The Survivalists Gene

Tracing the DNA between a brand new game and a selection of classics

The survival sub-genre has emerged into the limelight in recent years; it combines parts of several other genres, depending on which game you play. Typically, there are dire circumstances, scarce resources, and the need for the player to craft what they need from those resources in various clever ways. Games as far-ranging as the classic Oregon Trail all the way to this year’s Ground Zero fall into this category in some way, but they share a common DNA. Let’s look at several of these titles to see what elements connect them.

The Survivalists (2020)

The Survivalists is, unsurprisingly, a survival game, but it’s one with a big difference. Whilst other games in the genre task the player with carrying out a lot of the work themselves, grinding away to gather resources with which to craft, The Survivalists provides some help, in the form of monkeys.

The Survivalists has an array of icons and tricky controls to get your head around.

Training monkeys is not necessarily something you’d expect to be doing in an otherwise typical survival game, and it comes with its share of problems. Particularly problematic with a controller…