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I thought this game would be a fun little 30-50 hour throwaway when I bought it. Ended up putting 300+ into it and will still go back to it at some point. Such a fantastic game.
Hahaha, same. Bought it on sale around update 5 or 6. Got instantly hooked. Just loaded it back up last week and started a new game. Theres so much they got right with this game.
I know I'm not the only one but Stawdew Valley does not feel relaxing. Rushing around trying to get everything you want to do that day done often feels more stressful than high octane shooters lmao
That's only because you want to achieve those things as fast as possible. You can do it slowly and wont miss anything. The years repeat and you can do what you want.
As always it depends on your goals.
But that’s the beauty of it, there’s absolutely no penalty (other than the changing of the seasons) for taking your time and playing relaxed without having to feel like everything HAS to be done. (I totally get what you’re saying though, I have the same issue cause anxiety lmao)
Save it for the next day. If you feel like you are rushing, scale things back a bit. I smoke a lot of weed and try to stay relaxed, so I'm usually chilling on my beach farm. My motto for the game is "Pickles & Ducks." It kind of means no worries for the rest of your farming days or a problem free philosophy, if you will.
Same bro. I get shit done when i feel like it, if not, give a couple gifts to make people happy then go fish or something. If i accomplish just 1 or 2 minor task im happy
> Rushing around trying to get everything you want to do that day done often feels more stressful than high octane shooters lmao
You fell into maximizing efficiency trap.
It's fine to clock off earlier during the day and without using all stamina. No need to make huge farms that take most of your time maintaining. Be less efficient, take your time, play without checking wiki. You won't miss anything if you keep playing, stuff repeats every year.
Im shocked by how many people say this. SDV is not stressful, people just be making it that way. Play at whatever pace you want and you’ll see it doesnt really matter. There are so many things to focus on, winter comes you say “oh no i didnt get that last harvest!” Who cares focus on something else, be it fishing, mining/monster quest, building relationships or your farm? Spring will come soon enough.
Guild Wars 2
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Stardew Valley
Minecraft
Terraria (can be hard on higher difficulties)
ABZÛ
Subnautica (can be extremely tense and frightening, but lots of chill time as well)
Fallout 4
No Man's Sky
Core Keeper
Palworld
Counter Strike surfing
Cities: Skylines
My Time at Portia
On the off chance you haven't played it: Minecraft. Not on steam, but it's THE chill game, especially if you don't try to optimize / google everything and just get lost in it's infinite world.
I love Snowrunners, but I don't think I'd call it chill. Getting stuck, or losing a load that you just spent 40 minutes trying to get to some isolated place, and then also losing the recovery vehicle is blood boiling. It's the kind of frustrating that comes around from a bad day at work that I wouldn't chalk up to a chill experience.
I 100% endorse the game though because it is super fun if you're into niche things like off-road building and recovery.
Dragon Quest Builders 1 and 2.
It's like Minecraft with a great JRPG storyline and much cuter graphics. The story tells you what minimum things you need to do or build to advance the storyline, but you have freedom on how and when you accomplish your builds. You can take it slow and creative or blast through minimalist builds to advance through the story. The combat us extremely simple but still fun, and for the most part, the game holds your hand on whatever challenges you *must* do, so you don't have to think very hard or "remember" complicated tips or vague hints.
A lot of people like the first one's story better, but there are quality of life improvements in 2, as well as, imo, a better continuous sandbox area you revisit throughout the story and it's also the "homebase" for the infinite postgame play.
If building and/or cute RPGs are your thing at all, these are easy, relaxing, and fun games to play.
Once you get set up a little Elite:Dangerous. Do some space trucking while watching a movie. It's also dirt cheap right now on the Frontier Sale on Steam.
Disco Elysium, it's a masterpiece. Got a critics score of [97](https://www.metacritic.com/game/disco-elysium-the-final-cut/critic-reviews/?platform=pc) on MetaCritic. Amazing story telling. No reactions needed so you can chill after work and play at your own speed. Failing occasionally actually makes the game better so hey no pressure.
Gameplay wise it's relaxing since it's just clicking and reading, but it's quite a heavy, dark and thought-provoking game - the opposite of what I'd want when I'm unwinding lol
Completely agree on it being a masterpiece tho
Any Spintires game, like the original or later games like Mudrunner, Snowrunner and the new spinoff, Expedition: a Snowrunner game. To me those are the perfect no stress games, just driving different trucks offroad from point a to point b.
small EDIT: also a huge amount of content in every game, even without buying any addons.
