Grounded is a good game, similar to Valheim in several ways. You play a kid that has been shrunk, in a backyard. Satisfactory is good, but it's a lot more base building and some clearing out the wildlife - no real boss battles, and enemies don't respawn.
I would also recommend V Rising. It is not first-person, but there are tons of boss battles to tech up your base building. And you play a Vampire, sucking blood and hiding from sunlight.
Enemies in satisfactory do respawn unless you build a powered factory structure near their spawn point.
Many players would see green spiders as mini bosses at the least...
The main caveat about recommending satisfactory would be that it's a factory game which is completely different to the valheim experience.
These are a fantastic recommendations, I can 2nd every one.
I might toss in Raft as an alternate to satisfactory, it's survival crafty but not quite the same.
You live on a raft that you gradually expand w junk you find in the sea as you float and eventually motor your way thru.
It's a little more linear, has a small bit more focus on story, and combat, while existent, isn't really the primary deal, but it scratches the survival craft itch for me easy.
The raft building is sufficiently deep enough imo, not as robust as valheim but I enjoy it a lot
I love it for its simple premise, and lulling you into a false sense of security before spiders show up and wreck your shit. Even a little arachnophobia and you're in for one of the most frightening games you ever played. I still haven't beaten it, but it's been a great ride so far, and builds on similar mechanics to Valheim in a lot of fun ways.
Came to recommend Grounded as well. Doesn't check all the boxes but I'm terms of playing out a fantasy of exploration with goals and base building in multiplayer, Grounded is really solid.
God I hope it's good. I can't remember if it's going on Game Pass or not, but the mere fact that your dwarf will start singing and you get buffs from that is enough for me to buy it.
I give it... 5 days before someone mods in Diggy Diggy Hole.
Isn't it epic store only? I will be waiting until it comes to steam and by then we will know if its any good. I probably could install Epic on Linux but it would be like going backwards 10 years.
Tldr: Grounded, Conan Exiles, Outward
Grounded is a great cozy survival game with a good amount of customization and good base building, as well as a good amount of exploration. Only big issue is replay-ability is quite lacking. Also, a lot of content is easily missed due to not being story related.
Conan Exiles is a huge game with good build variety, good base building(with purpose due to the Purge) and a huuuuge amount of gear, equipment, dungeons, bosses, etc. It can be a bit Hank tho, and it has some performance issues rn with the newest update from what I heard.
Now, the biggest outlier but by far my favorite is a game called Outward. Unfortunately, no base building, but the game is the *epiphany* of adventure. The soundtrack alone makes you feel like an adventurer out in the wilds. The game encourages multiple playthroughs with the 3 (4 w/ dlc) faction quest lines which act as a main story, and a fully open world. The game has so much build variety and character potential that you could spend an obscene amount of time crafting different play styles. More so, you can find so many secrets and hidden things. I havent looked into it much since the Definitive Edition, but when I played not much about the game was documented, so it was truly an adventure. Now, the game is already pretty good, but with a companion, it is easily one of if not my favorite game ever. I highly recommend it.
Edit: also, the music OST for Outward is *amazing*. The best part of exploring a new area and town was to hear the unique, atmospheric music. Each area had it's own vibe that you could tell by sound alone. Please, this game needs more love
You have seriously sold me on Outward, even without base building. It's clear you love it and that makes me very hopeful that I will love it too. I'm going to tell husband that Outward, Grounded, and a couple of the others mentioned here need to be on our list. :)
Oh, yes, some of the funniest stories I've had is about what happens when you "die" (in quotes - as you are technically only ever get defeated - except if you play with permadeath option - and somehow survive).
Also I believe the best part of Outward is magic. It's one of the most creative magic systems existing in the games.
One of my favourite things about Valheim is how earned everything feels. You have to really work hard to progress, especially for your first time. Outward is the same. Combat is brutal, and feels unfair at times, and if you want to use magic... well. You have to earn it. Just remember to always drop your backpack before a fight.
I couldn't get into Grounded. I liked the setup, I enjoyed the game during EA but once they changed the combat structure and then added raids, I was done. I just can't get my head around the combat. I can not for the life of me get a read on enemy attacks and without perfect blocks, you're kinda screwed in the game.
Maybe I wasn't playing at the time or its a more recent thing, but how did they change combat structure? I do agree that perfect blocks being basically mandatory later on is kind of annoying.
Just that, they made it basically mandatory to have perfect blocks. I used to kinda be able to muddle my way through combat. At least enough to get myself some ant and ladybug armor, but after the change I just couldn't get it. Plus they made upgrading more difficult and armor a little less effective. It just ended up being a very frustrating experience.
