What's your recommended survival crafting game to play solo?
Basically the title. I think I've come to accept that as basic as it sounds, this is one of my favorite genres.
The issue I frequently run into is that so many of them are designed around PvP and / or Co-Op. Like ARK, I love the idea, but most of the mechanics are for PvP servers, which I have zero interest in.
Funny enough I'm not too into true survival games (Green Hell, The Forest), as I kinda enjoy the whole "Combine iron with two sticks and make an automatic weapon" progression of other games in the genre.
Obviously I've played Minecraft & Terraria, but also Subnautica, Palworld, Satisfactory (sort of counts), and NMS and enjoyed all of those.
Project Zomboid seems like it has too steep of a learning curve for me to get into.
I tried Astroneer, but the utter lack of base building and organization drove me up the wall.
EDIT: Forgot V Rising, which I also enjoyed solo, but it's definitely built with a PvP server in mind, which kind of makes progression in solo feel like you're aiming for a goal that doesn't exist.
I appreciate everyone's suggestions, I think I may give Raft or Project Zomboid a go.
Raft is super fun.
The idea is you wake up on a raft in the middle of the ocean, and you have to collect pieces of garbage from the ocean and use them to build your raft.
You occasionally float past islands which you can collect more items from. Standard crafting survival gameplay loop exists here: find a new material, unlock the things you can built with that material.
You can go freaking massive with it. Tons of people in the Raft subreddit have build cruise ship sized rafts. Its kind of a cool twist on the typical survival game. Instead of building a base then moving to a new one, your base comes with you continually and you keep adding to it.
Its also pretty relaxed. As long as you keep yourself fed and drink water, you don't have to do any PvE combat unless you want to, and you can prepare yourself adequately beforehand.
Also, as others have said: Valheim.
Raft for relaxed, Valheim for a PvE challenge.
If you're not going to play it (or if you're not afraid of spoilers), I recommend clicking through this video, it's the type of game that can be completely broken in ways that I found very funny.
I can't recommend Let's Game it Out enough if you need a few good laughs. Also, he's a genius at finding game exploits, so in some cases ( ahem Outpath ) his videos are a real time saver.
Thanks, video is super funny and interesting.
That's actually the second video he made of Raft. This is the first, though it's not quite as funny to me.
I can very much recommend "The Long Dark"! My recommendation is to play it in "Sandbox" mode instead of "Story" mode. Sandbox mode in this game is not to be confused with "creative mode" as in Minecraft where you have all items available to you... Sandbox just means you spawn and try to to survive for as long as possible making your own adventure (whereas story mode means you play it with certain objectives in a more kind of linear way).
I also currently play "Valheim" solo, which is a lot of fun, too.
I did try the Long Dark, got it in a bundle a while ago. I believe I tried sandbox, but I kind of just spawned into the world and slowly started dying with literally no idea what I was supposed to do.
Yeah, I can understand that. Dying is very much part of this game, especially in the beginning :-)
If you want to give it another try, I would suggest selecting the starting region "Mystery Lake" (this was the first region in the game, and is very beginner friendly). For difficulty, choose the lowest or second to lowest. Walk around until you find a railway, then follow that railway until you see a house some 50 yards next to it (called "Camp Office").
As for what to do... I am sure there are beginner guides on youtube that explain it better, but here is my quick rundown. You need to cover the following needs: warmth, fatigue, hunger, thirst.
When you spawn, you will not be thirsty, hungry or fatigued. So use your first actions to try and find buildings and pick up any items you find, most notably you will need a knife, a hatchet, matches, a cooking pot and any clothing items. Also pick up any sticks on the ground which can be used to make fires. In easier difficulties, you will most likely find ready made food (chips, jerky, dog food, etc) and sodas to drink. It should be possible to survive many days on that.
You can sleep inside buildings which often have beds, or you can use your bedroll (press space for quick-dial menu, then choose camp-craft > bedroll). If your building has an oven or stove, you can make fires there, or you can start fires outside on the ground through the camp-craft menu. Use fires to melt snow into water, then boil the water to make it drinkable. You will need a container such as the cooking pot (or empty cans) to melt/boil water. Snow cannot be picked up; whenever there is a fire, you can just select "melt snow"; this works both inside and outside.
