I love these mechanics. Manually controlling a player character to run around a world doing these things is great for immersion.
I’ve already played Skyrim and My Time at Portia.
Valheim has a lot of that feel to it as well.
Vintage Story. It is a survival game built by former Minecraft modders. It has pretty detailed metal crafting. You have to forge your items and then shape them on an anvil
On one hand I love vintage story’s focus on realism, on the other hand crafting and smelting stuff takes forever I sometimes wish it were as simple as minecraft. It’s cool the first few times but if I have to make another pot or heat up my metals and wack them a million times I’m going insane.
Definitely what OP is looking for, though.
I agree, if it was that alone it would be fantastic imo but the hostile fauna AND the Lovecraft demons that spawn make it so frustrating sometimes. Being unable to find tin and dieing to wolves an hour away from base (with no stock way of finding your body) is what made me stop my last run and I haven’t picked it up in about a year.
…Minecraft. No, really. It’s actually good.
Especially with a decent modpack. Specifically, one that comes with Tinker’s Construct.
Kenshi. Take a look at it. You control people in a very active world, but you build settlements and mine iron, stone and copper and build things, and explore to get more research to build better things and improve your people so they can build even bigger and better things. Deep lore if you like that as well, but easy to ignore.
Try Stationeers, if you like difficulty. Smelting single metals is easy, but having to smelt ores at a specific temp and pressure to create alloys is hard, especially if you have to first manufacture the gas that heats it.
The only one I liked is the Monster Hunter series.
You gotta check out Satisfactory. That’s the whole game.
Or the OG Factorio
Or the OG Modded Minecraft.
If your into the space vibes Empyrion Galactic Survival is a great one that goes from mining by hand to mining vehicles to asteroid mining with huge ships!
I haven’t played the games I’m about to recommend.
- Sengoku Dynasty - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1702010/Sengoku_Dynasty
- Medieval Dynasty - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1129580/Medieval_Dynasty
Is it Life Simulator type games you’re interested in? Or just specifically those concerning mining, smithing, and forging?
Just games where you make the things you use out of raw materials you get from the ground
How about Planet Crafter? You crash land on a planet and you have to terraform the planet using the materials you gather.
There’s also Occupy Mars. This is more realistic. It’s just that there’s one aspect of it that I think you might love.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/758690/Occupy_Mars_The_Game/
Using a drill, crane and vehicle to break down boulders for example.
For actually digging topsoil or making tunnels to reveal a resource, Space Engineers.
For picking up resources in the woods or a mine and processing them Primitive Technology style into tools, Medieval Dynasty.
For putting an automatic miner down and working on the factory, Satisfactory.