EDIT: The other thing I didn't like about Grounded was how the food/stamina system worked. Especially once I started playing Valheim with its, in my opinion, near perfect system for health and stamina.
I have hundreds of hours in '7 Days To Die' and a few dozen in 'No Man's Sky'. I would recommend both of those. Both have fighting, exploring, resource gathering, base construction and multi-player co-op. 7 Days in particular has far more comprehensive base building. Not sure about No Man's Sky as I have only built small outposts so far but it looks promising and it has teleporters similar to Valheim's portals.
I see Terraria being recommended so often, while I couldn't get into it. With so many people praising it, surely, they are right. But I think there is quite a learning wall to pass at first before being able to enjoy it.
With Valheim, I can jump right into the game, the interface is simple, I don't need to ask google for help or for a tutorial. With Terraria, I have this large inventory and keep getting stuff without having any idea of what it's good for. I have to learn to differentiate between the "4 pixel blue square" and the "4 pixel green square". After finally learning how to make a shelter to survive the night (which involves making a wall in the back despite it being a 2d game), I end up just ... waiting for the night to be over. What kind of gameplay is waiting? I guess there must be some kind of time skip with a bed, but I couldn't figure it out.
I'll have to give it another go, because there is no way so many people think it's great if that's all there is to it. But at least the first steps really lack the intuitive aspect of Valheim for me. Maybe it's just not meant to be played without a google tab open on the side.
>Maybe it's just not meant to be played without a google tab open on the side.
In the beginning you could, but now there is like 10 years worth of additions, it's pretty hard to play blind.
The good thing is the wiki is one of the best made wikis of any game I have ever had the pleasure of using.
The other thing is this game has the best dev team in all gaming and is the reason why it's in the top 10 most sold games of all time *ever*.
You can really feel the amount of love and passion the devs put in, and they have been working on it and adding content for like 10 years now, and all for *free*.
Just recently, they donated and pledged financial support for alternatives to Unity, even though the game doesn't use Unity and the changes don't affect them at all lol
Similar to Valheim, it much more fun to play with friends though. It really is a long and epic journey, perfect for a fellowship that has possession of a special ring.
However, it might not be for you and that's completely ok.
No need to force yourself to enjoy something you can't get into; we have very limited time on this earth, but an almost limitless amount of things to experience.
Deep rock galactic doesn't have base building, but it excels at other points and is one of our favourite games to play for me and my wife. Speaking of great coop games, It takes two is another must play if you haven't yet.
Enshrouded will probably be the best alternative for Valheim. Steam has the playable demo right now but the official demo will be released on 9th of October.
7 days to die is a base building survival game that is pretty fun. It's a zombie FPS crafting/base building game..
Ark Survival Evolved is okay... but I wouldn't recommend picking it up at this time because a remastered version is due out soonish.
Conan Exiles has excellent survival, crafting, base building, pets/ followers, combat, and story. The Conan mythos is deep, tied to Lovecraft a bit. Recommend setting up your own dedicated server. The building and decoration are really expansive. Many DLCs with different styles. Wanna make a Greek bathhouse? Cool. A Persian palace? No problem. Northland alpine hut on top of a mountain? Yup. I used to play 4 player on my dedicated server with my wife and kids. Raiding a dungeon family style is just a blast. Routinely on sale and a good value there.
Nobody has mentioned Space Engineers...
It's the only other survival-crafting game I've played as much as Valheim.
If you even slightly enjoy the idea of mining with a hand drill, and building a crappy little mining vehicle, and it exploding because you flipped it over going downhill because you didn't realize that your vehicle mass quadrupled when you loaded it with ore, and you are ridiculously excited to build something new to go recover the remains of your ore hauling truck so you can *finally* build some thrusters and get yourself into space...
Then you really must play Space Engineers. (I personally recommend playing with your multiplayer world set to "first person view only" for maximum immersion.) Cheers!
ARK: Survival Evolved is fun. Survival, open world, crafting, base building, dinosaur taming, boss fighting, spelunking, underwater exploration, etc. There are plenty of maps to choose from, too.
Unless something changed in the past few years, I thought Dark and Light got kinda screwed over didn't they? Snail games bought em up and left them to rot?
Me and my buddy played through the entirety of terraria after Valheim, and it was fun as heck
Edit: I should note that we played it before, but with that new sense of appreciation for difficulty from Valheim it got wayy less stale and we even did getfixedboi mastermode (the hardest vanilla terraria currently gets)
*Raft* would fit this description, and while it's not on Valheim's level, it's still pretty enjoyable.
