Survival mode

In tower defense games

Rampart, released in 1991, is the first prototypical survival game mode in tower defense games. Survival mode is particularly common among tower defense games, such as Plants vs. Zombies. where the player must improve the defenses of a specific location in order to repel enemy forces for as long as possible.

In fighting games

Power Instinct, released in 1993, added a survival game mode, called 'Life Attack' to their Super Nintendo Port in November 1993. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior on the Game Boy introduced the mode in 1995, and both Tekken 2 and Street Fighter EX included the mode in 1996 and 1997 respectively.

In cooperative shooter games

Killing Floor, originally a total conversion mod for the game Unreal Tournament 2004, first released in 2005, introduced the cooperative wave-based survival game mode. Popular games that have a survival mode include zombie games such as those in the Left 4 Dead series, games in the Call of Duty series following Call of Duty: World at War, Gears of War 2 introduced the term "horde mode" as an alternative name for survival mode, and subsequently picked up by other games such as World War Z.

In sandbox games

Many sandbox games, such as Minecraft, 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, uses both non-player characters and other players as enemies, inviting player vs player combat in order to survive in the game's environment.

References

References

1. Rodgers, Scott. (2010). "Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design". John Wiley and Sons.
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6. Walker, John. (5 May 2009). "The Plants Vs. Zombies Review".
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10. Kuchera, Ben. (22 April 2009). "First impressions of Left 4 Dead's survival mode". Ars Technica.
11. McElroy, Griffin. (25 October 2008). "Call of Duty: World at War co-op mode pits players against Nazi zombies". Joystiq.
12. Glasser, Aj. (15 October 2008). "Gears of War 2 – Horde Mode Is The Way To Go". Kotaku.
13. Wales, Matt. (20 July 2020). "World War Z's latest update brings cross-play support to PlayStation 4". [[Eurogamer]].
14. Caldwell, Brendan. (28 March 2014). "To Hell With Other People: Nine Lives in Rust".