Skip to main content

Game Modes

By ScotUpdated

Tactical Quick Answer

CastleMiner Z has six game modes: Endurance, Dragon Endurance, Survival, Creative, Exploration, and Scavenger. Endurance pushes you to travel as far as possible, cannot be saved, and ends permanently when your party dies, while Survival lets you save your world and respawn. Achievements only unlock in Endurance, which is the detail that catches most players out.

CastleMiner Z features six distinct game modes, each with its own rules for death, saving, and enemy behavior. Picking the right mode matters more than usual here, because achievements only unlock in Endurance and your world can become unrecoverable depending on which mode you chose.

Endurance Mode​

Endurance is the flagship experience. The map generates procedurally outward from the origin, and your primary goal is to travel as far as possible laterally. The further you go, the harder the enemies and the better the loot.

Death in Endurance is brutal. The world is randomized each game, cannot be saved, and the death of your party is permanent, so a wipe resets you to Day 1 instead of deleting a file. Dying carries a 20-second respawn penalty and strips everything except your hotbar items, though on Hardcore difficulty you lose the hotbar too.

warning

You cannot manually save in Endurance mode. If you disconnect, crash, or close the game, that run is over.

Endurance is also the only mode that awards Steam achievements. Survival, Creative, and Dragon Endurance give you nothing toward them no matter how long you play. Solo Endurance counts, so you do not need a lobby full of people for kill, craft, distance, or day achievements.

Survival Mode​

Survival is the standard sandbox mode for players who want to build permanent bases and explore at their own pace. You can save your world manually and resume it whenever you want.

Death in Survival is forgiving. You respawn at your original start point or at a placed teleporter beacon. Your inventory drops on the ground at your death location, but your world stays intact. This makes Survival the best choice for learning the game's crafting systems and experimenting with base designs.

Creative Mode​

Creative mode strips away the survival pressure and lets you focus purely on building. Crafting is simplified and the host can toggle enemy spawns on or off through the game interface.

Use Creative mode to test base designs, experiment with materials, and learn block placement before committing resources in Endurance or Survival.

Dragon Endurance Mode​

Dragon Endurance is an unlockable horde mode that throws escalating dragon waves at you in a fixed cycle: Fire, Forest, Sand, Frost, then Undead, before looping back to a stronger Fire Dragon. This tests your base design, ammunition stockpiles, and combat skills to the limit.

It does not remove all ground enemies, despite the common claim. Zombies do not spawn, but skeletons still appear in caves and aliens still spawn at Alien Crash Sites, so you cannot treat the ground as safe.

You unlock Dragon Endurance permanently by defeating the Undead Dragon in a standard Endurance run. One warning: the wave difficulty resets every time you exit to the main menu, so a long climb through the cycle is lost the moment you quit out.

Exploration and Scavenger Modes​

Later updates added two more modes. Exploration and Scavenger both support Loot Blocks, the gold blocks that drop three items including laser rifles and diamond gear. Scavenger in particular is where Loot Blocks appear most often, making it the practical place to farm high-tier equipment, since Loot Blocks never spawn in Endurance or Dragon Endurance.

Frequently Asked Questions​

What happens when you die in Endurance mode?

You get a 20-second respawn penalty and lose everything except your hotbar items, or everything including the hotbar on Hardcore. The world is randomized per game and cannot be saved, and party death is permanent, so a wipe sends you back to Day 1.

Can you save your world in CastleMiner Z?

You can save manually in Survival mode and resume it whenever you want. Endurance has no manual save, so a disconnect, crash, or closing the game ends that run.

Which mode is best for beginners?

Survival is the best choice for learning. You respawn at your start point or a placed teleporter beacon, your inventory drops at your death location, and your world stays intact.

How do you unlock Dragon Endurance mode?

Defeat the Undead Dragon in a standard Endurance run. It then unlocks permanently, though note the wave difficulty resets every time you exit to the main menu.

Which mode should I play for Steam achievements?

Endurance, and only Endurance. Survival, Creative, and Dragon Endurance award no achievements at all. Solo Endurance works fine, so you do not need a full lobby.