Your first "real" food will be from deer carcasses you find. Carcasses can be harvested for meat using a knife or hatchet. The more frozen the carcass, the longer it will take to harvest. You can place a fire next to it to unfreeze it. Carcasses also have hides and guts. These items must be dried inside a building by placing them on the ground for a few days. Same for birch and maple saplings. Hint: you can move things around by right-clicking them. With these items you will eventually be able to make clothes and even bows/arrows at a workbench. (Be sure to pick up any arrows you find, their metal arrow heads are very valuable in the beginning until you find a forge to create your own arrow heads much later in the game.) With the bow you can then hunt deers & wolves for real. Of course, you might be lucky and find a hunting rifle in the meantime (which has finite ammo, but is nevertheless a good way to start hunting as well).
I had a similar experience. I spawned in, broke my ankle somehow running to the first cave, tried to make a fire and then died of a combination of blood loss and hypothermia. Little too intense for me. I'll probably try again some day after watching some more tutorials.
I definitely recommend playing story mode. It teaches you the basics in an new player friendly environment. You have saves so if you make a mistake and die, you can just reload instead of having to start all over again.
Once you get the hang of the mechanics and basics, then you can try survival mode and have a chance at actually surviving
After reading some of the other comments, I'm starting to think that I played before story mode was a thing? I might give it another try with story mode as that seems a bit more my speed.
It's definitely the way to start out. It guides you through the basics, and provides a safety net in the form of being able to save and load (something you can't do in survival) so if you mess up, you can just reload a save and learn from your mistake without losing hours of progress.
I definitely think you should give it another try in story mode and see how it goes for you.
I dont know why people recommend jumping into survival without doing story mode. It makes no sense.
You definitely should do story mode, at least the first 2 chapters of it because it teaches you all the basics through the quests and side quests.
I would recommend giving it another try and doing story mode.
Unpopular opinion: story mode seriously sucks if you want survival mode.
I had the game years before the story mode was released. Honestly learning your surroundings is probably the #1 thing, and having the story mode just hand that to you on a silver platter made the game feel so devalued. Despite Raph's visions and whatnot, the game is amazing as a survival game... which should imply it's about surviving, not a walkthrough story. And, unfortunately through the years, the story mode has done nothing to impress me. I just wish the last segment would come out so I can play it and be done with that and say I played it all and just go back to survival.
While I don't actively dislike story mode as you do, I did enjoy survival a lot more. I also got the game long before story mode came out, and had to actually figure out how to survive. It felt deeply rewarding to figure out how to play and what to do, instead of being spoonfed everything. That said, I understand that a lot of games ease people into things, so when a game doesn't do that it can feel jarring and difficult.
Survival is much more my jam than the story mode - I haven't played in a while, but I think I was on day 90 or something the last time I played, and had a healthy stockpile available.
That's exactly how I feel in retrospect. I am rather active on the discord, so I know there are a ton of folks who love the story mode, and more power to them... But as it was originally pitched to me as a survival game, it did absolutely great at that aspect.
And honestly, it took 3 chapters of Wintermute before I decided that story mode sucked. The first was seriously brutal, but they ended up redoing the whole thing and making it super easy (now you can walk almost directly to the house after the plane crash; before you had to walk to the bridge at Spruce Falls and all around).
I love both sides of the game, flaws and all.
Survival is a great big open sandbox with lots to explore and do, but once you've gotten all the achievements and feats and explored every map, there's nothing to do.
Story mode gives you plenty to do, but sometimes the quests are a bit lame and the story isn't anything groundbreaking for sure, but it's definitely intriguing and keeps me interested in how it'll all wrap up.
The game does not teach you mechanics in survival. You have to figure every single thing out on your own and for new players that can be a huge turn off who otherwise might love this game. I guarantee I would never have developed a love for this game if I'd just been dropped into survival and told good luck. Holy shit is that a horrible experience to try to get someone invested in a game.