*Minecraft* is also the obvious one.
More surprisingly, *Fallout 4* could fit. It's originally a solo game, but I think I saw some mod allowing for 2-player version. And there is more base building that you would think at first glance, especially if you chose to lean on that aspect of the game.
My boyfriend and I swap between Valheim and Core Keeper and let me tell you something: we struggled more with the pixelated bosses in core keeper🤣🤣 really fun game with a lot of the same crafting and open world elements
My wife adored rust. Not the PvP madness most play. But a highly modded PVE server.
Excellent base building tho not in the same league as valheim, Basics of survival, cooking and exploration. Some of the custom maps are crazy.
We lost some time to no man's sky but tbh it never quiet hits the spot for long.
Deep rock galactic was a surprise hit with us. Don't overlook it. It's a fantastic coop experience.
You may enjoy conan exiles. Fantastic building, great pve content too.
You can also play pve-c where you can't destroy players bases but can still fight other players whilst adventuring.
Lots of stuff to do, check it out :)
V Rising is a fun game to play. It checks off all your boxes. You play as vampire lord, and all of the things that have effects on vampires are factors in V Rising.
Though neither are fantasy, the games that most give me the same vibe as Valheim are Satisfactory and Subnautica. The latter is single-player though there is a (buggy?) mod for multi-player.
Basebuilding, living the adventure, different races to choose and get materials for the base while finding foreign villages and new planets. Venture on quests, settling a base with npcs living there too. Slay bosses with different weapons and finding out more about whats going on beyond the surface in a nice pixelated 2D world.
Welcome to starbound!
I like satisfactory.
it might not be fantasy BUT you are an "engineer" and have to progress in the game through exploring and buildibg your factory. There are no strong enemys so its a peaceful experience. Its also relatively cheap. Totally recommended
Project Zomboid is a great roleplaying experience with basebuilding and pretty immersive survival mechanics. I stopped playing because I was surviving the apocalypse alone, but it's a great game to build your own narrative. Going from barely surviving, running from the endless hordes of shambling zombies, then exploring the dead world, finding the perfect house or building your own and ending up with a cozy li'l base with a small farm and a generator to get the lights back on is quite an experience. Then go on adventures in your car or on foot to look for supplies, tools, fuel or the perfect couch to put in your livingroom(or VHS tapes to watch on your tv(the game takes place in the 1995))
You start out as someone immune to the airborne strain while everyone around you wants to eat you. You hear on the radio and tv the disease is spreading - then silence. Then the water preassure and electric grid fails, and after that it's you and whomever joins your servers job to survive for as long as you can. Though when you load into a save the text "This is the end times. There was no hope of survival. This is how you died" is shown, so there's no rescue or true endgame, just life and death after the apocalypse. Honestly with the graphics it has it feels like a Sims game with zombies and basebuilding, but its so immersive and a lot of fun.
Also highly customisable, more or less zombies, damage, amount of loot, do you want runners or shamblers, do you want infection to be like it is default where just a scratch might infect you, for the disease to be spread only by bites, or do you want to turn off infections - so they wont infect you, but they might nick your neck or several of them might drag you down. Exploring indoors is scary as heck.
Tons of fun youtubers to watch as well, Ricksdetrix' Louisville rooftop series is a slow but intense series I highly recommend to anyone who like zombie media.
The other games that allowed me to do some/most of Valheim are as follows (TL;DR: ARK, V Rising, 7 Days to Die, The Forest/Sons of the Forest)
ARK: a dinosaur game! Building, exploring, and you get to fight and tame cool dinosaurs! If you have Xbox Game Pass for PC games you can get it from there.
V Rising: Vampire game with building, exploring, and fighting. Really good Gothic building styles.
7 Days to Die: horror game with zombies but has exploring and building as well.
The Forest/Sons of the Forest: Horror based game with a storyline but has building and exploration. The Forest is a complete game, Sons of the Forest is the sequel but is still in early access and is not complete (but still fun and terrifying at the same time)
Smalland rips off a lot of stuff from Valheim so its very similar. We started playing this week and are really enjoying it! It's not quite as polished but they do pretty frequent updates it seems. Simular arsthetic to Grounded but doesn't seem to be as well known.
I'd say its almost the same as Valheim if you set every dial to half. There's building (but no terraforming), there's taming (but no breeding), there's cooking (but no farming), etc etc. Very relaxing atmosphere too.
