I’ve played a lot of survival games, fromRusttoDon’t StarvetoArktoPalworld, but none have scratched the same itch asMinecraftwhen it comes to building. In many, it feels like a practicality first and foremost, a base to store and protect your loot, as well as a home to keep you warm while you avoid the dangers lurking in the wild. Or in some cases, other players who want to ruin your day.
Building in survival games is often finicky, relying on schematics that sometimes snap together, and other times go all over the place. It’s frequently counterintuitive and restrictive. People make giant, elaborate towns and fancy designs in these games, but that’s not the day-to-day experience. It takes talent and mastery to reach that level, or huge groups to stave off the survival elements that take centre stage. It’s not something your average Joe will experience.
Minecraft strikes an unheard-of balance because of how its world works. You’re not trying to cram building parts on top of an ill-fitting environment. Everything is made up of the same stuff - blocks. So, you’re repurposing the world around you to build your home. It’s more organic, fitting in seamlessly to allow forgreater customisation, but it’s also intuitive. You see how building works the second you generate a world.
Minecraft also doesn’t limit what you’re able to build and when. Everything is open to you the second you make a world, so long as you can find it.
Blocks are the equivalent of pixels, so you can go into much more detail. You’re not placing a wall, you’re placing blocks that make up a wall, constructing buildings brick-by-brick. The grid layout also makes placement far simpler. When survival mechanics are at the forefront of your mind, trying to master awkward DIY overnight only makes things more tedious. That’s whyMinecraft builders are so creative, because the simplicity and breadth of options available make it much easier to master and experiment with.
What sets it apart more than anything is terraforming. Because you are lifting blocks from the world itself, you are altering the environment around you. You’re not just mining rock nodes placed on top of a canvas, but rather have a full sandbox at your disposal. You can cut down entire mountains, dig directly into the caverns, and build man-made islands. There’s no limit.
Survival games strive for realism, often to their detriment, but Minecraft knows where to draw the line. Gravity doesn’t exist for most blocks and things don’t have to make logical sense to work. Being able to repurpose the environment not only means terraforming and getting materials, but it also means using what you find in the world for different, aesthetic purposes. I’ve seen people build lampshades out of grass and lily pads, use Nether foliage for carpets, and transform giant mushrooms into elaborate outposts.
Minecraft has the design philosophy of a box of Lego bricks. You can pick and choose what you find and make anything you want. It’s cliche, but the only limit is your imagination. That’s without mentioning the countless possibilities Redstone brings to the table.
The survival elements are as present as any other game in the genre, with an emphasis on hunger, resource gathering, and crafting to stave off monsters and keep yourself safe. But the building makes the endgame, where things often become trivial, so much more interesting.
Rather than hoarding resources endlessly for the sake of having it all, you’re free to build and experiment with the loot you’ve accumulated. None of it is necessary, but getting to a point where you canbuild a medieval castle for the sake of itis so much more rewarding than waiting for a server wipe to start the grind again. It makes each world so much more personal, a nostalgic imprint all on its own. That’s why Minecraft’s building is, over ten years later, still untouched in the genre.
Survival Week at TheGamer is brought to you by Nightingale -available on PC in early access February 20
Survival Week
Welcome to the home of TheGamer’s Survival Week, a celebration of all things, well, survival. Here you’ll find features, interviews, and more dedicated to this popular genre, brought to you by Inflexion Games' upcoming open-world survival crafter, Nightingale.