You need to start with story mode to get those foundations that you then build upon in survival. I think saying the game hands everything to you on a silver platter is a bit harsh.
Story mode provides a great tutorial learning experience, where a new player can learn the game with a safety net, and can learn from their mistakes without losing everything. Many players would probably never play the game again if they dropped into survival and ended up dying 10/15/20 hours in and found out they just lost all that progress.
Most new players picking up TLD for the first time are coming in mostly blind and don't have that mindset that survival needs. That's something that needs to be built up over time with confidence gained from story mode. This isn't Dark Souls and I don't think it should be treated that way. Sure it can if that's what you want, but not every player wants that, and it shouldn't be the default.
And story mode might be cake walk for us because we've played hundreds of hours of this game and know a lot. But a brand new player is got to make a lot of mistakes.
I just recently got a friend to try the game and they basically got to an unplayable state right at the start of story mode because it took them a long time to figure out the UI and backpack and by the time they bandages the blood loss from the crash, they'd lost so much condition, they were stumbling around at the crash site and never would've made it to town.
Then later they walked out in a blizzard naked because they didn't realize clothes in your backpack are equipped, so they emptied their backpack for space, not realizing they were removing their clothes as well.
These are dumb, simple things players need to learn early without consequences for or it becomes a frustrating game.
If they dropped into survival, and 10 hours in they got attacked by a wolf and died because they couldn't figure out how to bandage in the UI fast enough, they would've immediately dropped the game and never touched it again. And I honestly couldn't blame them for that experience. As it was they were already annoyed at the UI but were able to load an auto save from both those situations, making the consequences of those learning moments just a couple minutes, which is fine. So if you added losing hours and hours of progress on top of that frustration, players would never play this game and grow to love it.
I had a similar experience my first time. I couldn't figure out the UI and never made it out of the crash site and left the game. Didn't touch it for years because of that annoyance, and then finally because it kept coming up in threads and recommendations I decided to give it another shot and now it's one of my favorite games of all time.
All that wall of text to say: the first experience matters a lot and most new players are not going to have a good experience dropped into survival with no knowledge at all.
Story mode and survival go hand in hand. Yin and yang, peanut butter and jelly. You can dislike it because it's easy, or the story doesn't interest you, that's perfectly fine. But I don't think you should discount it as a tutorial and learning experience for new players.
That's exactly how I started the game. But I think you're generalizing the wrong aspect: it's not that people who find the game difficult need story mode to figure how survival works, it's more like people who don't like figuring things out on their own and want/need guidance (that's not an insult, it's just how people prefer to enjoy their gaming). I'm no Dark Souls fan, and I don't personally like hitting my head on my keyboard until I get things right. But TLD (survival) is definitely something that requires people to understand some perhaps not-so-intuitive mechanics. You can do the story mode and have it handed to you, or you can try to figure it out on your own. That's going to be a personal preference.
I started it before the story mode was available. It had a pretty steep learning curve, but honestly if you play on the easiest mode and learn the maps (or find them online - when I started there were options but not the in-game mapping feature). Knowing the layout is a huge key. Personally, I feel the story mode just hands you everything on a platter - the game should be difficult, because it's about being thrown into a mode "you" (the character) wasn't expecting or acclimated to.
Honestly, I hate the story mode. It's been meh at best (and when they revamped the first chapter and made it WAY easier, I was quite disappointed), and I'm not the type who likes difficult games for difficult sake. I don't even like the cold, so I was shocked the game was so appealing.
The story mode might be helpful, then. There's a bit more guidance.
If you want to try the same mechanics in a different genre, you could give Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead a try. It's a survival and crafting focused roguelike with a zombies/aliens/giant-mutant-insects backstory.
CDDA is an amazing game that I will praise to high heavens (even if the main dev is an unpleasant person with no sense of how to manage a collaboratively developed project), but its learning curve is up there with Dwarf Fortress.