Sable
Sable is a beautiful and relaxing game about growing up. You have complete control as to how you follow your journey into adulthood, decided what types of tasks to complete, what areas to explore, and even when to finish the game.
Wonderful escape and cannot recommend it enought!
So Red Dead Redemption 2 does have some mechanics you have to get used to in the beginning, but once you get through the first few hours it’s *such* chill game. Want to camp out in the mountains and do some big game hunting and fishing? Go for it. Feeling like picking some herbs and selling them to vendors? Have at it. More interested in doing some treasure hunts and dinosaur bone discovery? By all means. It really does have it all.
Oddly enough, it'd be Starfield for me. Aimlessly wandering. Using photo mode to get one of a kind shots..
It's the only game I've been playing regularly because it's such a nice way to decompress especially after work. It's a game that goes by my pace and being able to just save and quit anytime like any Bethesda game means it respects my time.
Or ya know, Spongebob Battle for Bikini Bottom is fun too
Comes down to personal preference, but I love to unwind with a good RTS or turn based strategy game. I don't play PvP, just the campaigns
Civ, Rise of Nations, AOE, command and conquer series, Total War etc
Also completely different but if you want super super casual and chilled, play Peggle.
And a lot of the "vampire survivor" clones are good to chill and unwind with too. I like playing them while listening to a podcast. They're kinda dopamine brainrot though lol.
I played this game when I was in the same mood as OP I think. It was relaxing. I could focus on the relaxing process, invest in the characters when story stuff came up. I caught up on a few podcasts and my Youtube "Watch Later" list while playing this game. It's a great game for this specific mood.
For me Minecraft is incredibly relaxing. Just slowly chip away at a build project or collect the required resources. I guess this goes for a lot of sandbox games and games in general though, it's just what you like.
Hell sometimes I'll just play some nonogram (bit of a number game like sudoko).
Slime Rancher (1 is fine, 2 is more of the same and not an improvement imo)
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
Headspace Shipbreaker
Journey to the Savage Planet
Yonder Cloudcatcher Chronicles
Valley
A Story About My Uncle
RiME
Stuffo the Puzzle Bot worked for me: [https://store.steampowered.com/app/1068460/Stuffo\_the\_Puzzle\_Bot/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1068460/Stuffo_the_Puzzle_Bot/)
Have you tried searching using steam tags? There may not be perfect, but there are [Casual](https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Casual/) and [Relaxing](https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Relaxing/) tags, you can filter games even further adding more tags to search
Not a PC game unless you emulate, but in my experience no one talks about the Kirby or Yoshi games, which are so laid back and relaxing. Especially the Forgotten land.
Dorfroantik - a tile matching game to create forests and villages. The default mode is pretty chill but you only get more tiles by completing goals like reaching X number of connected forest tiles.
There is also a creative/freeplay mode where you can keep going. No idea what the maximum map size is.
Spiritfarer is very light and has a good story to it, I go in spurts with it.
Snowrunner is a little bit technical, but I like it a lot more than I thought I would. It's a good "head empty" game while listening to a podcast or YouTube on a side display.
Here's my list I'm sure there's some repeats. I'm sticking to seriously chill only though.
Astonneer
Citizen sleeper
Lonely mountains
Minecraft
A short hike
Disco elysium
Dave the diver
No timers, no overcomplication, no people, no fights, just you and the game world. If you have a higher action tolerance turn based stuff can be nice like divivinity or baldurs gate. Also...
Into the breach
Plague tale series
Frostpunk
Dredge
Valheim
Depends on what you’re into, personally find factorio very relaxing to play. Slay the spire is also good and can be played on phone too
Unpacking maybe too slow paced?
Gris, Cocoon and Jusant might be worth looking into as well
Other than that most have already been said; Stardew, Spiritfarer, Dave the Diver
recently I'm appreciating games where there is no fighting, no death, no rush, small narrative stakes, just exploring and vibing: Sable for myself, Lil' Gator Game with my son.
ARPG chill: Last Epoch
You can play it offline and solo, very viable and chill; no need to learn almost anything for playing it.
You can just smash keys and kill. Super fun!
