

game mode In tabletop games and video games, game mechanics define how a game works for players. Game mechanics are the rules or ludemes that govern and guide player actions, as well as the game's response to them. A rule is an instruction on how to play, wh ...

in a video game in which the player must continue playing for as long as possible without dying in an uninterrupted session while the game presents them with increasingly difficult waves of challenges. A variant of the mode requires that the player last for a certain finite amount of time or number of waves, after which victory is achieved and the mode ends. Survival mode has been compared to the gameplay of classic arcade games, where players face off against increasingly stronger waves of enemies. This mode was intended to give the game a definite and sometimes sudden ending, so that other players could then play the arcade game as well.

Survival mode in tower defense games

Rampart Rampart may refer to: * Rampart (fortification), a defensive wall or bank around a castle, fort or settlement Rampart may also refer to: * LAPD Rampart Division, a division of the Los Angeles Police Department ** Rampart scandal, a blanket ter ...

'', released in 1991, is the first prototypical survival game mode in

tower defense Tower defense (TD) is a Video game genre, subgenre of Strategy video game, strategy games where the goal is to defend a player's territories or possessions by obstructing the enemy attackers or by stopping enemies from reaching the exits, usual ...

games. Survival mode is particularly common among

games, such as ''

Plants vs. Zombies ''Plants vs. Zombies'' is a video game Media franchise, franchise developed by PopCap Games, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts (EA). The series follows the affiliates of David "Crazy Dave" Blazing as they use his plants to defend against a zombi ...

''. where the player must improve the defenses of a specific location in order to repel enemy forces for as long as possible.

Survival mode in fighting games

'' Power Instinct'', released in 1993, added a survival game mode, called 'Life Attack' to their

Super Nintendo The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a Fourth generation of video game consoles, 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in No ...

Port in November 1993. '' Street Fighter II: The World Warrior'' on the

Game Boy The is a handheld game console developed by Nintendo, launched in the Japanese home market on April 21, 1989, followed by North America later that year and other territories from 1990 onwards. Following the success of the Game & Watch single-ga ...

introduced the mode in 1995, and both ''

Tekken 2 is a 1995 fighting game developed and published by Namco. The second entry in the ''Tekken'' series, it was released for Arcade game, arcades in August 1995, and was Porting#Porting of video games, ported to the PlayStation (console), PlayStati ...

'' and ''

Street Fighter EX is a 1996 fighting game originally released as a arcade game, coin-operated arcade game for the Sony ZN hardware. It is a Spin-off (media), spin-off of the ''Street Fighter'' series co-produced by Capcom with Arika and was the first game in the ...

'' included the mode in 1996 and 1997 respectively.

Survival mode in cooperative shooter games

'' Killing Floor'', originally a

total conversion mod Video game modding (short for "modifying") is the process of alteration by players or fans of one or more aspects of a video game, such as how it looks or behaves, and is a sub-discipline of general ''modding''. A set of modifications, commonly c ...

for the game ''

Unreal Tournament 2004 ''Unreal Tournament 2004'' is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. Part of the ''Unreal'' franchise, it is the third game in the '' Unreal Tournament'' series and an updated rerelease of '' Unre ...

'', first released in 2005, introduced the cooperative wave-based survival game mode. Popular games that have a survival mode include

zombie game This is an incomplete list of video games strongly featuring zombies. These games feature creatures inspired by the archetypal flesh-eating zombies seen in horror films, B-movies and literature; such as in the films of George A. Romero. Other var ...

s such as those in the ''

Left 4 Dead ''Left 4 Dead'' is a 2008 first-person shooter game developed by Valve South and published by Valve. It was originally released for Windows and Xbox 360 in November 2008 and for Mac OS X in October 2010, and is the first title in the '' Left 4 ...

'' series, games in the ''

Call of Duty ''Call of Duty'' is a first-person shooter military video game series and media franchise published by Activision, starting in 2003. The games were first developed by Infinity Ward, then by Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games. Several spin-of ...

'' series following '' Call of Duty: World at War'', ''

Gears of War 2 ''Gears of War 2'' is a 2008 third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games and published by Xbox Game Studios, Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. It is the second installment of the Gears of War, ''Gears of War'' series, with le ...

'' introduced the term "horde mode" as an alternative name for survival mode, and subsequently picked up by other games such as ''

World War Z ''World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War'' is a 2006 zombie apocalyptic horror novel written by American author Max Brooks. The novel is broken into eight chapters: “Warnings”, “Blame”, “The Great Panic”, “Turning the Tid ...

''.

Survival mode in sandbox games

Many

sandbox game A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that provides players a great degree of creativity to interact with, usually without any predetermined goal, or with a goal that the players set for themselves. Such games may lack any objec ...

s, such as ''

Minecraft ''Minecraft'' is a 2011 sandbox game developed and published by the Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios. Originally created by Markus Persson, Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java (programming language), Java programming language, the ...

'', take advantage of this game mode by having players survive the night time from a variety of monsters, such as skeletons and zombies. Another sandbox game, ''

Rust Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture. Rust consists of hydrous iron(III) oxides (Fe2O3·nH2O) and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO(OH) ...

'', uses both

non-player characters A non-player character (NPC) is a Character (arts), character in a game that is not controlled by a Player (game), player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaste ...

and other players as enemies, inviting player vs player combat in order to survive in the game's environment.

References

{{Video game gameplay Video game terminology