The initial version was created by Tom Jackson, Jack Good, Luke Williams and James Broadley in a 48-hour period for the 2013 Global Game Jam; the developers continued and spent 48 days creating a commercial version.

[2] On 26 June 2024, Atari SA acquired the franchise from TinyBuild for an undisclosed amount and transitioned it to their Infogrames label.

Gameplay consists of the player attempting to perform various surgical procedures, for example a heart transplant.

It added the eye and teeth transplants from the iOS version along with some other features, such as operating while running through the hospital corridors.

[6] The game's protagonist is a surgeon named Nigel Burke, who has a placement at a fictional hospital somewhere in the United Kingdom in 1987.

The app includes the new corridor feature in which the player has to save Bob while carts with at least seven items pass by and have to not kill him.

[8] A Nintendo Switch version was announced in July 2018 and released on 13 September 2018, with it being branded as Surgeon Simulator CPR standing for "Cooperative Play Ready".

The game included a special local cooperative mode, allowing two players using separate Joy-Con to control Nigel's arms.

"[16] Ars Technica commented upon the narrator's voice-over, saying that it "belies the ridiculousness that unfolds as he flops and flails his way through surgery".