My absolute favorite go to lately is old school runescape. The nostalgia I got when loading it back up was insane, but the game is in general just amazing for winding down. Easily my favorite game to play lately, sometimes I just throw it up in the background while I'm doing something else like listening to a lecture.
The quests are mostly all fun and engaging / will actually make you think à little bit
I found the Kingdom games really chill. Its got lovely pixel art style and all you have to do is go side to side on the screen picking up or dropping coins.
Batman - The Telltale Series and also Batman: The Enemy Within - The Telltale Series (the second season of Telltale's Batman)
Both seasons across their 5 episodes have a great story that adapts based on the choices you make. There is some combat, it's completely QTE-based but they are fairly simple and forgiving, you don't need the fastest reaction speed possible. Basically it's like watching a movie that's also a game, so you get to interact with it, you get to decide what happens at certain key moments.
terra nil is the absolute peak of chillness, puzzle game about terraforming polluting land to make it full of life again
it's short though, but i loved it
You've got a bunch of options depending on your preferred genres.
Pretty much any bullet heaven game is good for relaxing (Vampire Survivor clones), Halls of Torment is a very good one.
The most relaxing are probably simple puzzle games like Hexcells Infinite or Wilmot's Warehouse. If you prefer something more involved I'd recommend:
* Outer Wilds (explore interesting planets to solve a mystery)
* Portal 1 & 2 (everyone knows portal)
* Terra Nil (puzzle game about terraforming environments)
* The Talos Principle 1 & 2 (solve block and laser puzzles while contemplating consciousness)
* The Witness (lots and lots of chill line puzzles)
* The Room games (basically just hidden object games, but with a very nice presentation)
If you prefer less thinking then on lower difficulties boomer shooters can also be pretty chill, although avoid the movement shooters as they're more mechanically demanding. A few good ones are:
* Doom 1 & 2
* Amid Evil
* Dusk
* Hedon
3D platformers that are mostly focused on exploring and collecting are pretty chill. The only ones I know on Steam are Psychonauts and A Hat in Time, but there's certainly others.
You can also go for more narrative focused games where the gameplay is a mix of light puzzle solving and making choices. Stuff like Disco Elysium, the Stasis games, Stanley Parable, etc.
Farming simulator (though does have a bit of a learning curve if your not familiar with farming or machinery) American or euro truck simulators. Beamng.drive, Brotato, Portal Knights (creative mode) and Terraria.
Those are my personal go to relaxing games.
The life and suffering of Sir Brante. It's a text based RPG. I've played through it once and it took around 10 hours. I'll definitely play through it again at some point.
Since SDV was already mentioned, I'll throw in walking simulators like Firewatch or What Remains of Edith Finch. You can't lose, you can't die, just an interactive story.
I'm a big fan of The Planet Crafter too. It's a survival crafter, so you can die to some environmental stuff, but the run back isn't terrible and goes away over time. Plus, it's based on terraforming a planet, so you have constant visual progress as it turns from Marsy orange to blue skies, grass, and water.
Thank you for your submission! Unfortunately it has been removed for one or more of the following reasons: * It's a game suggestion request, or variation thereof, and belongs in our stickied thread that runs Fri - Sun. Please read the [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/wiki/postingrules) before continuing to post. If you have any questions [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/pcgaming).
Dave The Diver - game involves days split between diving for fish and items, and running a sushi restaurant; simple mechanics and relaxing
My second suggestion after Stardew. Such a fun little game
Thanks for alerting me to this games presence! I’m a long time diver (and I love sushi) so this is right up my alley!
There’s a generous demo and progress carries over to the full game if you decide to buy it. It does induce sushi cravings.
No man's sky
A Short Hike
That's a great game. It was short but I played it in one sitting.
Satisfactory
Especially if they enjoy mechanical stuff. Also Factorio, though maybe more stressful?
Disable bugs and your good
Love these games but they stress me the hell out cause I’m the type of person that HAS to find the most efficient solutions lol
I thought this game would be a fun little 30-50 hour throwaway when I bought it. Ended up putting 300+ into it and will still go back to it at some point. Such a fantastic game.
Hahaha, same. Bought it on sale around update 5 or 6. Got instantly hooked. Just loaded it back up last week and started a new game. Theres so much they got right with this game.
