If you’re someone who loves the world of Minecraft for its procedurally generated 3D worlds and sandbox video gaming and yet, have seen all that Minecraft has to offer, it’s time to look at games like Minecraft for the perfect escape. While this popular game has inspired a ton of games, not all of them are worth your time.
Some, however, have been rather impressive with their sandbox-style creativity, unique adventures, and never-ending infinite worlds. Moreover, some games have gone a step ahead and added other unpredictable elements to create a gameplay experience that’s unique, riveting, and keeps you wanting more.
Which games like Minecraft should you be looking at, after all? It could be difficult to find the gems without some help. Hence, we have rounded up the best games like Minecraft you can play for building, crafting, and exploring:
Terraria
Looking for an action-packed PC offline adventure game? Take Terraria for a spin. You can dig, fight, build, and explore the deep caverns of the Terraria universe. Terraria packs the best of both worlds by blending the magic of classic-action games and sandbox-style creativity. There are also free content updates and randomly generated worlds to look forward to!
With 9 languages supported, Terraria offers an exclusively personal experience to players, offering adventures as unique as the adventurers. On your travels, you’re sure to meet a host of mysterious allies who’ll make your journey to the destination even sweeter.
Craft ever-evolving state-of-the-art gear and go exploring in search of new treasures. Show off your mettle in combat, and defend the city you have built from enemies who’d stop at nothing.
Publisher: Re-Logic
Release Date: 16 May 2011
Developer: Re-Logic
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
Starbound
Unending exploration awaits you in Starbound. The story begins where you have fled your home and all that you have ever known, and you’re lost in space. But your ship is damaged. Where do you go from here? What do you do?
Take a quick detour to the planet below, repair your ship, and refuel your resources before your final journey to explore the universe. What’s remarkable about Starbound is that you’re the maker of your own story, and there’s no one way to play the game. In fact, you can go back and try to uncover the mystic forces behind your home’s destruction and unlock secrets that are intergalactic.
You can also give up the heroic path and go about colonizing other planets, and being the master of their universe. You can build your world as an intergalactic landlord. Moreover, this game’s perfect for multiplayer and is moddable as well.
Publisher: Chucklefish
Release Date: 22 July 2016
Developer: Chucklefish
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
Creativerse
A next-generation sandbox game, Creativerse is all about a new journey in an enormous, reactive world. Go in any direction and have vast expanses to discover anew. Find mysterious caverns and fight off strange creatures.
Get your hands on rare treasures or discover extraordinary biomes. All in all, regardless of what you do, Creativerse lets you reshape your own private world in any way you please.
You can play solo or invite your friends to multiplayer. The game starts when you’re stranded in a vast and mysterious world where you can gain mastery over farming, mining, hunting, crafting, and cooking.
Get ready to build your own utopia and keep monsters off it with advanced tools packed for an immersive experience.
Publisher: Playful Corp.
Release Date: 8 May 2017
Developer: Playful Corp.
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
LEGO Worlds
If you love building with LEGO blocks, you’re sure to enjoy building your own world with LEGO Worlds. Imagine a galaxy full of different worlds built from your favorite LEGO blocks. These worlds are procedurally generated, and can be built however you please.
You can create a world one block at a time, or use large-scale landscaping tools to build mountain ranges and tropical islands. In fact, you can also go exploring your LEGO world in helicopters, motorbikes, or ride on the back of dragons and gorillas.
Anything is literally possible in these worlds.
Developer: TT Games, Traveller’s Tales
Release Date: 7 March 2017
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Environment
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
StarMade
If you’re someone who never gets tired of exploring infinite universes, StarMade is for you. StarMade is a 3D sandbox space shooter game where you can discover, destroy, or design your own worlds.
In fact, this voxel-based game StarMade has quadrillions of galaxies and universes that are procedurally generated for an engaging experience. Moreover, extensive configuration options make single-player and multiplayer gameplay quite customized and personalized.
You can also use advanced build tools to make stations, spaceships, and bases. From swarm missiles to sniper beams, make the most of modular weapon systems. You can also tinker with the game’s established systems to control lights, weapons, rails, and explosives. Overall, this is one of the best space exploration games you can play!
Developer: Schine GmbH
Release Date: 27 November 2014
Publisher: Schine GmbH
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
Also Read: 10 Best PC Simulation Games to Experience a New Reality in Another World
Eco
What if we told you there’s a game that lets you build your own universe, but also make the laws of the game? Eco is a community-based game where players come together to build a civilization or a virtual society.
