Left 4 Dead is a 2008 first-person shooter game developed by Valve South and published by Valve. It was originally released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 in November 2008 and for Mac OS X in October 2010, and is the first title in the Left 4 Dead series. Set during the aftermath of a zombie outbreak on the East Coast of the United States, the game pits its four protagonists, dubbed the "Survivors", against hordes of the infected.
Zombie apocalypse is a subgenre of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Typically only a few individuals or small bands of survivors are left living. In some versions, the reason the dead rise and attack humans is unknown, in others, a parasite or infection is the cause, framing events much like a plague. Some stories have every corpse rise, regardless of the cause of death, whereas others require exposure to the infection.
Dota 2 is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to Defense of the Ancients (DotA), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Dota 2 is played in matches between two teams of five players, with each team occupying and defending their own separate base on the map. Each of the ten players independently controls a powerful character known as a "hero" that all have unique abilities and differing styles of play. During a match players collect experience points and items for their heroes to defeat the opposing team's heroes in player versus player combat. A team wins by being the first to destroy the other team's "Ancient", a large structure located within their base.
Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) is a subgenre of strategy video games in which two teams of players compete against each other on a predefined battlefield. Each player controls a single character with a set of distinctive abilities that improve over the course of a game and which contribute to the team's overall strategy. The typical objective is for each team to destroy their opponents' main structure, located at the opposite corner of the battlefield. In some MOBA games, the objective can be defeating every player on the enemy team. Players are assisted by computer-controlled units that periodically spawn in groups and march forward along set paths toward their enemy's base, which is heavily guarded by defensive structures. This type of multiplayer online video games originated as a subgenre of real-time strategy, though MOBA players usually do not construct buildings or units. Moreover, there are examples of MOBA games that are not considered real-time strategy games, such as Smite (2014), and Paragon. The genre is seen as a fusion of real-time strategy, role-playing and action games.
Dead State is a turn-based survival horror role-playing video game developed by DoubleBear Productions and Iron Tower Studio set in a zombie apocalypse scenario. Players are tasked with leading a group of survivors living in a shelter in the fictional town of Splendid, Texas. Dead State was released in December 2014 after having been in Early Access since spring of that year. DoubleBear Productions continued to work on the title and in May 2015 released an "enhanced edition" which changed the name to Dead State: Reanimated.
Project Zomboid is an open-world, isometric video game developed by British and Canadian independent developer The Indie Stone. The game is set in the post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested exclusion zone of the fictional Knox Country, Kentucky, United States, where the player is challenged to survive for as long as possible before inevitably dying. It was one of the first five games released on the alpha funding section of the gaming portal Desura.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is a 2012 multiplayer tactical first-person shooter developed by Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment. It is the fourth game in the Counter-Strike series. Developed for over two years, Global Offensive was released for OS X, PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360 in August 2012, and for Linux in 2014.
Organ Trail is a "retro zombie survival game" that parodies the educational game series The Oregon Trail. It was initially released as a free Adobe Flash-based browser game, and later as a Facebook app. This version was developed by Ben Perez, Michael Block, and Ryan Wiemeyer. The game uses the Unity game engine.
Infestation: Survivor Stories was an open world zombie video game developed by Hammerpoint Interactive and published by OP Productions. Infestation: Survivor Stories features both first-person and third-person shooting perspectives. The game offers players the option of killing zombies or playing against other users (PvP).
Counter-Strike (CS) is a series of multiplayer tactical first-person shooter video games in which teams of terrorists battle to perpetrate an act of terror while counter-terrorists try to prevent it. The series began on Windows in 1999 with the release of the first game, Counter-Strike. It was initially released as a modification ("mod") for Half-Life that was designed by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe before the rights to the mod's intellectual property were acquired by Valve, the developers of Half-Life, who then turned Counter-Strike into a retail product released in 2000.
Unturned is a free-to-play survival game by Smartly Dressed Games, a studio consisting solely of Canadian game designer Nelson Sexton. It was released for Windows, macOS, and Linux in July 2014. Unturned allows players to create custom maps using an in-game editor. Cosmetics and mods can also be created using the game's Unity engine, which allows them to publish creations on the Steam Workshop. A retail version of the game was released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One by 505 Games in November 2020.
Zafehouse: Diaries is a turn-based strategy video game in which the player must guide the survivors of a zombie apocalypse to safety. It was released in September 2012 by the Australian independent developer Screwfly Studios, a start-up company formed by two former magazine editors.
The Long Dark is a first-person survival video game developed and published by Hinterland Studios. The player assumes the role of crash-landed bush pilot Will Mackenzie who must survive the frigid Canadian wilderness after a geomagnetic storm. The game received seed financing from the Canada Media Fund, and further funding was secured through a successful Kickstarter campaign in October 2013.
Overkill's The Walking Dead is a first-person shooter developed by Overkill Software and published by Starbreeze Studios and 505 Games. The title, based on the comics of The Walking Dead, has a strong emphasis on cooperative gameplay. The game was released worldwide for Windows in November 2018. On 26 February 2019, Skybound Entertainment terminated their contract with Starbreeze Studio, leading to the discontinuation of all efforts on the game, including cancellation of efforts to bring the game to consoles. Critical reception of the game was mixed, and it was a commercial failure.
They Are Billions is a post-apocalyptic steampunk real-time strategy survival video game developed and published by Numantian Games. Available on Microsoft Windows, it was released onto Steam's Early Access program with a survival mode in December 2017. The game was released with a campaign titled "New Empire" on June 18, 2019. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions were published by BlitWorks on July 1, 2019.
Call of Duty: Mobile is a 2019 first-person shooter video game developed by TiMi Studio Group and published by Activision for Android and iOS. Released as a free-to-play title, it was one of the largest mobile game launches in history, generating over US$480 million with 270 million downloads within a year. Call of Duty: Mobile was published in other regions by Garena, Tencent Games, VNG Corporation and TiMi Studio Group.
Crytivo is a game publishing company based in San Diego, California, founded by Alex Koshelkov in 2013.
Core Keeper is a survival sandbox game developed by Pugstorm. Currently in early access, the game features mechanics similar to other games in the sandbox genre such as Minecraft, Terraria and Stardew Valley, including mining, crafting, farming and exploration in a procedurally generated underground world. It was released to Steam in early access on 8 March 2022 and received praise for its game mechanics, art style, tone, atmosphere and ease of access to multiplayer modes. The game is set to release on Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4 in Summer 2024.
Surviving the Aftermath is a city-building game developed by Iceflake Studios, which is now a division of the game's publisher, Paradox Interactive. Players build a city in a post-apocalyptic setting, which includes elements of survival games. It follows Surviving Mars and is followed by Surviving the Abyss, all of which were published by Paradox.