I put 80 hours into Valheim, before pausing to let them add more content (which they have since done, and I am considering a return soon). This is a pretty classic survive, craft, base build, bossfight third person action game. Highly recommended.
CDDA as mentioned elsewhere is pretty deep. But it has a similar complexity to Zomboid and so it might not suit your wants.
I recommend The Riftbreaker for a different emphasis on the various survival, crafting and basebuilding elements. It leans less on the supply chain logistics than Factorio, and more on the defensive base building and large-scale entity fighting. It's sort of a Factorio-lite with more action. It's a good singleplayer game. Most of the negative reviews are sad because the devs aren't going to be able to fulfill their promise of coop. But, since that doesn't matter to you, you might enjoy it as much as I did.
I second valheim. Although I've mostly played it with friends. It's still great solo. And the building mechanics are hands down the best I've ever used. I have around about 1500 hrs in valheim, and the vast majority of that is building stuff.
I also really enjoy setting up dedicated servers for new groups of friends to play on. I try to take a back seat as far as progression goes and just let the new folks kinda dictate the pace they want to go at. Instead, I just spend my time building out infrastructure for others to use. But it seems like a lot of times, people tend to lose interest around the swamp biome and just kinda wander off to other games. Which is a shame, because imo swamp is a low point, and once you get past it, the game really opens up.
Valheim is great, I'd definitely recommend it, but it has some features I just didn't like. Granted, I got over them (and also found some console commands :) - I think I just felt it was a building/management sim and the regular critter attacks definitely made me start growing in the game, but definitely put a twist on it (honestly I got the game knowing absolutely nothing about it, and I think I skipped through the intro/tutorial the first time I tried it out). Went back a couple years later and got into it. Also played with a friend, and honestly it was almost better... except I, like OP, am not a fan of playing with others.
This post is so close to describing my taste that I feel like I could have written it. (Was I sleep typing?)
You should check out The Planet Crafter if you haven't already. The last couple of updates added some nice automation, and I think it would definitely scratch the itch.
I actually bought Planet Crafter on launch, but it was pretty rough, so I haven't touched it since. I'm assuming it's better now.
EDIT: Oh that aged me, that was over 3 years ago.
Yeah, I think it's worth another look at least. There have been a lot of updates, and they made the official 1.0 release a couple of months ago. I'm not sure if the dev team has more planned, but it feels pretty complete as is.
I didn't play it at launch, but I did pick it up recently and played for 10 hours or so. My assessment is that it's still pretty rough. Theres a kernel of a good game in there, but it has a long way to go still.
I just uninstalled it earlier today (was about halfway through Insects stage). I agree about it being rough. It's a great idea, but the idea can only carry the jank for so long. It still feels like an early access game.
Can I ask what jank you or @j3n may be talking about? I'm not really invested in defending the game, but I didn't really see much difference between it and something like Subnautica. In fact, I feel like there were more frustrating bugs in the latter.
I might also be biased because I play a lot of modded Minecraft, so it's possible I've trained myself to look past jank. 😂
The most janky thing is building. My personal most-hated thing is the snapping, as the game does a terrible job letting you move between two near-by snap points. But building overall is very limited. Subnautica's building is about twice as versatile and much easier to do thanks being able to swim around the structure (Subnautica is a clear and obvious influence on Planet Crafter's buildings; I initially mistook Planet Crafter for that team's next game as a result of the almost identical visual style of everything).
The most clumsy thing is the inventory management as you enter mid/late game. Initially, it's not too bad, but it lacks decades-old improvements such as
This reached a tipping point for me (and is why I uninstalled) during the Insects phase, where you need to turn Larva into actual insects (which you use in further crafting). It takes >10 inventory clicks (at minimum, in multiple containers) to make 1 Bee Larva, and you need to make a lot of those (and they take >1 minute to make, for each larva). When I realized that to make a couple dozen Bee larva I would need to perform hundreds and hundreds of inventory clicks over the course of ~1 hour, I just stopped caring.
If the game had "Craft From Nearby Containers" than this wouldn't have been an issue at all, but the lack of that makes progression so cumbersome and tedious that it stopped being worth it for me.
