Even though it’s on Early Access, Valheim remains one of the most popular games in the survival genre for PC. It boasts over 20K daily players on Steam, and the player base stays consistent. The secret is, perhaps, the casual approach. Rather than pitting you against one another, it’s purely a co-op experience. Are there other games like Valheim?
Selecting Games Like Valheim
We believe Valheim fans would like games featuring a mix or a twist of the game’s elements.
Genre: Valheim is an open-world survival-crafting and sandbox game. Open-world: You enter procedurally generated maps inspired by Viking and Northern mythology.Co-op: You can play alone, join a world with your friends, or join a world with random people. Servers support up to 10 players. Setting: The game takes place in the “Tenth World.” The journey is about proving yourself worthy to reach “Valhalla,” the Viking’s heaven. Combat: Valheim has a souls-like combat system. You can dodge, parry, block, attack, and use ranged or melee skills. The mechanics rely on timing and managing stamina. Boss Fights: The adventure takes you through different epic boss fights. They will test your might and offer rewards in loot and gear.Progression: In-game actions will raise the level that relates to said action. For example, each weapon has its own progression, so using spears will raise your spear level. Exploration: You explore the mysterious land and discover enemies, resources, ruins, and secrets. You travel by land or sea. Resources: You gather resources as you explore, but you need the proper tools to mine specific resources.Crafting: You can craft weapons, potions, armor, tools, etc. Building: you can also build a great deal of Viking structures. It includes longboats, farms, longhouses, fortresses, and more. Tech Levels: Building and crafting work through a familiar workbench level. It means you increase “tech levels” by building new things. Customization: You have hundreds of customization options for your buildings, both outside and inside. Survival: There’s no hunger or starvation in Valheim. Instead, you’d get buffs or HP recovery from cooked meals.
Overall, the title relies on top-tier combat, gorgeous randomized open-worlds, and intuitive crafting and building systems. It’s a great deal for genre newcomers and one of the strongest examples in the branch. Also, Valheim, as a co-op-only game with easy-to-understand systems, is very friendly. We’re not including unforgiving open-world survival craft games like Rust or Ark: Survival Evolved. Rather, we’ll search across various genres to find the kind of experiences you may be looking for. It may be a casual co-op, an open-world sandbox, or a blend of these two elements.
Games Like Valheim
Subnautica
Subnautica is an offline-only open-world survival craft game. Because it’s not a co-op title, it delivers a thrilling campaign and an incredible world to discover. Also, after you finish the campaign, you can dive in for the Bellow Zero expansion. Rather than a procedurally generated world, you explore a set underwater alien planet. You’re a survivor of a ship crash, and your only option is to go deeper to gather the resources you need to survive. The underwater adventure relies on two key stats. There’s oxygen supply, and there’s water pressure. You need to create oxygen tanks, as well as underwater suits, to survive. Moreover, you can build a base around your Life Pod or anywhere, but you’d need to craft the proper tools for the task. And as you venture deeper and deeper, you’ll discover a wider mystery. The story revolves around the plane crash, and it explores why the entire planet is underwater. Lastly, the planet is full of underwater life, biomes, and sights. There’s also a day & night cycle, and the most dangerous predators will hunt you in the darkest corners of the ocean.
Outward
Outward is an open-world survival RPG with souls-like combat. It has a story-driven focus, so you can perfectly enjoy its campaign solo. Alternatively, it has tons of side content and an open-ended story that grants plenty of player freedom. You explore the fictional world of Aurai, but rather than being a hero, you’re a commoner. That’s why most of the experience focuses on survival, not saving the world. That said, the title includes traditional RPG aspects. You fight, level up, gear up, and develop skills. Also, you have to manage warmth, fatigue, thirst, hunger, cold, indigestion, and disease. Additionally, you make choices that alter the world, create branching paths, and lead to various endings. Then, the progress relies on completing quests or paying experts to receive training. There’re also many spells, but obtaining new magic is as challenging as progressing the outcome. Other systems include NPCs sending you to prison. As for multiplayer, you can play the entire campaign with another friend. But either solo or co-op, the game is fun, challenging, and has various layers of tension and survival.
The Forest
The Forest is an open-world survival craft game with a story-driven campaign and survival horror elements. You can face the story alone or at a party with up to 8 players traveling together. Because of its story-driven focus, it easily grasps player attention. You play as a lone crash survivor or as a group of survivors. You wake in an unnerving forest, and your goal is to survive until you get back to civilization. Tribes of cannibalistic mutants live around you, and they are your enemies. The story fleshes out these tribes with clear goals, motivations, and personalities. It means exploring your enemies is one of the best parts of the game. And as you explore the open world, you’ll gather resources to develop a base and craft gear and tools. You’ll also find supplies to survive, but resources are scarce, and enemies are terrifying. Lastly, the world is fully interactive. You can chop, cut, mine, and change everything you see in the forest. Additionally, there’s a vast cave network to explore on top of the massive jungle, lakes, and rivers.
