Craft. Build. Survive.
Survival games with building and crafting seem to be the biggest Steam hits that just don’t get equivalent attention in the written press. While there is often combat in these games, the core loop is generally more about resource gathering, resource refining and building. There’s something about carving out a little slice of your own, one you've built entirely yourself (or with friends!), that pulls on something deeply human I think. Hmm, maybe someone should write about that one day...
Core Keeper
Early Access
Successfully pulling on those Stardew Valley vibes, Core Keeper expands out the farming aspect to create a wide open sandbox filled with building, crafting, mining and much more. Can be played solo or with a bunch of friends.
Retreat To Enen
A survival crafter focused more on the crafting than the surviving. There’s still elements of survival, but the threat side of the equation is removed - this one is all about building the retreat of your dreams without the friction created by someone coming to knock it down or kill you (mostly). Very pretty.
Salt 2: Shores of Gold
Early access
Basically what if Sea of Thieves but single player but also more expanded. An open world pirate exploration adventure about finding treasure, crafting gear, hunting and fishing and much more. “Make your ship your home at sea” is a great tagline.
Isles of Etherion
Early access
Sadly yet to hit its audience due to it still being a bit early, this one has some pretty amazing potential. a large fantasy world that is 100% destructible, a their person action RPG with incredible ambition. One to check in on in 12 months and see how it’s progressing. (A little light on the survival side of things for this category, but I somehow missed it before posting our RPG category and we couldn’t not mention it!)
Common'hood
Has demo
Has it’s share of issues, but I couldn’t not include this one with it’s fantastic premise that shines through despite the bugginess. A building/crafting game focused just as much on building a community as it is on physically building. Is more narrative focused than these games tend to be.
The Planet Crafter
Early access, has demo
A survival crafter all about terraforming a hostile planet into a human focused paradise. It’s like No Man’s Sky’s building and crafting but massively expanded out to it’s logical extreme.