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# Why More Survival Games Don't Let You Poop
- URL: https://aftermath.site/survival-games-bathroom/
- Published: 2026-10-27T13:46:37.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-27T13:46:37.000Z
- Description: 'Escaping a jaguar with food poisoning and requiring a pit stop is a terrible way to die'
- Author: Riley MacLeod
- Tags: Inside Baseball Week 2026, Feature, survival games, Abiotic Factor, neo scavenger, ostranauts, green hell, Video Games, inside baseball week

Every survival game has to limit which facets of human life it simulates, lest it turn into something mind-warpingly complex or even fundamentally unplayable. At the same time, many survival games strive to include as much as possible, no matter how minute. You have to think about the weight of your socks in *The Long Dark* or how to entertain your character during *Project Zomboid*’s post-apocalypse, alongside mainstays like hunger, thirst, temperature, and fatigue. So why, in a genre so devoted to nitpicking over the annoyances of living in a human body, don’t more survival games have your character poop? 

There are plenty of games with [poop](https://www.inverse.com/gaming/video-game-poop-earthbound-death-stranding?ref=aftermath.site) *in* them. [*Don’t Starve*](https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Manure?ref=aftermath.site) lets the player use animal poop as fertilizer for crops or fuel for a fire, and [*Cult of the Lamb*](https://www.thegamer.com/cult-of-the-lamb-poop-variations-effects-colors-explained/?ref=aftermath.site) features a variety of poops that have different bonuses. Animal droppings exist in [*Green Hell*](https://greenhell.fandom.com/wiki/Animal%5FDroppings?ref=aftermath.site) and forest simulator [*Polypine*](https://www.reddit.com/r/incremental%5Fgames/comments/1aoulp7/in%5Fmy%5Fgame%5Fyou%5Fclick%5Fon%5Fanimals%5Fto%5Fmake%5Fthem%5Fpoop/?ref=aftermath.site). Some non-survival games let your character poop, including [*Death Stranding*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrYizEiwvoE&ref=aftermath.site)*,* [*South Park: The Fractured But Whole*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufCZXZzDt1c&ref=aftermath.site)*,* and even [*Animal Crossing: New Horizons*](https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimalCrossing/comments/133tqme/i%5Fhad%5Fno%5Fidea%5Fyou%5Fcould%5Factually%5Fpoop%5Fin%5Facnh/?ref=aftermath.site). But most survival games eschew the need for your character themselves to use the bathroom, even games that rigorously model most other biological functions. 

“Early versions of *Green Hell* featured a shitting mechanic. As it's a realistic survival game with a lot of illness and vomiting, it was natural to explore its potential,” Michał Stawicki, game director at *Green Hell* developer Creepy Jar, told Aftermath in an email. “Unfortunately, we quickly found it irritating and irrelevant to the gameplay… There may be some potential in this type of feature, but we certainly didn't want to explore it further in our game."

Of course, there *are* survivalgames willing to explore this potential. Roadtrip game [*My Summer Car*](https://store.steampowered.com/app/516750/My%5FSummer%5FCar/?ref=aftermath.site)has your character [need to urinate](https://my-summer-car.fandom.com/wiki/Player%5Fattributes?ref=aftermath.site#Urine); urine can be used as coolant for your car, or become an environmental hazard. Survival game *SCUM* [strives to be](https://scumgame.com/?ref=aftermath.site) the “most realistic simulation of the human body” and so features a complex tracking system of your character’s stomach, [intestine, colon, and bladder](https://scum.fandom.com/wiki/Metabolism?ref=aftermath.site). Unlike survival games that mostly see eating and drinking as calories or hydration in and out, *SCUM* models food moving complexly through the body, and requires players to actively push it out as pee, poop, or vomit.

Alongside animal poop, your character also poops in [*ARK: Survival Evolved*](https://ark.fandom.com/wiki/Human%5FFeces?ref=aftermath.site), and poop can be used as fertilizer, or even [eaten](https://www.reddit.com/r/ARK/comments/10mchp4/i%5Fate%5Fa%5Fbag%5Fof%5Fpoo/?ref=aftermath.site) at the cost of some of the player’s health. Susan Stieglitz, cofounder of *ARK* developer Studio Wildcard, told Nathan at the [Game Developers Conference in 2016](https://kotaku.com/ark-survival-evolved-added-poop-to-avoid-putting-in-a-1765591209?ref=aftermath.site) that they added the player’s ability to poop “as a solution to the idea of a suicide hot key,” explaining that if a player were to become irreparably trapped somewhere in the game, “it’s the only conceivable biological function you could kill yourself with.”

