Survivor Series, branded as Survivor Series: WarGames since 2022, is a professional wrestling event produced annually since 1987 by WWE, the world's largest professional wrestling promotion. Held in November generally the week of Thanksgiving, it is the second longest-running pay-per-view (PPV) event in history, behind WWE's flagship event, WrestleMania. In addition to traditional PPV since the inaugural 1987 event, it has aired via livestreaming since the 2014 event. It is also considered one of the company's five biggest events of the year, along with WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, and Money in the Bank, referred to as the "Big Five".

The event is traditionally characterized by having Survivor Series matches, which are tag team elimination matches that typically features teams of four or five wrestlers against each other. Stipulations have also been added to these matches, such as members of the losing team being, in storyline, fired. Only four events have not featured the match: the 1998 event, which had an elimination tournament for the vacant WWF Championship (now WWE Championship), the 2002 event, which saw the debut of the Elimination Chamber match, and both the 2022 and 2023 events, which were based around WarGames matches for the men and women.

After WWE reintroduced the brand extension in 2016, the events from 2016 until 2021 centered around competition between wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brands for brand supremacy; NXT was also involved in 2019. In addition to Survivor Series matches between the brands, the champions of each brand faced off in non-title matches. In 2022, the brand supremacy concept was dropped and the event was rebranded as "Survivor Series: WarGames", marking WWE's first main roster event to feature the match, with the 2023 event retaining the WarGames theme; NXT had its own WarGames event from 2017 to 2021 and it was discontinued after the match was moved to Survivor Series in 2022.

The first Survivor Series, held in 1987,^[1] came on the heels of the success of WrestleMania III, as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) began to see the lucrative potential of the pay-per-view (PPV) market. The first event capitalized on the big time feud between André the Giant and Hulk Hogan, who wrestled each other at WrestleMania III. Survivor Series was originally created to counter WCW's Starrcade. The first eight Survivor Series events took place on either Thanksgiving Day (1987–1990) or Thanksgiving Eve (1991–1994). Beginning with the 1995 event, Survivor Series was held on various Sundays before Thanksgiving. The 2005 and 2006 events were held on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, while the 2022 and 2023 events were held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The 1997 event was notorious as it featured the Montreal Screwjob.^[2] Survivor Series was going to be discontinued and rebranded in 2010,^[3][4] but following fan outcry, the company decided to continue with the event.^[5] Survivor Series became the second longest running PPV event in history (behind WrestleMania),^[6] and is also regarded as one of the "Big Four" pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, and SummerSlam, the promotion's original four annual events and their four biggest events of the year.^[7] From 1993 to 2002, it was considered one of the "Big Five", including King of the Ring, but that PPV event was discontinued after 2002.^[8] In August 2021, Money in the Bank became recognized as one of the "Big Five".^[9][10]

In May 2002, the WWF was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) following a lawsuit with the World Wildlife Fund over the "WWF" initialism.^[11] In April 2011, the promotion ceased using its full name with the "WWE" abbreviation becoming an orphaned initialism.^[12] Also in March 2002, the promotion introduced the brand extension, in which the roster was divided between the Raw and SmackDown brands where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform^[13]—ECW became a third brand in 2006.^[14] The first brand extension was dissolved in August 2011,^[15] but it was reintroduced in July 2016.^[16] Survivor Series, along with the other original "Big Four" events, were the only PPVs to never be held exclusively for one brand during either brand split periods. In 2014, Survivor Series began to air on WWE's online streaming service, the WWE Network, which launched in February that year,^[17] and in 2021, the event became available on Peacock as the American version of the WWE Network merged under Peacock in March that year.^[18]

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, WWE had to present the majority of its programming for Raw and SmackDown from a behind closed doors set at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, beginning mid-March.^[19] In August, these events were relocated to WWE's bio-secure bubble, the WWE ThunderDome, hosted at Orlando's Amway Center.^[20][21][22] The 2020 Survivor Series was in turn produced from the ThunderDome^[23][24] and was WWE's final PPV to present the ThunderDome from the Amway Center, as in early December, the ThunderDome was relocated to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.^[25] In July 2021, WWE resumed live touring with fans.^[26]

The event is traditionally characterized by having the Survivor Series match, which is a type of tag team elimination match that typically features two teams of four or five wrestlers against each other. In a Survivor Series match, each member of a team must be eliminated to win. The name of the match stems from this stipulation, as the winners are the "survivors", and in some cases, there has been only one survivor. There have sometimes been an additional stipulation placed on the Survivor Series match, such as members of the losing team being (kayfabe) fired. While typically contested between two teams, the 2019 event had three teams against each other in three-way Survivor Series matches.^[30]

The promotion had several tag team elimination matches earlier in 1987, albeit with three-man teams and the feuds loosely related. In an early break from the norm, the 1992 event had only one Survivor Series match.^[47] Only four Survivor Series events have not featured any Survivor Series matches. The 1998 event was the first without any Survivor Series matches, instead focusing on an elimination tournament for the vacant WWF Championship (now WWE Championship).^[48] The 2002 event was the second event to not include any Survivor Series matches. Instead, it had an elimination tables match and a triple threat elimination tag team match (in which only one member of a team had to be eliminated to eliminate the whole team), but most notably, the event saw the debut of the Elimination Chamber match.^[49] The 2022 and 2023 events were the most recent to not include any Survivor Series matches, or any type of elimination stipulations, as both instead featured two WarGames matches, one each for the men and women, with the 2022 event also notable for being WWE's first main roster event to feature the WarGames match.^[44][50]