Cooperation dynamics on higher-order networks: A brief review

¹ School of Computer, Electronics and Information, Guangxi University - Nanning 530004, China
² School of Computer Science and Technology, Jiangsu Normal University - Xuzhou, 221116, China
³ Guangxi Key Laboratory of Multimedia Communications and Network Technology, Guangxi University Nanning 530004, China

Received: 11 June 2025
Accepted: 20 August 2025

Abstract

Higher-order interactions have attracted widespread attention in fields such as synchronization, epidemic spreading, and cascading failures, primarily due to their inherent ability to capture complex group interactions and structural dependencies that go beyond simple pairwise connections. In evolutionary game dynamics, more and more researchers are focusing on how higher-order interactions influence the evolution of collective cooperation. We review the impact of higher-order networks on the emergence of cooperation in various game scenarios, including public goods games, prisoner's dilemma games, and snowdrift games. Furthermore, we outline three promising directions for future research: how pairwise and higher-order interactions synergistically influence individual cooperative behavior; the evolution of cooperation on higher-order networks constructed from real interaction data, which is still largely unexplored; and the coevolutionary dynamics integrating evolutionary games with diverse dynamics (e.g., opinion, synchronization, epidemic spreading) on higher-order networks.