Coop survival stands for cooperative survival and is typically a video game genre where players work together to survive hordes of enemies or environmental hazards. Typically these hordes come in waves or different rounds. In this article, we cover the three most popular types of coop survival: Open World, Round-based (Wave), and Objective-based survival.
Coop survival games have been around for decades, but in the last 10-15 years it was popularized and sealed with the zombie genre as well as the rise of indie games. I’d attribute that explosion to DayZ, a popular mod for the Arma II franchise. DayZ was an open world military simulator where you have to survive a Post-Apocalyptic Zombie world. It redefined several genres, one of them being survival but not the coop survival we’re discussing here. A personal coop survival favorite of mine that was actually before DayZ is called Killing Floor, which we’ll be discussing in this article due to its unique implementation of progression and wave spawning.
1. Exploring Open World Survival
The first game type of coop survival that we'll discuss is open world survival. Previously we were discussing Dayz, which is indeed an open world survival game. I wouldn’t say DayZ actually fits into the coop survival genre though due to it lacking waves of enemies or even objectives. It would just be considered open world survival. An excellent example of this open world coop survival would be The Forest. Typically in this game type you gather resources, build buildings or defenses and usually try to survive the night. Valheim (another game) can definitely be thrown into the mix here but is also more focused on exploration. Often times these games will allow unique building strategies of buildings, walls or defenses to stave off the enemies. This involves cutting down trees, mining rocks or other minerals to craft items and buildings. This is typically how the progression is done and the survival aspect is usually attributed to enemies coming at night or in random bursts through the day.
2. The Bread and Butter: Round or Wave-Based Survival
This is the bread and butter of coop survival. It’s undoubtedly the root of the whole genre and the core explanation of Coop Survival. Cooperative survival is typically attributed to games like Killing Floor or CoD Zombies. In killing floor there was character ability progression based on if you survived the round. There was an economic system to drive upgrades and weapon purchased after each round. After each round the waves would become more intense and typically introduce new units. Each round was more and more hectic as the previous, driving any sort of plan you made into chaos. After ten rounds, you and your teammates face a boss with unique, devastating abilities. All these attributes are the core explanation of coop survival. Call of Duty Zombies would undoubtedly be one of the most popular games in the genre and follows all or nearly all of these staples. How much can you progress and how many waves or rounds can you survive. It's endless fun and provides players with the ability to develop difficult strategies or tackle waves with different abilities. Below is a video of Killing Floor.
3. Objective-Based Survival
This often comes as a unique twist of the waved based survival game type. Typically this would drive players into accomplishing objectives while fighting off hordes of enemies at or in between each objective. One of the original ones I can think of doing this (there’s probably others) was Zombie Panic! But a staple in the genre would undoubtedly be Left 4 Dead which was then solidified with Left 4 Dead 2. Objective based coop Survival is my personal favorite and would often pit players vs players creating very unique conditions and great memories. If you have never heard of Zombie Panic! take a quick read, it probably influenced more games than people know and I believe it’s free. In Zombie Panic! for example, you would start off in a room and the first objective would be for you and your team to split up. One team would turn on the power while the others would gather supplies or ammunition. The enemy team would try to position themselves to prevent players from achieving the objective. I'm a big fan of utilizing the map whenever possible and objective based survival is fantastic at that. I love the idea of different areas for different waves and different strategies. I plan on implementing it into my game ROBA.
Final Thoughts: Coop Survival and ROBA
Coop Survival is a simple premise with an endless amount of fun and oftentimes puts you in similar situations but with different tools and abilities. It’s this variance that drives players and has them coming back to see if they can progress even further. The game types of open world, wave based and objective based survival are typically staples in the genre but there are other types with other influences sprinkled into the mix. The foundation of the genre doesn't need changing it only adapts. Coop Survival is like a snowball willing to pickup any new influences it can take and bring it into the chaos that comes with it.
The game I’m developing is called ROBA will feature a coop survival mode or modes. I discuss the expectation of implementing that in my game in another blog post. This post exists as an educational foundation for me to discuss the premise of that genre in my game and how it's implemented. ROBA is an RTT game in development featuring much more than coop survival, go to the introduction blog for more info or you can follow for more updates.