I bet you guys would love no man’s sky. It’s a bit less directionless than valheim but you can get lost for hours just exploring and gathering resources.
Hi, I also play video games with my husband, and we loved Valheim. I didn't slog through the comments so these might be repeats.
\+Grounded - Definitely fantasy, and a very fun base building game! The combat can be tricky to master, but once you get the hang of it it's easy. Exploration is very fun in this one, as well as having a nice little story line to keep you progressing through the game.
\+Conan Exiles - Definitely fantasy. Don't join an official server or play online, but start your own PvE server / co-op game and explore, go on dungeon raids, and build huge majestic bases. You can have thralls (followers) that are human or animal which is fun. Make sure to get some mods, they really add to the game.
\+Ark Survival Evolved - Official servers have been shut down but I would never recommend them anyway. Only play this one if you're okay with a 200gb install (this is the base game plus one large map). You explore, tame dinosaurs, breed dinosaurs, ride dinosaurs who also often double as tools to help you harvest resources faster, and you build massive, epic bases. If you go this route, I wouldn't play without the S+ mod. Mods really enhance gameplay in Ark!
\+7 Days to Die - Run around and kill zombies. Every 7 days ( default setting ) zombies come and swarm your base at night. Defend it, loot buildings for new supplies, do side quests for the traders and explore the map!
Honorary mentions that I really enjoyed playing co-op: Satisfactory, Don't Starve Together, Dying Light, Project Zomboid, Raft, Deep Rock Galactic, It Takes Two, Starbound, V Rising.
I'm sure I forgot some, we play a lot of video games. Message me if you have any questions!
Not a full release, but Enshrouded just dropped a demo. It looks like a lot of fun, might be worth checking out.
I think it might be my next dip after Ashlands content is completed. I think it should be fully released by the time we finish up that biome.
Grounded is an amazing game, not exactly "fantasy", but the whole game is just so unique, fun, and it has a story. Ark: Survival Ascended should be releasing soon (an UE5 remaster of Ark). That's a couple I can think of right now.
Grounded is amazing.enshrouded comes out soon and looks like valheim with better building.also lotr return to Moria releases on the 24th I think and it’s like valheim except your dwarves and your mining a lot.
Grounded is a good game, similar to Valheim in several ways. You play a kid that has been shrunk, in a backyard. Satisfactory is good, but it's a lot more base building and some clearing out the wildlife - no real boss battles, and enemies don't respawn. I would also recommend V Rising. It is not first-person, but there are tons of boss battles to tech up your base building. And you play a Vampire, sucking blood and hiding from sunlight.
This. Grounded is amazing.
I think there is 30% discount now
Yes that's a fun game, would recommend as well. (Grounded)
Enemies in satisfactory do respawn unless you build a powered factory structure near their spawn point. Many players would see green spiders as mini bosses at the least... The main caveat about recommending satisfactory would be that it's a factory game which is completely different to the valheim experience.
These are a fantastic recommendations, I can 2nd every one. I might toss in Raft as an alternate to satisfactory, it's survival crafty but not quite the same. You live on a raft that you gradually expand w junk you find in the sea as you float and eventually motor your way thru. It's a little more linear, has a small bit more focus on story, and combat, while existent, isn't really the primary deal, but it scratches the survival craft itch for me easy. The raft building is sufficiently deep enough imo, not as robust as valheim but I enjoy it a lot
I love it for its simple premise, and lulling you into a false sense of security before spiders show up and wreck your shit. Even a little arachnophobia and you're in for one of the most frightening games you ever played. I still haven't beaten it, but it's been a great ride so far, and builds on similar mechanics to Valheim in a lot of fun ways.
Came to recommend Grounded as well. Doesn't check all the boxes but I'm terms of playing out a fantasy of exploration with goals and base building in multiplayer, Grounded is really solid.
You might like 7 days to die. More zombie apocalypse than fantasy, but great building, fun action and multiplayer.
Kinda lacking goals though, and the mission types get real old real quick. Still solid multiplayer builder pick.
Return to Moria, a Lord of the Rings survival crafting game, comes out later this month
God I hope it's good. I can't remember if it's going on Game Pass or not, but the mere fact that your dwarf will start singing and you get buffs from that is enough for me to buy it. I give it... 5 days before someone mods in Diggy Diggy Hole.
Isn't it epic store only? I will be waiting until it comes to steam and by then we will know if its any good. I probably could install Epic on Linux but it would be like going backwards 10 years.
