Game Modes
CastleMiner Z features four distinct game modes, each with its own rules for death, saving, and enemy behavior. Picking the right mode matters. Your save file, your inventory, and your entire world can vanish depending on which mode you choose.
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. In single-player, dying permanently deletes your world. There are no second chances and no manual saves. In online co-op lobbies, dying hits you with a 20-second respawn penalty and strips everything from your inventory except your hotbar items. If every player in the lobby dies at the same time, the entire run ends immediately.
You cannot manually save in Endurance mode. If you disconnect, crash, or close the game, your progress is gone.
Endurance is also the only mode that reliably tracks Steam achievements. If you are chasing 100% completion, play Online Endurance exclusively.
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 removes all standard ground enemies (zombies and skeletons) and throws wave after wave of escalating elemental dragons at you. This mode tests your base design, ammunition stockpiles, and combat skills to the absolute limit.
You unlock Dragon Endurance permanently on your profile by defeating the Undead Dragon in a standard Endurance run. Once unlocked, it stays available across all future sessions.