As someone else stated, the question is generally broad. A big consideration is how far into detail the game goes. The baseline tech determines the level of all of the rest of the game. So if you need 3 pieces of wood, some dry grass, and a piece of flint to start a fire - now you need to be able to chop wood, gather grass, and chip stone. If you've got to manually smelt metal, you probably won't be building a cool motorcycle or anything too advanced.

Personally, I prefer midline detail. Where hunger/thirst is tracked for the sake of immersion - where it's always something in the background to add tension, but not the focus. I don't like having to handle every nut and bolt, or having a mechanic to rub two sticks together to start a fire.

NeoScavenger is probably the game I've played that has the most detail. You spend the majority of your time inches away from starvation/freezing, clinging onto bits of string and shards of glass so you can make a crude arrow and a bow. While the game is a ton of fun and very tense, it's a different style. However, once you master the art of survival, there isn't much else to do in the game, since it's really nearly 100% of the focus.

On the flip side you have things like minecraft where survival is "eat food = don't die" and that's the end of it. Fallout: New Vegas's survival mode was very survival-lite IMO. I was a bit surprised someone above even mentioned it. Their survival mechanic was just tacked-on as an afterthought. You can gather food, but it's always available to buy cheaply. Same with water. At least with Minecraft there are multiple steps to ensure that you don't die of starvation, and it's always something you need to be aware of. In Fallout: New Vegas, you just tend to forget about it until you suddenly notice you've got a hunger de-buff.

So really, you've got games that are "[GAMETYPE] games with Survival Mechanics" and "Survival [GAMETYPE] Games". Fairly big difference in focus and play style between them.

So really, you've got games that are "[GAMETYPE] games with Survival Mechanics" and "Survival [GAMETYPE] Games". Fairly big difference in focus and play style between them.

This is indeed true. In theory all games with staying alive as a goal can be considered a survival game, however the more the player is dedicated to staying alive the more of a survival game it becomes.

For me personally Fallout: New Vegas was a survival game with survival on. Because my time is limited, I have a rule where I can only die once in a game and then can't play it again for the rest of the day.

In Fallout this meant I used a lot of water to treat small wounds, and as a result when I needed to drink all I had was radiated water; this lead to other resources being depleted.

As developers we often think that players will use the rare med-pack when near death, when instead they will often prefer dying and saving med-pack for later. A survival game should encourage a player to use what they have.

So really, you've got games that are "[GAMETYPE] games with Survival Mechanics" and "Survival [GAMETYPE] Games". Fairly big difference in focus and play style between them.

This is indeed true. In theory all games with staying alive as a goal can be considered a survival game, however the more the player is dedicated to staying alive the more of a survival game it becomes.

Survival isn't about not dying, exactly. Survivalism is a hobby that's a cross between creative anachronism and camping. It's do-it-yourselfing-from-scratch. It's knowledge of how to live without modern society and technology, whether because you are marooned in the wilderness or because zombie apocalypse.

One type of game that has a survival theme that hasn't been mentioned yet is worker placement survival games. Games like My Tribe and Virtual Villagers. These games are like playing Warcraft without the combat - you have to place your tribespeople to gather food so they don't starve, and harvest wood so they can build huts, and actually work on building the huts, and you also use them to gathering resources that spawn randomly, or perhaps chase away a monster that is bothering the tribe. Various other possibilities for mechanics might include breeding for future generations with stat bonuses, dealing with disasters like a hurricane or plague, researching to unlock new building types, choosing what education children get to affect what skills they start with as adults, planting new trees if you cut down too many, mining rock or metal, balancing multiple food types such as fruit vs. fish, etc.

Survival isn't about not dying

No, it's all about living!

I think I get what you are saying, survival elements can be found in games where players can't "die".

One type of game that has a survival theme that hasn't been mentioned yet is worker placement survival games.

These where the games I meant with settling survival games, where the player no longer survives as a person and instead works for the survival of the group.

The thing about these games is that the idea of being a group or even a person with in the group is important, in other words a person in the group should be a person and not just a resource. I think this is the key difference between such a survival game and a strategy game.

basic needs survival, exploration, combat, crafting, and construction game play have already been mentioned.

i'd add "conquer the map" to the list - its a common desire in many games once the basics are mastered. conquest can be in many forms: economic, via alliances, or good old fashioned military action. or perhaps "taking over" in some other manner specific to the game world's setting - farmville where you can buy up all the land in the valley - that kind of idea.