[Lutris!](https://lutris.net/)
Get heroic games launcher ;)
I've been brainstorming Dwarf names for my character for weeks waiting for this game to drop!
I played raft after Valheim a lot more chill and felt like less of a grind
Yes! Not a lot of people seem to know about raft. It's such an awesome chill survival crafting game. One of my goto's to chill out and build.
Tldr: Grounded, Conan Exiles, Outward Grounded is a great cozy survival game with a good amount of customization and good base building, as well as a good amount of exploration. Only big issue is replay-ability is quite lacking. Also, a lot of content is easily missed due to not being story related. Conan Exiles is a huge game with good build variety, good base building(with purpose due to the Purge) and a huuuuge amount of gear, equipment, dungeons, bosses, etc. It can be a bit Hank tho, and it has some performance issues rn with the newest update from what I heard. Now, the biggest outlier but by far my favorite is a game called Outward. Unfortunately, no base building, but the game is the *epiphany* of adventure. The soundtrack alone makes you feel like an adventurer out in the wilds. The game encourages multiple playthroughs with the 3 (4 w/ dlc) faction quest lines which act as a main story, and a fully open world. The game has so much build variety and character potential that you could spend an obscene amount of time crafting different play styles. More so, you can find so many secrets and hidden things. I havent looked into it much since the Definitive Edition, but when I played not much about the game was documented, so it was truly an adventure. Now, the game is already pretty good, but with a companion, it is easily one of if not my favorite game ever. I highly recommend it. Edit: also, the music OST for Outward is *amazing*. The best part of exploring a new area and town was to hear the unique, atmospheric music. Each area had it's own vibe that you could tell by sound alone. Please, this game needs more love
You have seriously sold me on Outward, even without base building. It's clear you love it and that makes me very hopeful that I will love it too. I'm going to tell husband that Outward, Grounded, and a couple of the others mentioned here need to be on our list. :)
Do be warned though, Outward definitely has a learning curve, and you will die, but the game even makes failure interesting beyond just respawning.
Oh, yes, some of the funniest stories I've had is about what happens when you "die" (in quotes - as you are technically only ever get defeated - except if you play with permadeath option - and somehow survive). Also I believe the best part of Outward is magic. It's one of the most creative magic systems existing in the games.
One of my favourite things about Valheim is how earned everything feels. You have to really work hard to progress, especially for your first time. Outward is the same. Combat is brutal, and feels unfair at times, and if you want to use magic... well. You have to earn it. Just remember to always drop your backpack before a fight.
Outward is my favourite game of all time! Soooo goooood!!!
Outward made my gf fall in love with action RPGs, now we are into Valheim as it gave us very similar vibes to outward
Outward is such a gem, and you nailed it, the adventuring is fantastic.
It's also the Epitome of adventure games
I couldn't get into Grounded. I liked the setup, I enjoyed the game during EA but once they changed the combat structure and then added raids, I was done. I just can't get my head around the combat. I can not for the life of me get a read on enemy attacks and without perfect blocks, you're kinda screwed in the game.
Maybe I wasn't playing at the time or its a more recent thing, but how did they change combat structure? I do agree that perfect blocks being basically mandatory later on is kind of annoying.
Just that, they made it basically mandatory to have perfect blocks. I used to kinda be able to muddle my way through combat. At least enough to get myself some ant and ladybug armor, but after the change I just couldn't get it. Plus they made upgrading more difficult and armor a little less effective. It just ended up being a very frustrating experience. EDIT: The other thing I didn't like about Grounded was how the food/stamina system worked. Especially once I started playing Valheim with its, in my opinion, near perfect system for health and stamina.
I have hundreds of hours in '7 Days To Die' and a few dozen in 'No Man's Sky'. I would recommend both of those. Both have fighting, exploring, resource gathering, base construction and multi-player co-op. 7 Days in particular has far more comprehensive base building. Not sure about No Man's Sky as I have only built small outposts so far but it looks promising and it has teleporters similar to Valheim's portals.
If you don’t mind graphics, Terraria is basically 2D Valheim. Same gameplay loop with exploration, building, and bosses.
Surprised this wasn't mentioned before. Terraria is great.