This online multiplayer game is all about surviving global threats and mitigating how to save the universe from a meteor crash. Don’t let the ecosystem be destroyed. Enjoy this rich ecological simulation game that’s backed by science. In fact, the government’s also player-run.
You can learn new skills, specialize in them, or build hundreds of items from 30 craft tables. Moreover, this game is a forever project. However, as you use all your planet’s resources, remember all your actions will influence and change the environment. So, are you ready for the challenge?
Developer: Strange Loop Games
Release Date: 6 February 2018
Publisher: Strange Loop Games
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
Boundless
Boundless offers a vast universe of connected worlds and invites you to build an empire with friends. In fact, you can choose a path as an explorer, a crafter, a hunter, a trader, or a builder. The path you choose determines the impact it’ll have on your world.
Moreover, what’s remarkable about Boundless is you can open portals to different worlds and travel across the universe. Go looking for precious resources on a desert planet, or watch a volcanic sunrise with your friends, or claim the title of Viceroy.
Either way, this game promises endless possibilities where you can develop a homestead or craft masterpieces of technology. Plus, this epic voxel sandbox MMO game will have you wanting more!
Developer: Monumental, LLC
Release Date: 11 September 2018
Publisher: Monumental, LLC
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
Terasology
Terasology is an open-source voxel world game that was born as a Minecraft-inspired project. But it’s better. In addition to building blocks in a Minecraft-like game, this has more impressive elements like water. You can also have creatures employed in your service, like the elements in Dungeon Keeper.
Moreover, you can create different tools, use weapons, and eat items to recover life force. There’s also excellent graphics and sound to make your gameplay an immersive and engaging one.
This free-to-play game can change how you perceive exploring or crafting games. It took Minecraft’s universe and made it way better and more realistic. You can also go out for a hundred opportunities and see what makes you the true hero.
Developer: The Terasology Foundation
Release Date: 2011
Publisher: The Terasology Foundation
No Man’s Sky
Love classic science-fiction? Then, you’d love No Man’s Sky, where infinite galaxies await to be discovered. Survival, exploration, and adventure – those are the three founding pillars of this stellar game with endless possibilities.
You can explore beautiful planets, survive hazardous environments, build multi-planet colonies, or farm for resources. That’s not all! You can also go on intergalactic missions together or play with 32 other players in its powerful multiplayer mode.
This sci-fi RPG is a constantly growing experience with its unique planets and even rarer lifeforms, constant danger, and heart-wrenching action. Get ready to find your own destiny on an epic voyage.
Developer: Hello Games
Release Date: 12 August 2016
Publisher: Hello Games
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
Rising World
Another game like Minecraft, Rising World, is an open-world sandbox game that has randomly generated worlds with completely interactive environments. Play the piano, or destroy the entire world.
No matter what you do, you can shape your own destiny by exploring the deepest caves or the most secret dungeons. In fact, you can find your own civilization, fight off enemies, and invent advanced tools that’ll decide your fate in the game.
There are over 200 items, furniture pieces, and different building materials to explore biomes, dungeons, and underground caves.
Developer: JIW-Games
Release Date: 3 December 2014
Publisher: JIW-Games
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
Subnautica
Have you ever wanted to play a game in the dark, mysterious depths of the ocean? Subnautica has a huge and varied underwater world that is equally wonderful and dangerous. When you crash-land on the alien world, do everything you can to survive and keep yourself from going down.
In fact, out-smart wildlife, craft equipment and submarines, explore deep-sea trenches, lava fields, and cave systems that make you gasp. With four main dominions: safe shallows, creepvine forest, grassy plateaus, and grand reef, you get to face dangers and secrets while keeping an eye out for fatal foes and stalkers!
Manage your oxygen supply and craft habitable modules as you go deeper into the world of Subnautica.
Developer: Unknown Worlds Entertainment
Release Date: 23 January 2018
Publisher: Unknown Worlds Entertainment
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
Fortnite
If you’re looking for a massive, competitive online play-off, Fortnite it is. This action shooter multiplayer PC game with a 100-player face-off just keeps getting bigger and better every season. There’s crafting, chaos, looting, and a lot of shooting to keep you pinned to your gaming rig.