No Man’s Sky
No Man’s Sky is the friendliest open-world adventure game, and it’s an MMO. There’re endless things to explore in a procedurally generated galaxy and endless things to do. And there’s no one to tell you can’t, as there’re no time limits, no PvP, and just a few hostile NPCs. You play around in an “infinite” randomized universe. There’s no goal and no purpose. Simply, you explore whatever’s shiny out there. Take your ship, go to a planet, land on it, explore, mine its resources, and invest in your ship, weapons, and suit. There’s also a vast building system. You can build on any planet or across space, which allows you to skip gravity. You can build massive structures with your resources and become an overseer of your settlements to micro-manage many aspects of the location. There’s not much focus on combat, which you may miss as a Valheim player. However, hostiles include pirate ships, alien creatures, and similar. Still, combat is a bit janky, and it’s simply about aiming and shooting, either on foot or on your ship. Lastly, there’s a storyline, plus various side missions. These are only there to guide new players through the game’s mechanics, factions, and races. However, it has no other MMO mechanics, like micro-transactions, various in-game currencies, etc.
Terraria
Terraria is an open-world survival craft and sandbox game in full 2D. It uses its 16-bit graphics and old-school style to great effect, though, as it’s one of the most popular games in the genre. The gameplay revolves around exploring below and beneath the surface. You’ll gather resources, find tools, and loot weapons as you explore. These three things will “progress” your character, as all of your skills and stats depending on your gear. There’s also a wider storyline about rescuing and helping NPCs. You can find these characters in different parts of the world, save them from a monster, and create a house that suits their needs. Back on your base, you can build endless multi-layered structures. You can also craft better and better gear and make many tools for mining, traversal, and survival. And as you explore, you’ll fight with melee, magic, ranged weapons, and other tools against monsters and bosses. Lastly, you can play alone or co-op. The title supports up to four players on split-screen and up to 8 people playing together online. The game’s resources and monsters will rise depending on how many people explore together.
Don’t Starve Together
Don’t Starve Together is an open-world survival craft game as well. Its signature element is its blend of procedurally generated biomes, isometric “hand-drawn” visuals, and a whimsical art style. It’s also the co-op version of Don’t Starve, but you don’t need the original game to play it. Moreover, buying it on Steam includes an extra copy you can send to a friend to start playing immediately. You could also join strangers to play, and each server supports six players. The story takes you to a weird world with no sense of direction or purpose. You’re to discover what to do, how to craft, mine, and every other in-game mechanic. For example, you can farm, hunt, build, and explore alone or together. You can build a base, craft tools, and gather resources in the maps. However, there’s a day and night cycle, and monsters are out to hunt you at night. Combat relies on isometric hack & slash action, but melee abilities are quite simple (like heavy and light attacks). There’s no story, as the campaign remains on the offline version. However, there’re various game modes, plus a massive, weird, dangerous open world and an outstanding OST that matches the aesthetics.
The Planet Crafter
The Planet Crafter is a survival open-world game on space. It’s an offline only-experience, though, and it’s also on Early Access. The experience is shorter than usual, but the game is still quite popular. You play as an engineer, and your job is exploring and terraforming a hostile ecosystem. The ultimate goal is making the planet inhabitable for humans, and you’ll do it through exploration, mining, and building. The gameplay happens from a first-person perspective. You explore an open-world planet for resources you can take back to the base and build the structures you need. Then, these structures either create oxygen, heat or atmospheric pressure. These are the core resources both the base and you need to survive. You also have to manage your oxygen, heat, pressure, thirst, and other health mechanics. Lastly, the base building includes various machines and structures to make a home. But each installation requires different minerals and materials. The entire building and crafting system is easy to understand, as it’s smaller than many other genre titles.
Raft
Raft is an oceanic open-world survival craft adventure. You can go alone or play as part of an 8-player party. Regardless, the journey is the same: surviving on a raft across a vast sea. You start with a makeshift raft and a plastic hook. Quickly, you learn to pick up debris from the ocean with your hook and use the debris to develop your raft. You’ll advance in the tech tree as you build and craft tools, further unlocking better options. Soon, you start building a multi-layered home boat that grants you various services. You can unlock fishing by creating hooks, hunting by creating spears, and meat conservation by crafting boxers where you can store the meat. You can also explore islands as you sail. Some of these hold secrets that tell you the story underneath the adventure. A world-ending event submerged the entire world, and all that’s left are debris, rafts, and floating cities. Lastly, there’re enemies in the game, predators like sharks. As you scavenge reefs and islands, sharks may eat you unless you have the right harpoons or weapons to defend yourself.
