Other survival games use permadeath: the character has one life, and dying requires that the game be restarted. Character death may not be the end of the game, however вЂ“ the player may be able to respawn and return to the game location at which their character died in order to retrieve lost equipment.

For example, the survival title Don't Starve, for example, features a separate hunger gauge and a sanity meter, which will cause the death of the character if allowed to deplete. Other metrics related to the player-character's vulnerability to the game world may also come into play. The player character typically has a health bar and will take damage from falling, starving, drowning, contact with fire or harmful substances, and attacks by monsters that inhabit the world. In some titles, the world is generated randomly so that players must actively search for food and weapons, often provided with visual and auditory cues of the types of resources that may be found nearby. In some games, however, combat is unavoidable and provides the player with valuable resources (e.g., food, weapons, and armor). 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. At the start of a typical survival game, the player is placed alone in the game's world with few resources. They are primarily action games, though some gameplay elements present in the action-adventure genre-such as resource management and item crafting-are commonly found in survival games, and are central elements in titles like Survival Kids. Survival games focus on the survival parts of these games, while encouraging exploration of an open world.

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.

Minecraft zombie survival games