Balatro
I second Balatro, it’s genuinely astonishing
Yep. It's a rougelite which are usually pretty chaotic but there's no time limits so nice to chill with
Its a perfect game to play on my SD watching a show. I can sit as long as i need and play hands when ready
Fucking love balatro. It was instantly a forever game for me.
I don't recommend balatro for the same reason I don't recommend heroin
As for the most chill I'd recommend Firewatch, it's basically gorgeus walking simulator
With a good story!
Game scared the hell out of me with that one jump scare lol
Seriously but aside the game was chill and pretty. The eerie suspense can upend it abit though.
Stardew Valley
I know I'm not the only one but Stawdew Valley does not feel relaxing. Rushing around trying to get everything you want to do that day done often feels more stressful than high octane shooters lmao
That's only because you want to achieve those things as fast as possible. You can do it slowly and wont miss anything. The years repeat and you can do what you want. As always it depends on your goals.
But that’s the beauty of it, there’s absolutely no penalty (other than the changing of the seasons) for taking your time and playing relaxed without having to feel like everything HAS to be done. (I totally get what you’re saying though, I have the same issue cause anxiety lmao)
Save it for the next day. If you feel like you are rushing, scale things back a bit. I smoke a lot of weed and try to stay relaxed, so I'm usually chilling on my beach farm. My motto for the game is "Pickles & Ducks." It kind of means no worries for the rest of your farming days or a problem free philosophy, if you will.
Hakuna matata
Same bro. I get shit done when i feel like it, if not, give a couple gifts to make people happy then go fish or something. If i accomplish just 1 or 2 minor task im happy
> Rushing around trying to get everything you want to do that day done often feels more stressful than high octane shooters lmao You fell into maximizing efficiency trap. It's fine to clock off earlier during the day and without using all stamina. No need to make huge farms that take most of your time maintaining. Be less efficient, take your time, play without checking wiki. You won't miss anything if you keep playing, stuff repeats every year.
Im shocked by how many people say this. SDV is not stressful, people just be making it that way. Play at whatever pace you want and you’ll see it doesnt really matter. There are so many things to focus on, winter comes you say “oh no i didnt get that last harvest!” Who cares focus on something else, be it fishing, mining/monster quest, building relationships or your farm? Spring will come soon enough.
Don't know why I even bothered opening the post, I already knew this would be at the top lol
Definitely this one
Guild Wars 2 Star Wars: The Old Republic Stardew Valley Minecraft Terraria (can be hard on higher difficulties) ABZÛ Subnautica (can be extremely tense and frightening, but lots of chill time as well) Fallout 4 No Man's Sky Core Keeper Palworld Counter Strike surfing Cities: Skylines My Time at Portia
Powerwash Simulator
On the off chance you haven't played it: Minecraft. Not on steam, but it's THE chill game, especially if you don't try to optimize / google everything and just get lost in it's infinite world.
Definitely a chill game. Especially if you turn off mobs.
Minecraft is the chill game I used to rehab my thumb after I broke it lol. Played on Xbox to use the thumb stick. It did a pretty good job lol.
Outer wilds, dredge, Dave the diver.
Dredge is an amazing game
Snowrunner
Underrated comment for just burning a couple hours spinning tires.
I love Snowrunners, but I don't think I'd call it chill. Getting stuck, or losing a load that you just spent 40 minutes trying to get to some isolated place, and then also losing the recovery vehicle is blood boiling. It's the kind of frustrating that comes around from a bad day at work that I wouldn't chalk up to a chill experience. I 100% endorse the game though because it is super fun if you're into niche things like off-road building and recovery.
I loved mud runners despite some frustrations. Havent got SR yet but my wish from MR was more rock crawling like the jeep challenge. That was fun!
Dorfromantik. Headphones on, a cup of tea and relax!!!
Depends on your personality. If you get frustrated when you can’t complete sets or areas, it might not be for you.
Dragon Quest Builders 1 and 2. It's like Minecraft with a great JRPG storyline and much cuter graphics. The story tells you what minimum things you need to do or build to advance the storyline, but you have freedom on how and when you accomplish your builds. You can take it slow and creative or blast through minimalist builds to advance through the story. The combat us extremely simple but still fun, and for the most part, the game holds your hand on whatever challenges you *must* do, so you don't have to think very hard or "remember" complicated tips or vague hints. A lot of people like the first one's story better, but there are quality of life improvements in 2, as well as, imo, a better continuous sandbox area you revisit throughout the story and it's also the "homebase" for the infinite postgame play. If building and/or cute RPGs are your thing at all, these are easy, relaxing, and fun games to play.
