Military leaders loves to take their troops into the backwoods for a quick impromptu land navigation class. Even when troops should be gearing up for combat in desert environments, they still teach them how to survive in forests. There is a lot of cross-over things to consider, regardless of where you’re at — like seeking shelter, finding water and food, how to create warmth, and survive the elements.
While it’s great to have these skills in your hip pocket, it can also make you way too intense when you go camping with your civilian friends. They will, however, make you just the right amount of intense when you play a survival game.
(DayZ by Bohemia Interactive)
There are plenty of different survival games to choose from in nearly any style. You’ve got your “seems retro but is just cheap” style, your “indie art-house” style, and your “beautiful but will eventually leave Early Access” style. Doesn’t matter what the aesthetics look like, the games all follow the same formula. They all could be played for months on a single life or just a quick match.
Whichever game you pick will almost always put you in some landscape all by your lonesome with nothing on your person. First thing you’ve got to do is build some sort of shelter as your base camp. You’ll always find loose wood around that makes for a perfect stand-to.
(Minecraft by Mojang)
Just like in real life, the next thing you have to do is find water and food. Hopefully you’ve built your shelter somewhere near a river and the food won’t follow too far behind. Unlike the real world, many of these games don’t take in water purification as a game mechanic so you’re set. It’s ill-advised to try this approach in real life.
While the games differ greatly, one of the few common tactics among survival games is building fire and torches. In real life, the torches provide warmth and light to find your way through the dark but they’re much harder to create than in game. Because you might not know what’s out there, a campfire is good enough until morning.
(Conan Exiles by Funcom)
Once you’ve got those three basic survival skills out of the way, then you can move onto whatever the objective of the game actually is. Typically, it’s just build cool things or fight mythical creatures, but in real life your goal should be to get to civilization.
(Ark: Survival Evolved by Kayd Hendricks)