Some survival games have complex systems for bathroom needs that might not be visible to the player. Daniel Fedor from Blue Bottle Games told Aftermath in an email that the studio’s first release, [*Neo Scavenger*](https://kotaku.com/fantastic-survival-game-neo-scavenger-is-now-on-mobile-1797317819?ref=aftermath.site), “modeled gastrointestinal conditions in a fairly complex way, but did not have a specific mechanic or UX for excreting.” Rather than being everyday needs, these conditions were the results of the character contracting [diseases](https://neoscavenger.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Diseases?ref=aftermath.site) from dirty water or bad food. 

The studio’s latest game, [*Ostranauts*](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1022980/Ostranauts/?ref=aftermath.site), “uses a lot of the same modeling as *Neo Scavenger*, but takes it a bit further by adding a StatDefecate” via its [bowels](https://ostranauts.wiki.gg/wiki/Health%5Fand%5FSafety?ref=aftermath.site#Bowels) system, whereby the need to defecate grows over time or from actions like drinking coffee. The need “can be relieved by using toilets. The player can choose not to use the toilet, but side effects can include straining and fecal impaction, which comes with pain, sweating, fatigue, loss of appetite, and several other physical/social debuffs.” 

Likewise, comedic, *Half-Life* inspired game [*Abiotic Factor*](https://aftermath.site/abiotic-factor-is-half-life-without-gordon-freeman/) gives characters a [need to go to the bathroom](https://abioticfactor.wiki.gg/wiki/Statuses?ref=aftermath.site#Continence), which also increases with eating and drinking. Players can use a toilet to deal with this, but if they ignore the need for too long, they’ll poop themselves. Doing so, or stepping in poop on the floor, gives them a debuff called [Stinky](https://abioticfactor.wiki.gg/wiki/Stinky?ref=aftermath.site) that can alert enemies to their presence. Going on the floor or using a [makeshift toilet](https://abioticfactor.wiki.gg/wiki/Makeshift%5FToilet?ref=aftermath.site) results in a [bag of feces](https://abioticfactor.wiki.gg/wiki/Bag%5Fof%5FFeces?ref=aftermath.site) (though if you go on the floor, you’ll need to provide your own bag), which can be used in crafting. Voice lines indicate when the character needs to poop, and the act itself is executed through playing a mini-game.

“Given we were making a survival game, we naturally considered all our options for survival systems,” Henry Feltham, narrative director at *Abiotic Factor* studio Deep Field, told Aftermath in an email. “Early experimentation and prototyping showed us that our toilet/poop system was fun, so it became about how we could make it distinctive and our own. We wanted to give meaning and reason to the mechanic, so things like incorporating poop into other systems made sense, and adding voice lines that get more urgent as your need to defecate grows. We went through a few iterations of the mini-game, too, to make it more engaging.”

Fedor was first inspired to think about bathroom needs in Blue Bottle’s games as a contrast to other survival games. “I wanted to model the more mundane survival needs, since a lot of games at the time were more combat-focused. After researching some of the more core needs (shelter, water, food, sleep, etc.) and their failure states, it became clear a lot of the side effects involved usual suspects like vomiting, diarrhea, and headaches.”

There were benefits to this approach–said Fedor, “By using real-world symptoms, I could source real-world stats to get numbers into the game, and focus the game design effort on giving players plausible tools to address those issues”--but it also introduced complications. 

“If I wanted these sorts of side effects to matter, I'd need a system where these would carry gameplay weight. States like infection, rapid dehydration, and slowed healing rates could all be triggered by the above symptoms if I had a palette of effects to play with… Probably if I was left to work without time pressure, bathroom breaks would've made it into *Neo Scavenger*, too. And, looking at *Ostranauts*, you can see that borne out.”

For *Green Hell*’s decision not to include pooping, the challenges were less about gameplay systems and more about the player experience. 

“*Green Hell* is a first-person game, so the first problem is the perspective—you can't see your back, and you don't know when \[defecating is\] happening,” said Stawicki. “The second is the need to stop during the act, and–as you might guess–escaping a jaguar with food poisoning and requiring a pit stop is a terrible way to die.”