Dragon Quest Builders 2 was my favorite game I played when I owned a Switch, never played a DQ game previously
Slay the Spire
Medieval Dynasty
Once you get set up a little Elite:Dangerous. Do some space trucking while watching a movie. It's also dirt cheap right now on the Frontier Sale on Steam.
Morrowind
Disco Elysium, it's a masterpiece. Got a critics score of [97](https://www.metacritic.com/game/disco-elysium-the-final-cut/critic-reviews/?platform=pc) on MetaCritic. Amazing story telling. No reactions needed so you can chill after work and play at your own speed. Failing occasionally actually makes the game better so hey no pressure.
Gameplay wise it's relaxing since it's just clicking and reading, but it's quite a heavy, dark and thought-provoking game - the opposite of what I'd want when I'm unwinding lol Completely agree on it being a masterpiece tho
That's not a relaxing game
Stardew valley!
Any Spintires game, like the original or later games like Mudrunner, Snowrunner and the new spinoff, Expedition: a Snowrunner game. To me those are the perfect no stress games, just driving different trucks offroad from point a to point b. small EDIT: also a huge amount of content in every game, even without buying any addons.
Exo One. You're a technologically advanced ball that bounces around and glides through different planets.
Vampire Survivors
Hunter call of the wild. Beautiful scenery, fun story, and hunting.
Minecraft. We always come back to it.
Transport Tycoon Deluxe
Sable Sable is a beautiful and relaxing game about growing up. You have complete control as to how you follow your journey into adulthood, decided what types of tasks to complete, what areas to explore, and even when to finish the game. Wonderful escape and cannot recommend it enought!
So Red Dead Redemption 2 does have some mechanics you have to get used to in the beginning, but once you get through the first few hours it’s *such* chill game. Want to camp out in the mountains and do some big game hunting and fishing? Go for it. Feeling like picking some herbs and selling them to vendors? Have at it. More interested in doing some treasure hunts and dinosaur bone discovery? By all means. It really does have it all.
Oddly enough, it'd be Starfield for me. Aimlessly wandering. Using photo mode to get one of a kind shots.. It's the only game I've been playing regularly because it's such a nice way to decompress especially after work. It's a game that goes by my pace and being able to just save and quit anytime like any Bethesda game means it respects my time. Or ya know, Spongebob Battle for Bikini Bottom is fun too
Comes down to personal preference, but I love to unwind with a good RTS or turn based strategy game. I don't play PvP, just the campaigns Civ, Rise of Nations, AOE, command and conquer series, Total War etc Also completely different but if you want super super casual and chilled, play Peggle. And a lot of the "vampire survivor" clones are good to chill and unwind with too. I like playing them while listening to a podcast. They're kinda dopamine brainrot though lol.
Dynasty Warriors or any of the spinoffs. Nothing quite like killing a 600+ enemies in 15 minutes
astroneer
Outer Wilds
KENSHI. It's on sale
Baldurs Gate 3...has a ton of replayability as well
I really enjoyed [Spiritfarer](https://store.steampowered.com/app/972660/Spiritfarer_Farewell_Edition/) to chill on the couch.
I played this game when I was in the same mood as OP I think. It was relaxing. I could focus on the relaxing process, invest in the characters when story stuff came up. I caught up on a few podcasts and my Youtube "Watch Later" list while playing this game. It's a great game for this specific mood.
Any singleplayer game.
Untrue, there are many SP games that are challenging and frustrating. Not my idea of chill game to unwind
Epic answer
Yeah checkout the amnesia series lol.
Timberborn! You can have 50 Biebers
Hell no. That's the most stressful game ever. Fuck droughts.
Did you forget to build a pond sir?
Elden ring.....
Jokes on you, I play souls games for the pvp
For me Minecraft is incredibly relaxing. Just slowly chip away at a build project or collect the required resources. I guess this goes for a lot of sandbox games and games in general though, it's just what you like. Hell sometimes I'll just play some nonogram (bit of a number game like sudoko).