In fact, Fortnite also combines co-op, single, and multiplayer game modes in its ever-evolving universe. There are large and destructible environments – but you get to decide the creator universe you want to pick. Go build all you want in Fortnite Battle Royale.
Or, build nothing with Fortnite Zero Build. Or, fend off monsters with your friends in Save the World. Either way, get ready for a riveting experience that just gets wilder and wilder with each play session!
Developer: Epic Games
Release Date: 21 July 2017
Publisher: Epic Games
➡️ Check it out on Epic Games Store.
Junk Jack
Junk Jack is a relaxing sandbox game where you focus on building, farming, and improving your lifestyle. In fact, you can raise animals, tame creatures, cook food items, farm crops, and rare plants, and play with your friends.
You can also have pets and animal companions, go fishing, and travel on procedural planets that you never get tired of adventuring or exploring. You’ll have 12 planets with hand-crafted environments, or a fully featured equip system.
Get ready to unleash newer levels of creativity and build everything you can possibly imagine.
Developer: Pixbits
Release Date: 1 December 2016
Publisher: Pixbits
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
Fallout 4
Fallout 4 is all about a thrilling adventure in a post-nuclear world. In fact, it takes open-world gaming to the next level, coming from the award-winning creators of Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. With the core game, Fallout 4 also comes with all six official add-ons, including Automatron, Wasteland Workshop, Far Harbor, Contraptions Workshop, Vault-Tec Workshop, and Nuka-World.
You start your journey as the sole survivor of Vault 111, but more challenges await! Fight every second to stay alive and rebuild the fate of the Wasteland. Every minute, you’ll be making a choice to survive.
You can also be whoever you want with the S.P.E.C.I.A.L character system. Enjoy all the perks of first-person combat and third-person combat, and bring it home with Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S).
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Release Date: 10 November 2015
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
Craft the World
Another beautiful sandbox game, Craft the World, is based on strategy. If you’re into these games: Dungeon Keeper, Terraria, and Dwarf Fortress, you’re in for a treat. That’s because Craft the World blends important game elements from all these games to give you a powerful gaming experience where you’re literally the God!
The world is randomly generated, and ready for exploration. Build a dwarf fortress, gather resources, and craft all the weapons and armor you need. What’s amazing is there’s god-simulation, where you give commands to dwarves and provide for them.
You’ll also have to fight off monsters that randomly enter your world and build a safe haven. Plus, as you’re divine, you’ll be able to possess various spells to hurl fireballs or speed up resource extraction.
Developer: Dekovir Entertainment
Release Date: 25 November 2014
Publisher: Black Maple Games
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
Factorio
Don’t want to build farms and homesteads? Build automated factors within an infinite 2D world of Factorio. In fact, you can produce increasingly complex structures, mine resources, and fight enemies.
You can play solo or join your forces in a robust multiplayer game, where you’ll be delegating tasks and fighting foes together. You can also create your own in-game Map Editor if you’re not too fond of the gaming maps.
Protect yourself from creatures that are ready to kill you at a moment’s notice, and save your world!
Developer: Wube Software LTD.
Release Date: 14 August 2020
Publisher: Wube Software LTD.
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
Dragon Quest Builders 2
Set in a fantasy land that’s being attacked by a malicious cult, Dragon Quest Builders 2 lets you explore, build, and harvest all you want. You can even go large-scale in the online sandplayer mode that allows you to play with 4 more players.
It’s a block-building RPG where you embark on a new journey and become the master builder in the universe. In addition to the core game, you’ll also be able to enjoy: Hotto Stuff Pack, Modernist Pack, Aquarium Pack, Designer’s Sunglasses, Historic Headwear, Legendary Builder Outfit, Dragonlord’s Throne, and more!
This is truly a masterpiece with its brilliant graphics and solid storytelling.
Developer: Square Enix, KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD.
Release Date: 10 December 2019
Publisher: Square Enix
➡️ Check it out on Steam.
Go Build Your Own Adventure
Escape the drudgery of a monotonous life as you step into a different realm, find your purpose, and build a world of your own with these games like Minecraft. Whether it’s the underwater magnificence of Subnautica that interests or the automated factory building in Factorio, or the Minecraft-inspired yet better universe of Terasology, give it your all.
Build and design things that open up a world of endless possibilities. Never let adventure be further from your desk with games that take you to space, bring you to alien galaxies, or let you command a world of your own dwarves.
And, if you want to spice up your Minecraft gameplay, be sure to check out our selection of the best Minecraft mods!