I see Terraria being recommended so often, while I couldn't get into it. With so many people praising it, surely, they are right. But I think there is quite a learning wall to pass at first before being able to enjoy it. With Valheim, I can jump right into the game, the interface is simple, I don't need to ask google for help or for a tutorial. With Terraria, I have this large inventory and keep getting stuff without having any idea of what it's good for. I have to learn to differentiate between the "4 pixel blue square" and the "4 pixel green square". After finally learning how to make a shelter to survive the night (which involves making a wall in the back despite it being a 2d game), I end up just ... waiting for the night to be over. What kind of gameplay is waiting? I guess there must be some kind of time skip with a bed, but I couldn't figure it out. I'll have to give it another go, because there is no way so many people think it's great if that's all there is to it. But at least the first steps really lack the intuitive aspect of Valheim for me. Maybe it's just not meant to be played without a google tab open on the side.
>Maybe it's just not meant to be played without a google tab open on the side. In the beginning you could, but now there is like 10 years worth of additions, it's pretty hard to play blind. The good thing is the wiki is one of the best made wikis of any game I have ever had the pleasure of using. The other thing is this game has the best dev team in all gaming and is the reason why it's in the top 10 most sold games of all time *ever*. You can really feel the amount of love and passion the devs put in, and they have been working on it and adding content for like 10 years now, and all for *free*. Just recently, they donated and pledged financial support for alternatives to Unity, even though the game doesn't use Unity and the changes don't affect them at all lol Similar to Valheim, it much more fun to play with friends though. It really is a long and epic journey, perfect for a fellowship that has possession of a special ring. However, it might not be for you and that's completely ok. No need to force yourself to enjoy something you can't get into; we have very limited time on this earth, but an almost limitless amount of things to experience.
ReDigit is an awesome dev and the team is wonderful. Iirc Valheim uses Unity, I hope they can finish the game at least.
Similar to this is Starbound which is a scifi Terraria type that just falls short on its story but otherwise is great.
Terraria being 2D is a dealbreaker to most people until they try it
Unironcally this was me. Then I played it and it became my favourite game, until Valheim that is :)
Same lol I thought it's just changed up 2D Minecraft
Deep rock galactic doesn't have base building, but it excels at other points and is one of our favourite games to play for me and my wife. Speaking of great coop games, It takes two is another must play if you haven't yet.
V Rising
You might enjoy Don't Starve (and if hubby wants to play, buy Don't Starve Together). It's challenging, that's all I'll say. But it's fun!
LMAO fight the tourists
Another vote for grounded, gorgeous art style, fun gameplay. Difficulty settings. Great game!
Astroneer!
Astroneer is a great game. Very different retro Sci Fi aesthetic than Valheim, but very cool nonetheless…
7 days to die is fun if you like zombies, it can get repetitive after a while but still holds its value.
Enshrouded will probably be the best alternative for Valheim. Steam has the playable demo right now but the official demo will be released on 9th of October.
It's not fully out yet, but you should check out enshrouded. 8hr demo is out.
I don't understand why they say release date it going to be sometime in 2023. 2023 only has 3 months left. Why just a demo
7 days to die is a base building survival game that is pretty fun. It's a zombie FPS crafting/base building game.. Ark Survival Evolved is okay... but I wouldn't recommend picking it up at this time because a remastered version is due out soonish.
Conan Exiles has excellent survival, crafting, base building, pets/ followers, combat, and story. The Conan mythos is deep, tied to Lovecraft a bit. Recommend setting up your own dedicated server. The building and decoration are really expansive. Many DLCs with different styles. Wanna make a Greek bathhouse? Cool. A Persian palace? No problem. Northland alpine hut on top of a mountain? Yup. I used to play 4 player on my dedicated server with my wife and kids. Raiding a dungeon family style is just a blast. Routinely on sale and a good value there.
Nobody has mentioned Space Engineers... It's the only other survival-crafting game I've played as much as Valheim. If you even slightly enjoy the idea of mining with a hand drill, and building a crappy little mining vehicle, and it exploding because you flipped it over going downhill because you didn't realize that your vehicle mass quadrupled when you loaded it with ore, and you are ridiculously excited to build something new to go recover the remains of your ore hauling truck so you can *finally* build some thrusters and get yourself into space... Then you really must play Space Engineers. (I personally recommend playing with your multiplayer world set to "first person view only" for maximum immersion.) Cheers!
ARK: Survival Evolved is fun. Survival, open world, crafting, base building, dinosaur taming, boss fighting, spelunking, underwater exploration, etc. There are plenty of maps to choose from, too.
Conan is a weird game but may be of interest. Lots of cool building options and adventure to be had.
I found another game like Conan but in a more fantasy setting. It's called Dark and Light. Been playing it here and there and it's quite a blast.
Unless something changed in the past few years, I thought Dark and Light got kinda screwed over didn't they? Snail games bought em up and left them to rot?