The most boring/undeveloped thing is the terraforming progression. Progression is resource limited and time gated, and there isn't much of the resources you need after the 1st tier structures (specifically, Ozmium(*) is way too rare for how much you initially need it). You'll end up making 1 of each of the structures you need and then stand around waiting for the terraforming index to tick up. You can (if you have infinite patience) collect enough resources to create a lot of the low tier structures, but that just feels like pure grinding.
And the actual progression is just waiting. Building structures accelerates the progress, but it doesn't change that it's a waiting game. It's clear that the devs know this because they added Satellites that speed up progression - by 1000% per satellite. These are expensive but absolutely required, and making and launching them is pretty tedious. These are also resource limited.
Additionally, your terraforming structures have nothing to do with how the world terraforms. The world will proceed along a fixed terraformation, and where you place different things (like grass spreaders, flower spreaders, insect spreaders, etc.) has no impact on how the world terraforms. You can try to spread a particular tree type in an area, but the world will just grow the pre-determined tree type in that area.
I think the game is worth playing, if only to see a game that actually takes on the idea of terraforming. But I don't think it's a game worth finishing.
(*) Ozmium is mine-able, but only after hours of waiting for the Tier 2 Ore Extractor to unlock - and that needs Ozmium as well, so you're probably taking apart your earlier machinery in order to make your first Ozmium extractor.
edit: it's less janky and more focused than modded minecraft, but modded minecraft also has tons of convenience features (like AE2) that eliminate the basic frustrations as you make progress. This game has none of that.
I appreciate the detailed response. Not trying to convince you to give it another shot, since it seems like you are over the experience. But there are some specific things that do address a lot of your issues. For one, the Autocrafter that you can unlock midgame can be used to craft anything that is craftable in the game, and it can pull from inventories in range. Secondly, you can unlock drones a little later that can be used to move things around automatically. The challenge is setting up logistics to provide things where you need them and when. Late game feels very similar to playing with Refined Storage in Minecraft. I ended up with a massive storage facility at the end that contained stacks of every single item in the game (intermediate and final products).
Bee larva are a side product of the tier 2 beehive, so at some point mid-late game I was literally trashing bee larva because I had so many. There are definitely balancing issues there, but that happens with a lot of games with complex progression.
One of the most recent updates made it so that trees that you place in tree spreaders show up all over the planet in random places. Frogs, fish, and butterflies already had this mechanic. The devs have not yet expanded the feature to flowers AFAIK, which is a shame.
I ran into some gated progression issues as well. I think it was the fish farm that was unlocked way too late, so by the time I could farm fish I had already moved on to the next phase. I did circle back, but it broke immersion a bit.
Overall I'd say finishing was worth it to me. There are some neat hidden bases in the game that lead to extra story elements. It was very satisfying to sit back and have my drones take care of everything while I tied up loose threads and polished my final base. The ending felt very bittersweet, much like Subnautica. I knew it was time to move on, as I had accomplished everything. But it was hard to leave this beautiful place that I had made my own.
This gave me a good chuckle, thanks!
I remember thinking 3 years was a long time, many moons ago. Now, 3 years is more like a blink.
As others have mentioned, Zomboid and The Long Dark are gems; I also recommend Subnautica as a very polished, well-contained little survival game with beautiful, atmospheric visuals.
It's not a "survival" game at its core but I think Space Engineers might help scratch your itch as well. There are several ways to play this game and not all of them are very survival-y, but I've enjoyed several playthroughs where I start on a planet and have the goal of getting off said planet into space; the search for resources, building a base and several small vehicles to explore and mine, teching up and then finally building that final ship that can get you out of the atmosphere - it's all a pretty decent survival experience, especially if you choose to do it on a planet with low/no atmosphere so that you have to pay attention to oxygen levels on top of everything else. If you want food/water survival needs then there are a few mods that provide that; it's a very moddable game, with several survival-geared mods to make the scenario more challenging if that's what you're going for.