But this act of having to stop–of not just needing to go to the bathroom, but needing to find a *place* to go–can be a bonus rather than a detriment. Both Fedor and Feltham felt that players having to find a toilet added something to their games. Feltham said that the need “provides an additive aspect to level design and exploration–find the toilet!” 

Said Fedor, “For bowels specifically, the question of where to poop on a spaceship, while days of travel from port, is not a small one!”

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/10/osttoilet2-1.png)

Ostranauts ([MO Chad/Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CY2fAWaU7k&ref=aftermath.site))

Finding a bathroom also tied into the tone of Blue Bottle’s games: “*Ostranauts* and *Neo Scavenger* highlight the fragility of humans, and how messy (and messed-up) we are. How and where we dispose of things is just as significant and interesting as where we get our things.” 

Pooping is also key to the tone of *Abiotic Factor*. Feltham called the game “scientific but fun;” bathroom needs straddle both those moods, being “one of those mechanics that is foundational, and grounds in the world reality we want to create, but also progresses in interesting and unexpected ways.”

This issue of tone is likely a main reason more survival games don’t include pooping. Going to the bathroom is often a private matter; watching your character go in a game might feel voyeuristic or inappropriate. Poop itself can be [physically dangerous](https://www.poison.org/articles/feces?ref=aftermath.site) (as *Abiotic Factor*’s Stinky condition humorously models), but many cultures also consider it taboo in a broader sense, falling into the category of things anthropologist Mary Douglas calls “[matter out of place](https://www.routledge.com/Purity-and-Danger-An-Analysis-of-Concepts-of-Pollution-and-Taboo/Douglas/p/book/9780415289955?ref=aftermath.site).” One way humans address their anxiety around poop is by turning going to the bathroom [into a joke](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/parenting/kids-potty-humor.html?ref=aftermath.site); while this works for the tone of a comedic game like *Abiotic Factor,* it might ruin the tone a more serious game is going for. *Palworld*, for instance, once included poop, but [the developers told website Game8](https://game8.co/articles/featured/palworld-1-0-pre-release-interview?ref=aftermath.site) that it was “a bit too silly for *Palworld*.”

“I really think it comes down to taste and budget, more than anything,” Fedor said of including bathroom mechanics. As an example of a game where poop might ruin things, he cited parkour game *Mirror’s Edge* as one that wouldn't “benefit much from side missions to find a place to poop mid-run. Though now I say it, I can't help but immediately start wondering if even that might be false? That could actually be fun. But that *would* probably spoil the mood they were going for.”

“I think it really depends on tone and implementation,” said Feltham. For Deep Field, “any systemic addition is about incorporating it in a way that serves and enhances the whole game. Even the most generic systems, we want to incorporate in our own way–e.g., a poop mini-game–so that everything integrates and elevates the entire experience.”

However, “In a lot of games, shitting just wouldn’t marry up with the gameplay as a whole, I suppose.” 

Beyond changing a game’s tone, poop mechanics can also introduce a cascade of design choices that can fundamentally alter a game. Fedor said that games might come up against a “lack of opportunity for mechanical tie-ins. There may be tracking of hunger, thirst, or shelter, but if there's no meaningful penalty or benefit from bathroom use, it's going to feel redundant or meaningless. And using some other stat like a shelter boost or hunger boost from the bathroom will feel weirdly forced.”

Adding these mechanics and their effects can “quickly snowball” into what he called an “uncanny valley for design:” “Adding new mechanics can often imply other mechanics should exist… Then the team has to decide how far to chase it. The more one adds to a game, the more stark the negative design space becomes.”

Pooping might not be right for *every* game, but Fedor thinks it could fit into more games than it currently does. “I think my view of bathroom needs is that they're an interesting design question. Before this interview, I may have assumed they wouldn't fit in some games.But even deliberately trying to choose a game where it wouldn't fit above, my mind immediately found reasons to disagree.”

And Feltham sees rising to the challenge of poop as a key part of the survival genre: “The challenge with this kind of mechanic is to elevate something mundane into something fun. Survival is fundamentally mundane, in my opinion, so it goes to the core of what this genre is about - turning necessity into engaging gameplay.”

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