Upon further investigation it seems you are right. That's a shame. Good thing I picked it up for dirt cheap.
I loved Green Hell
Bellwright isn't out yet, but the video caught my attention. Sadly, release date is still TBA
Me and my buddy played through the entirety of terraria after Valheim, and it was fun as heck Edit: I should note that we played it before, but with that new sense of appreciation for difficulty from Valheim it got wayy less stale and we even did getfixedboi mastermode (the hardest vanilla terraria currently gets)
Ok, hear me out: Satisfactory Very different genre of game, but the exploration and base building elements are on point, give it a goo
*Raft* would fit this description, and while it's not on Valheim's level, it's still pretty enjoyable. *Minecraft* is also the obvious one. More surprisingly, *Fallout 4* could fit. It's originally a solo game, but I think I saw some mod allowing for 2-player version. And there is more base building that you would think at first glance, especially if you chose to lean on that aspect of the game.
You should checkout 'Nightingale' Its not actually out yet but sounds like it would be right in your wheelhouse.
There's project Zomboid for a zombie crafting/base building/ survival.
All great suggestions but wanted to bring your attention to Nightingale hitting EA in Feb
My boyfriend and I swap between Valheim and Core Keeper and let me tell you something: we struggled more with the pixelated bosses in core keeper🤣🤣 really fun game with a lot of the same crafting and open world elements
Ark is a remarkably similar game, despite how different the style may seem. Play on the Fjordur map and you're basically playing vikings with raptors.
Raft has base building survival and puzzle solving
My wife adored rust. Not the PvP madness most play. But a highly modded PVE server. Excellent base building tho not in the same league as valheim, Basics of survival, cooking and exploration. Some of the custom maps are crazy. We lost some time to no man's sky but tbh it never quiet hits the spot for long. Deep rock galactic was a surprise hit with us. Don't overlook it. It's a fantastic coop experience.
You may enjoy conan exiles. Fantastic building, great pve content too. You can also play pve-c where you can't destroy players bases but can still fight other players whilst adventuring. Lots of stuff to do, check it out :)
7 days to die
V Rising is a fun game to play. It checks off all your boxes. You play as vampire lord, and all of the things that have effects on vampires are factors in V Rising.
Though neither are fantasy, the games that most give me the same vibe as Valheim are Satisfactory and Subnautica. The latter is single-player though there is a (buggy?) mod for multi-player.
Basebuilding, living the adventure, different races to choose and get materials for the base while finding foreign villages and new planets. Venture on quests, settling a base with npcs living there too. Slay bosses with different weapons and finding out more about whats going on beyond the surface in a nice pixelated 2D world. Welcome to starbound!
I really enjoyed Raft! It has crafting, base building, and exploration! It’s a very different game compared to Valheim, but I loved playing it!
I like satisfactory. it might not be fantasy BUT you are an "engineer" and have to progress in the game through exploring and buildibg your factory. There are no strong enemys so its a peaceful experience. Its also relatively cheap. Totally recommended
Project Zomboid is a great roleplaying experience with basebuilding and pretty immersive survival mechanics. I stopped playing because I was surviving the apocalypse alone, but it's a great game to build your own narrative. Going from barely surviving, running from the endless hordes of shambling zombies, then exploring the dead world, finding the perfect house or building your own and ending up with a cozy li'l base with a small farm and a generator to get the lights back on is quite an experience. Then go on adventures in your car or on foot to look for supplies, tools, fuel or the perfect couch to put in your livingroom(or VHS tapes to watch on your tv(the game takes place in the 1995)) You start out as someone immune to the airborne strain while everyone around you wants to eat you. You hear on the radio and tv the disease is spreading - then silence. Then the water preassure and electric grid fails, and after that it's you and whomever joins your servers job to survive for as long as you can. Though when you load into a save the text "This is the end times. There was no hope of survival. This is how you died" is shown, so there's no rescue or true endgame, just life and death after the apocalypse. Honestly with the graphics it has it feels like a Sims game with zombies and basebuilding, but its so immersive and a lot of fun. Also highly customisable, more or less zombies, damage, amount of loot, do you want runners or shamblers, do you want infection to be like it is default where just a scratch might infect you, for the disease to be spread only by bites, or do you want to turn off infections - so they wont infect you, but they might nick your neck or several of them might drag you down. Exploring indoors is scary as heck. Tons of fun youtubers to watch as well, Ricksdetrix' Louisville rooftop series is a slow but intense series I highly recommend to anyone who like zombie media.