Left 4 Dead 2
Left 4 Dead 2 is one of the biggest co-op FPS in the genre. And even though it’s old, and there’s no new content coming, the community and the player base are still massive. You played as part of a 4-player squad against hordes of zombies on five separate campaigns. The journey takes you through swamps, cities, cemeteries, basements, and abandoned stores across Southern USA. The co-op action relies on frenetic shooting, insane weapons, and a wide arsenal of firearms and melee options. Then, you’ll face various kinds of zombie enemies and bosses, each featuring different behaviors and skills. Another high point is how environments feel dynamic. Every moment feels different than the last. That’s because every scenario and the action-set piece is distinct, and the AI changes things around. See, the Director A.I. notices how you play to increase the challenge. According to your skill level, it changes around most in-game mechanics and events. That includes enemy spawn locations, enemy numbers, items, weather, music, sound effects, etc.
Deep Rock Galactic
Deep Rock Galactic is a 4-player co-op FPS. It features a procedurally generated cave system, randomized quests, and an intuitive crafting system. Moreover, it’s a co-op PvE experience with no PvP, like Valheim. You pick one of the four Dwarf classes to play solo or co-op. Then, you get a randomized mission, often securing a resource somewhere in the cave. That said, each class has distinct advantages for both mining and combat. You explore procedurally-generated caves, and the entire environment is destructible. It means you can dig anywhere to reach somewhere else. However, you never know where a tunnel leads or where the enemies are. Similarly, you can mine almost anything and take resources back to your offline base. You use these items to upgrade your gear and improve your character. Additionally, you can level up to unlock apparel, abilities, and ability slots. Lastly, enemies are insectoid-like aliens. They attack in swarms, fast and vicious, so combat is often better when you’re part of a team. Moreover, different Dwarf abilities mix very smoothly to hold enemy hordes and waves.
Project Zomboid
Project Zomboid is a classic-looking sandbox zombie adventure. It grants a plethora of gaming mechanics and systems to role-play as a survivor, either solo or alone. Zomboid servers support up to 16 people, which can be your friends or random players. There’s also a local 4-player split-screen co-op, which many say it’s the best game to play the game. You play in a zombie-ridden town, and the zombie horde mechanics and AI make it very challenging. The gameplay is about scavenging buildings and surviving the zombie horde. The game also features a hardcore mode with extra survival features. It forces you to micro-manage resources and supplies to keep your character stats in check. Alternatively, you can create your own maps and share them with your friends to play. Lastly, various in-game systems deliver an immersive experience. There’s real-time lighting, sound and line of sight calculations, shadows, stealth, a day and night cycle, and more.
Grounded
Grounded is a more standard story-driven game with open-world and RPG elements. Yet, you can play the campaign in co-op with three friends, and the title supports cross-play. You play as a kid, or a group of kids, in the backyard. You have the size of insects, and you must come back to your real body. The adventure takes you to face giant spiders and other insects. As you explore the world, you’ll find various kinds of insects. Some of these are food to fill your hunger bar. Others are resources, and the fiercest ones are enemies. Then, you play from a first-person perspective and enjoy a fair combat system. You can use skills, attack, dodge, level up, loot, and improve your gear. The RPG systems allow you to craft various kinds of characters as well, like the typical archer of tanky warriors. Lastly, your shelter, the game’s hub, is critical for survival. That’s why you can build a base with your resources, which will protect you, your allies, and your resources. Additionally, it’s where you’d craft your tools, weapons, and armor.
Satisfactory
Satisfactory is a first-person open-world game. The goal is to build a factory with automated systems on an alien planet. You rely on exploring, combat, and building for the task. You can play alone or with up to four friends. Regardless, the experience is about conquering nature, including hostile alien creatures, plants, rocks, mountains, rivers, etc. Exploring the planet requires you to use vehicles, jump pads, jetpacks, and other elements at your disposal. Then, you fight against aliens often, mine resources, and go back to the base. Back on your base, you’ll construct automatic systems like conveyor belts across endless and procedurally generated species. Your factories can be as massive and multi-layered as you’d like. Automation systems are one of the key elements of the game. The idea is to build a self-sustaining factory with a web of complex conveyor belts, pipes, trucks, and trains. You can use these systems to reach all of your outposts and fill your needs.