Maybe 7 Days to Die? It's about to hit its 1.0 release, and as such it's a great time to give it a go. It can be played MP, but I've loved it playing single player.
I really enjoy this one Minecraft modpack called Blightfall.
It uses some of the more expansive mods like Thaumcraft and Applied Emergistics.
You are a colonist on an alien world that has been overtaken by this cordyceps like infestation that covers the whole game map. Your goal is to try and survive and figure out how to cleanse the planet using a combination of magic and technology.
Blightfall was pretty great but back when I played the "endgame" idea of cleansing the whole world with an airship and making a mobile chunk cleaning tool was completely broken and that really killed it for me.
Is there a "real" endgame now?
Yes, they updated the Dawn Machine so it can clean the whole map from a fixed position if its fed with all essentia.
Although at some point they changed the crafting requirement so you need endgame boss drops to make it, which I dont like. So I reverted to an older version before that.
Dope. I am tempted to set up a new server.
I've been playing Starbound, and it is much in that vein of crafter like Minecraft/Terraria. I got a bit side tracked with my trip and starting up a new character after installing a bunch of mods my friend recommended.
So it plays much like Terraria, a 2D crafter, but it also has space travel to different systems/planets. There is also more structure in terms of a storyline.
Starbound also has a decent modding community, in case the base game leaves you wanting more. Some of the mods can be a bit grindy though, so YMMV.
Project Zomboid isn't that bad of a learning curve, really. There's lots of nuance to late-game or high-level play, but if you go in accepting that every run has an end you can have a good bit of fun with it even if you die in the first few weeks. This is a good time to get into it, too. It's been a while since the last major patch, so the game is stable and has a very robust mod ecosystem for tweaks and expansions to the experience if that's what you want. It's even 33% off at the moment for the Steam Summer Sale.
Also, while it's not here just yet the upcoming patch will drastically expand the crafting, hunting, farming, and ranching opportunities, so if you start now you'll be well prepared for the new hotness that's on the horizon.
It's also worth noting that Project Zomboid has extremely customizable difficulty settings, so you can very easily make the hardest parts easier for yourself (especially as you learn). iirc the community is pretty positive about that type of customization and you might be able to find some recommendations for how to configure it to align with your preferences on the subreddit.
That's an excellent point. Because there's so much customization, the community is really supportive of people playing however they want to play. There's really minimal gatekeeping.
I enjoyed playing NEO Scavenger. The graphics are pretty bad and the UI is rough but if you can put up with that it’s fun to unravel.
Oh, wow. Blast from the past. I second NEO scavenger. It's got a great loop.
I picked it up awhile ago and didn't end up beating it. I was enjoying playing it but then we got busy getting ready for our first kid and now it's been a few years.
I did recommend it to a coworker who proceeded to put 250+ hours into it last I looked so it really clicked for them.
The actual story is a bit clumsily written so you didn’t miss much. I think the star is the gameplay with permadeath - learning to survive despite issues with cannibals, hygiene and diarrhea…
You have named it already, but I will just assume you haven't tried the beta version of it...
Minecraft Beta(!) 1.7.3. Some people believe this to be the last version to stay true to the original development goal. No matter how often I tried playing the newest versions, I always ended up not enjoying it without more players. Recently picked up 1.7.3 again and I now understand again why I loved the old versions so much. It's more relaxed, straight forward and creativity oriented than the newer versions and feels much more unique too.
If that is a bit too "limiting" I recommend you to try the Better Than Adventure Mod ! I actually play with this mod installed through MultiMC and it's a lot of fun!
A second idea is Mist Survival, but I haven't played much of it, although it fits the need for singleplayer PvE games and has been updated for years now.
Oh my first delve into Minecraft was around Beta 1.1. Though honestly you have me contemplating setting up a modlist, as it's been a while since I've played.
Have you tried something like Oxygen Not Included? Not sure how close it is to the itch you're trying to scratch. If satisfactory is kinda related as you said, maybe try Dyson Sphere Program. I saw someone else recommended Grounded and I second that suggestion as well.