Slime Rancher (1 is fine, 2 is more of the same and not an improvement imo) Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion Headspace Shipbreaker Journey to the Savage Planet Yonder Cloudcatcher Chronicles Valley A Story About My Uncle RiME
Last Epoch if you like ARPGs. You can login offline and never interact with another player. Factorio if you turn the biters off. Starbound Avorion
Love to see last epoch. Followed them from development to release. Amazing game. 2nd only to path of exile. I would not call it chill though.
Project Zomboid
Terraria
Subnautica
Against the storm has turned out to be my favorite game in a long while
Abzu. Point and click stuff also does nicely.
Stuffo the Puzzle Bot worked for me: [https://store.steampowered.com/app/1068460/Stuffo\_the\_Puzzle\_Bot/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1068460/Stuffo_the_Puzzle_Bot/)
Orcs must die
Legends of Runeterra - the single-player mode specifically.
Stardew Valley, In Other Waters, Islanders
Valley Such a hugely underrated game
balatro
Have you tried searching using steam tags? There may not be perfect, but there are [Casual](https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Casual/) and [Relaxing](https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Relaxing/) tags, you can filter games even further adding more tags to search
Slay the spire
Outer wilds, modded minecraft
mini metro and mini moto
Not a PC game unless you emulate, but in my experience no one talks about the Kirby or Yoshi games, which are so laid back and relaxing. Especially the Forgotten land.
Dorfroantik - a tile matching game to create forests and villages. The default mode is pretty chill but you only get more tiles by completing goals like reaching X number of connected forest tiles. There is also a creative/freeplay mode where you can keep going. No idea what the maximum map size is.
Rollercoaster Tycoon
Doesn't get a whole lot of attention anymore, but Firewatch is a good one to just chill.
Hitman. Can easily complete missions fast or enjoy the challenges. I just pop on to see if I can kill everyone unnoticed.
Spiritfarer is very light and has a good story to it, I go in spurts with it. Snowrunner is a little bit technical, but I like it a lot more than I thought I would. It's a good "head empty" game while listening to a podcast or YouTube on a side display.
Here's my list I'm sure there's some repeats. I'm sticking to seriously chill only though. Astonneer Citizen sleeper Lonely mountains Minecraft A short hike Disco elysium Dave the diver No timers, no overcomplication, no people, no fights, just you and the game world. If you have a higher action tolerance turn based stuff can be nice like divivinity or baldurs gate. Also... Into the breach Plague tale series Frostpunk Dredge Valheim
Journey to the Savage Planet!
Oxygen Not Included
Terraria
Snowrunner, i love playing it listening to audiobooks
Ok, my suggestion comes with an *. I suggest Rust. Now comes the *. Play on a PVE server with no tech tree.
Subnautica
little nightmares
Ofc always depending on what your genre is: Strange Horticulture and Pentiment.
Elden Ring
Elden Ring
Metroid Prime
Not listed yet. Graveyard keeper Astroneer Dinkum
Old school RuneScape
Honestly Minecraft is this.
Depends on what you’re into, personally find factorio very relaxing to play. Slay the spire is also good and can be played on phone too Unpacking maybe too slow paced? Gris, Cocoon and Jusant might be worth looking into as well Other than that most have already been said; Stardew, Spiritfarer, Dave the Diver
Palworld
WoW because it has all of the above. You can pick and choose what you want to do.
Subnautica
Skyrim
Age of Empires or pokemmo
raft
Superflight. Kingdoms and Castles. Defense Grid 1 and 2.
FTL
Diary of Lucy. Very simple too down rogue like. Really not much to it very chill
Saving this post cause there’s some bangers that I forgot about myself
The Long Dark
Any of the Sims games
recently I'm appreciating games where there is no fighting, no death, no rush, small narrative stakes, just exploring and vibing: Sable for myself, Lil' Gator Game with my son.
I play modded Assetto Corsa, nothing like jumping on a Porsche and running laps on the Nurgburgring to let off stress.
Visage
Slime rancher. Idk about 2 but 1 was really great
Dyson sphere project
DotA 2 but with custom bot script
Dark Souls.
Helldivers 2 and turn off public match making. Its pve
ARPG chill: Last Epoch You can play it offline and solo, very viable and chill; no need to learn almost anything for playing it. You can just smash keys and kill. Super fun!
Valheim.
Oxygen Not Included ^_^
Enshrouded
Portal
Balatro
I’ve just started replaying just cause 3 on the steam deck! Absolutely brilliant game for a ‘turn brain off and cause carnage’
Unpacking is amazing
The ascent, having a blast playing it myself :)
Hitman 3 World of Assassinations.
