The Quest for Content: A Survey of Search-Based Procedural Content Generation for Video Games

Video games demand is constantly increasing, which requires the costly production of large amounts of content. Towards this challenge, researchers have developed Search-Based Procedural Content Generation (SBPCG), that is, the (semi-)automated creation of content through search algorithms. We survey the current state of SBPCG, reporting work appeared in the field between 2011-2022 and identifying open research challenges. The results lead to recommendations for practitioners and to the identification of several potential future research avenues for SBPCG.