Adjacent question; what single player survival games (aside from MC) would you all recommend to someone who (a) can't handle horror, (b) doesn't want enormous grind, and (c) can't handle strict time keeping?
I would recommend The Planet Crafter here as well. No enemies, very little grind IMO, and play at the pace you like. Just finished it about a month ago, so AMA. :)
I'll have to give that a go, thanks!
You're probably already aware of this, but should be mentioned: Stardew Valley. Also Oddsparks is a newer cozy/non-horror one but it's very EA.
Stardew Valley's clock can definitely stress people out though, so it might fall into the definition of "strict timekeeping"
I'll check out Oddsparks, thanks. Unfortunately the time pressure in Stardew Valley stresses me out too much.
TLD, as previously mentioned. :)
Sunkenland is also pretty great. It's still in development, so pretty rough around the edges. But the concept is solid. I always play with base raiding off because I found the defense aspect too stressful. There are a lot of other options to adjust the experience.
What are your thoughts on something like Factorio?
It's less intense at first maybe, but as the game progresses the survival aspect definitely starts to kick in lol
I don't think I'd consider Factorio a survival game in the same way a lot of these other recommended games are.
Survival in Factorio peaks in mid-game and you have to be ready for it, but it's basically a trivial annoyance by end-game. And while I think Factorio is infinitely replayable, the survivability aspect doesn't change very much game to game. The expansion might change all that (just announced for Oct 21), but I suspect it's still going to be primarily crafting, survival secondary.
I prefer Satisfactory over Factorio, I tried Factorio for about 20 hours, but I'm over 200 in Satisfactory. I like that the game has an emphasis on aesthetics and design instead of just logistics.
Plus I enjoy the infinite ore aspect of Satisfactory. Much less stressful and relaxing.
I’ve never heard of Satisfactory, I’ll have to check it out!
They literally just announced today that the 1.0 update (which is going to have the story elements) is releasing September 10th.
Conan Exiles is pretty fun, especially with mods. As expected from its namesake, it has an interesting and kind of wild world. For example, you can become a cannibal and worship a cannibal god, or the god of sexual deviants that requires you to extract "special fluids" with a knife from people you've seen. Its body customization is really good with mods. Biome diversity is nice.
There are a lot of settings that you can tinker with to create the perfect difficulty for yourself. Especially if you are up to the challenge, there are "Purges" where a bunch of attackers attack your buildings to destroy it. You (and your slaves) have to defend it.
I haven't tried it yet, as it's not necessary, but there's a magic system too. People say it changes the game a lot.
It has plenty of NSFW modding too, if you like that stuff.
Edit: I forgot to say, slave-gathering is kind of like Pokemon. Most human enemies are of regular type, but some are special, like blacksmith, tanner, carrier, etc. They have different levels too. You can go after these NPCs to get them for your base, which results in benefits.
Also there is a skill tree and leveling system.
CE from what I've seen always struck me as similar to ARK, in that it's geared towards PVP, is that not the case?
I was going to recommend CE too. I'm currently playing it again. I hate PVP, but I love exploration and base building. There's lots of PVE content in the form of dungeons, world bosses, lore to find around, people to talk, settlements to raid. There's even one location you can really raid in PVE mode that would be like a PVP raid, but I haven't tried. There has been seasonal events to add some spice as well.
I don't know how most people approach it, but I have 70 hours in it solo and I'm still not near endgame.
Have you played Dwarf Fortress? It would seem to check all the boxes. I believe that life has placed my best DF-playing days behind me, but that doesn't have to be the case for you.
Too many comments already to double check but if you like the combine two sticks approach, you should give a try to Vintage Story.
It started as a mod for minecraft but it's not a fully fledged independent game. Plenty of mods as well and, imho, it's what Minecraft could have been if they didn't decide to go for the viral mainstream route.
Things take time and are very deep in how they work. There is an in game manual that helps you in every aspect of the game as well as an optional tutorial you can start.
It's become my go to relaxing game. Just start a world with relaxed settings as much as you like and enjoy.