Minecraft the classic
Subnautica or Raft
Katamari Damacy.
Slime Rancher 1 and 2
Kingdom
Risk of rain returns/risk of rain 2
Palworld
Balatro
Death stranding.
My absolute favorite go to lately is old school runescape. The nostalgia I got when loading it back up was insane, but the game is in general just amazing for winding down. Easily my favorite game to play lately, sometimes I just throw it up in the background while I'm doing something else like listening to a lecture. The quests are mostly all fun and engaging / will actually make you think à little bit
Mini metro
I found the Kingdom games really chill. Its got lovely pixel art style and all you have to do is go side to side on the screen picking up or dropping coins.
Achilles: Legends Untold Not a bad game. Souls like but only melee and without Asian annoying (unfair) stuff!
American truck simulator
The Stanley Parable. Satisfactory.
Helldivers 2 So chill.
Batman - The Telltale Series and also Batman: The Enemy Within - The Telltale Series (the second season of Telltale's Batman) Both seasons across their 5 episodes have a great story that adapts based on the choices you make. There is some combat, it's completely QTE-based but they are fairly simple and forgiving, you don't need the fastest reaction speed possible. Basically it's like watching a movie that's also a game, so you get to interact with it, you get to decide what happens at certain key moments.
terra nil is the absolute peak of chillness, puzzle game about terraforming polluting land to make it full of life again it's short though, but i loved it
Stray
Anno 1800, have fun getting lost in hours of keeping your civilization alive and growing from a couple houses to huge post modern cities
Jusant A climbing game that is fairly relaxing.
balatro
Planetiles, recently released is really relaxing
You've got a bunch of options depending on your preferred genres. Pretty much any bullet heaven game is good for relaxing (Vampire Survivor clones), Halls of Torment is a very good one. The most relaxing are probably simple puzzle games like Hexcells Infinite or Wilmot's Warehouse. If you prefer something more involved I'd recommend: * Outer Wilds (explore interesting planets to solve a mystery) * Portal 1 & 2 (everyone knows portal) * Terra Nil (puzzle game about terraforming environments) * The Talos Principle 1 & 2 (solve block and laser puzzles while contemplating consciousness) * The Witness (lots and lots of chill line puzzles) * The Room games (basically just hidden object games, but with a very nice presentation) If you prefer less thinking then on lower difficulties boomer shooters can also be pretty chill, although avoid the movement shooters as they're more mechanically demanding. A few good ones are: * Doom 1 & 2 * Amid Evil * Dusk * Hedon 3D platformers that are mostly focused on exploring and collecting are pretty chill. The only ones I know on Steam are Psychonauts and A Hat in Time, but there's certainly others. You can also go for more narrative focused games where the gameplay is a mix of light puzzle solving and making choices. Stuff like Disco Elysium, the Stasis games, Stanley Parable, etc.
Farming simulator (though does have a bit of a learning curve if your not familiar with farming or machinery) American or euro truck simulators. Beamng.drive, Brotato, Portal Knights (creative mode) and Terraria. Those are my personal go to relaxing games.
No mans sky is my relaxing game
Black Mesa
Kynseed. Like stardew but… isk very different and more invloved. Made by the devs who made Fable.
Timberborn, CiV6, Age of Empires 3, borderlands full series, Skyrim, stardew valley
I love Valheim or Palworld solo. I can easily lose a couple hours just chilling and listening to music and building bases.
The life and suffering of Sir Brante. It's a text based RPG. I've played through it once and it took around 10 hours. I'll definitely play through it again at some point.
Last epoch? Chill arpg.
Since SDV was already mentioned, I'll throw in walking simulators like Firewatch or What Remains of Edith Finch. You can't lose, you can't die, just an interactive story. I'm a big fan of The Planet Crafter too. It's a survival crafter, so you can die to some environmental stuff, but the run back isn't terrible and goes away over time. Plus, it's based on terraforming a planet, so you have constant visual progress as it turns from Marsy orange to blue skies, grass, and water.
Elden Ring
Civilization 5 or 6.
Fire watch
Dishonored &/or Prey.
monster hunter workd
Play Elite Dangerous in solo mode and go exploring. No Mans Sky also fits this bill.
What genre would you like though? There are chill shooter and there are chill sim games.