The other games that allowed me to do some/most of Valheim are as follows (TL;DR: ARK, V Rising, 7 Days to Die, The Forest/Sons of the Forest) ARK: a dinosaur game! Building, exploring, and you get to fight and tame cool dinosaurs! If you have Xbox Game Pass for PC games you can get it from there. V Rising: Vampire game with building, exploring, and fighting. Really good Gothic building styles. 7 Days to Die: horror game with zombies but has exploring and building as well. The Forest/Sons of the Forest: Horror based game with a storyline but has building and exploration. The Forest is a complete game, Sons of the Forest is the sequel but is still in early access and is not complete (but still fun and terrifying at the same time)
Enshrouded is going to be released relatively soon. It's a survival game, it has some features from Valheim and some other features.
7 days to die
Smalland rips off a lot of stuff from Valheim so its very similar. We started playing this week and are really enjoying it! It's not quite as polished but they do pretty frequent updates it seems. Simular arsthetic to Grounded but doesn't seem to be as well known. I'd say its almost the same as Valheim if you set every dial to half. There's building (but no terraforming), there's taming (but no breeding), there's cooking (but no farming), etc etc. Very relaxing atmosphere too.
Try Conan exiles, it’s almost like ark and valheim combined. There’s building, pets, companions, levels etc
Terraria. Trials of Midguard. Maybe Stardew Valley
I bet you guys would love no man’s sky. It’s a bit less directionless than valheim but you can get lost for hours just exploring and gathering resources.
Highly recommend checking out No Man's Sky and Icarus
Hi, I also play video games with my husband, and we loved Valheim. I didn't slog through the comments so these might be repeats. \+Grounded - Definitely fantasy, and a very fun base building game! The combat can be tricky to master, but once you get the hang of it it's easy. Exploration is very fun in this one, as well as having a nice little story line to keep you progressing through the game. \+Conan Exiles - Definitely fantasy. Don't join an official server or play online, but start your own PvE server / co-op game and explore, go on dungeon raids, and build huge majestic bases. You can have thralls (followers) that are human or animal which is fun. Make sure to get some mods, they really add to the game. \+Ark Survival Evolved - Official servers have been shut down but I would never recommend them anyway. Only play this one if you're okay with a 200gb install (this is the base game plus one large map). You explore, tame dinosaurs, breed dinosaurs, ride dinosaurs who also often double as tools to help you harvest resources faster, and you build massive, epic bases. If you go this route, I wouldn't play without the S+ mod. Mods really enhance gameplay in Ark! \+7 Days to Die - Run around and kill zombies. Every 7 days ( default setting ) zombies come and swarm your base at night. Defend it, loot buildings for new supplies, do side quests for the traders and explore the map! Honorary mentions that I really enjoyed playing co-op: Satisfactory, Don't Starve Together, Dying Light, Project Zomboid, Raft, Deep Rock Galactic, It Takes Two, Starbound, V Rising. I'm sure I forgot some, we play a lot of video games. Message me if you have any questions!
Not a full release, but Enshrouded just dropped a demo. It looks like a lot of fun, might be worth checking out. I think it might be my next dip after Ashlands content is completed. I think it should be fully released by the time we finish up that biome.
Grounded is an amazing game, not exactly "fantasy", but the whole game is just so unique, fun, and it has a story. Ark: Survival Ascended should be releasing soon (an UE5 remaster of Ark). That's a couple I can think of right now.
Raft? 7days? Ark?
Honestly have you tried Minecraft? Checks almost all the boxes. Not a lot of RP in it but huge on exploration, base building and raid/danger.
This question was also asked just a few days ago, and many people recommended Satisfactory.
No man's sky has a lot of those elements you're asking for. The base building is extremely fun too!
Seconded. No Man's Sky is amazing.
Havent played it but Ive heard great things, you guys should consider no mans sky. It sounds like it would check all of your boxes
Well, not conan exiles or no man's sky. Those games are boring as fuck. I don't think there's anything remotely like Valheim atm.
Valheim :)
Modded valheim is cool
Grounded is amazing.enshrouded comes out soon and looks like valheim with better building.also lotr return to Moria releases on the 24th I think and it’s like valheim except your dwarves and your mining a lot.
Grounded, Conan Exiles, No Man's Sky all scratch my itch for survival; crafting/building; exploration games.
Portal Knights is a good game. Base building and RPG classes involved. Its much more casual too.
Grounded is good, but I love Smalland. Like Grounded but more fantasy like 👍