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.

Survival games are considered an extension of a common video game theme where the player character is stranded or

separated from others and must work alone to survive and complete a goal. Survival games focus on the survival parts of these games, while encouraging exploration of an open world. Some gameplay elements present in the action-adventure genre—such as resource management and item crafting—are commonly found in survival games and serve as central elements featured in games like Survival Kids. At the start of a typical survival game, the player is placed alone in the game's world with few resources. It is not uncommon for players to spend the majority or entirety of the game without encountering a friendly non-player character; since NPCs are typically hostile to the player, the emphasis is placed on avoidance, rather than confrontation. In some games, however, combat is unavoidable and provides the player with valuable resources (e.g., food, weapons, and armor).

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. Another early example of the survival game genre is the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game SOS, released by Human Entertainment in 1993.

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. Persson became instrumental in developing Minecraft, which many consider to have popularized the survival game genre. 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.

Another key title in the survival genre was DayZ which 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.