Cheers
I'm going to second giving Zomboid a chance. There's a reason that every run starts with "This is the story of your death." Just accept you're going to be zombie chow over and over for a while. Use those deaths to figure out the combat mechanics (spin up characters with tanky/bruiser type stats and just go at it).
Yes, the systems can be very deep (and mods can make that depth even crazier) but I think you'll love it if that's your sorta jam in the first place.
Another one to watch is Astrometica. It isn't out yet, but they have a demo, and it's pretty fun so far. Feels very much like it could be set in the Subnautica universe.
I'm sure you're looking for something a bit more focused around resource gathering, but you might want to give Rain World a chance. It's arguably more of a very difficult platformer but I find it to feel more like a survival simulation than actual survival games because it keeps the situation desperate at all times.
Another commenter mentioned Valheim which I can emphatically agree with. I see you've played Subnautica already and if you haven't already played it's sequel Below Zero I'd recommend that.
Below Zero wasn't as glowingly received as it's predecessor but I believe most of that reception came from the fact it didn't innovate that much on the first game. Below Zero is just more Subnautica at the end of the day, I loved it the first time and I liked it the second. If what you're looking for is more survival crafting games and you liked Subnautica, I recommend it's successor. Also Valheim is great but someone else already brought that up.
Honestly, I tend to think survival crafting games are tedious and grindy, but I really enjoyed Grounded.
It's playable solo and you only need to make one trip for resources most times and it's usually only like 5 minutes. Unless it's rarer for more powerful items, but you don't make many of those.
It's story driven and your crafting progresses throughout the game at a nice pace. Getting upgrades isn't tedious either. It's just as easy as the previous tier, plus you can reinforce weapons as you go.
Really, it does a great job of keeping new stuff flowing as you progress.
Have you tried Core Keeper (Steam Link)?
It's a loosely themed survival and exploration game - on sale at the moment. Most similar to terraria and minecraft but with the graphics and "vibe" of farming game stardew valley. It's perfectly fine to play solo but can be played with other people as well.
Much younger development-wise than the games that inspired it but overall it's easy to pick up and I've always found it fun.
I love this genre, as well. I have put hundreds of hours into games like Terraria, Valheim, Factorio, and Don't Starve.
However, my problem is that I can't handle first-person games (I am extremely susceptible to motion sickness), so I am always looking for more games like these that are third-person only. My experience is that even if a first-person games offers a third-person mode, like Minecraft, they nonetheless make me horribly nauseous within minutes because the camera is still too close in to the action.
Does anyone have any recommendations for any fundamentally third-person games in this general genre? I like playing solo and I like playing co-op with 1-2 friends, but I do not like playing with strangers or playing competitively.
I don't see it mentioned anywhere in this discussion.... Oxygen Not Included from Klei. Great art. Try to direct your marooned little dudes to build a base, survive, thrive, and eventually go to space. Lots of opportunities for min/maxing systems, or play with artistic stuff.
No man's sky, perhaps?
I think NMS would make them very motion sick based on what they said sadly. I'd endorse it otherwise, I love that game.
I wonder if Rimworld might scratch that itch for you?
It’s not exactly similar to Minecraft et al because you’re not directly controlling a single person, you’re listing priorities and orders for a small colony. But for some reason, I find it really satisfying in a similar way.
You still have to (get your colonists to) collect resources in order to build the stuff you want to, and there’s enough of a technology research tree and craftable (and some non-craftable) items to keep you busy without being completely overwhelming. There are wild animals which you can (get your colonists to) hunt for food or tame to bring them into the colony. You can designate growing zones where your colonists will plant and harvest various crops, you can mine out the side of a mountain to expand your base, and you can trade with nearby neutral or friendly bases.
Terratech is like building your vehicle with Legos. You build cars, tanks, airplanes, helicopters and other contraptions, drive them around and complete missions or just hunt other techs to harvest their parts.
Terratech - Steam
And build bases....
Astroneers tends to be relaxing and is good solo or multiplayer. It's pretty, self-pacing, and has depth.
Oops. You hated this game...