Summary
Survival games are often a testament to overcoming incredible odds, eitheralone or alongside friends, and persisting against harsh environments, lethal enemies, or even other players looking to get ahead. Like some other popular genres, the difficulty is the main draw to survival games. How players can not only match the odds set against them - but overcome them - has been the core feature of many popular titles today.
So how can players track how well they’re faring in a survival title?Building a thriving community, or really any kind of functioning base, might be a start. For some games, however, the main metric for how well a player is doing is how technologically advanced they are. These survival games, in particular, have incredibly expansive tech trees - either spanning a set of ‘eras’ from the Stone Age to the Space Age or keeping to a more consistent theme - but with loads of options for players to research and explore.
Few survival or management games offerthe difficulty and immersionthatRimworlddoes. Hardly a game for the faint-hearted,Rimworldis constantly pushing players to their limits with grueling events and ever-shifting environments to adapt to.
Part of this adaptation is steadily progressing in technology.Rimworldis an interesting spin on typical tech trees as players tend to start in the ‘middle’ of it. If it means a better-defended settlement, ancient crafts of metallurgy or herbal medicine can be researched right alongside robotic and technological innovations that push players closer to finally building a ship.
Taking a much morefocused and tenseapproach to survival than most games in this genre,Green Hellinstills in the player early on in the main campaign that surviving in the Amazon is a temporary affair - only needed while searching for the protagonist’s wife.
This means players won’t be researching a tech tree that includes high-tech prefabs, air-conditioning, or anything beyond what could feasibly be strung together with fiber and wood. Within these constraints of an ‘improvised’ technology tree, however,Green Hellstill manages to offer an incredible amount of variety and individuality to what can be researched and crafted.
At the opposite end of the spectrum to the focused style ofGreen Hell’s tech tree is the colossal collection of engrams that comprisesArk: Survival Ascended’s technology tree. InArk, wooden palisades will give way to stone walls and eventually a colossal, high-tech steel base.
Asplayers level upand learn new engrams, these technologies will underpin everything they do, from clothing themselves to taming animals, to engaging in combat. Few games have a tech tree that encompasses the same breadth of technologies asArk.
Taking clear inspiration fromArk, as well asBreath of the WildandPokémon,Palworldhas risen to be one of the gaming industry’s favorite legally distinct amalgamation of the most recent trends to come out of the last decade - survival, open-world exploration, and, of course, an incredibly expansive technology tree.
AsPalworld’sfeatures continue to grow, the title’s tech tree has also become more expansive, hosting a surprising amount of firearms, technologies from several different eras, and plenty of tools to help befriend more Pals.
Standing out as an incredible title among some stiff competition inthe sci-fi survival genre,Icarushas players explore a warped, failed terraforming experiment while building up an expansive tech tree.
A great game for those who love hard sci-fi,Icarusdoesn’t encompass different ‘eras’ of technological progression likeRimworldorArkbut instead goes from low-tech to high-tech sci-fi as players continue finding more resources to craft.
Exploring a fantastical, Norse-inspired world, there is a myriad of crafting benches that players can use inValheimto improve their combat and defense capabilities, and each of these benches expands the tech tree with tiered products based on what resources are used.
It’s a classic survival formula and one thatValheimutilizes perfectly. This tech tree is oriented towards combat, in a similar fashion to something likeTerraria, as many of the magical beasts in this land are not in a talking mood.
An incredibly immersive -and incredibly difficult- zombie survival game,7 Days to Diehas a huge tech tree that rewards dedicated players with increased modes of traversal, defense, and sustenance, allowing them to eke out a comfortable living in the apocalypse.
Crafting is paramount to survival in this title. Players might be able to scrape by on scavenged gear and hastily crafted weapons for the first six days, but the seventh day brings a level of intensity that the unprepared won’t be able to handle.
From the humble beginnings of the copper shortsword and tin pickaxes,Terrariaswells to encompass a truly staggering amount of gear within its tech tree. High-tech, futuristic weaponry, fabled artifacts of myth, and weapons forged from the very flesh of gods wait in the higher tiers of this technology tree.
Players can follow this tech tree in a non-linear fashion, with plenty of ‘horizontal’ options to specialize in instead of just continually working upwards to the next, objectively best tool for their class. It’s an incredibly broad, satisfying experience for newTerrariafans and veterans alike.
