Best Sandbox Games on Steam
Unlike generic lists, our strategy game recommendations use a rigorous analysis of Steam user reviews to identify and feature only the best, community-validated sandbox games.
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Little Kitty, Big City
You're a curious little kitty with a big personality, on an adventure to find your way back home. Explore the city, make new friends with stray animals, wear delightful hats, and leave more than a little chaos in your wake. After all, isn't that what cats do best?
Dream Engines: Nomad Cities
A survival city-building game with flying cities. Build, automate, and defend a flying city that travels between procedurally generated maps to survive in a wacky, nightmare-infested, post-apocalyptic world full of strange science and dreams.
V Rising
Awaken as a Vampire. Hunt for blood in nearby settlements to regain your strength and evade the scorching sun to survive. Raise your castle and thrive in an ever-changing, open world full of mystery. Gain allies online and conquer the land of the living.
Croakoloco
Croakoloco is a relaxing frog collecting idle game. Watch them jump, croak, and eat delicious flies. Grow frogs, feed frogs, or take control of one in “Froggy Mode” for a more active play style!
FOUNDRY
Build a sophisticated robot factory optimized to perfection in an infinite voxel world. Mine and harvest resources, automate your production lines and manage complex systems while researching your way to become the galaxy’s leading robotics megacorp.
Manor Lords
Manor Lords is a medieval strategy game featuring in-depth city building, large-scale tactical battles, and complex economic and social simulations. Rule your lands as a medieval lord – the seasons pass, the weather changes, and cities rise and fall.
Oriental Valley
Welcome to the weird and wonderful world where modern country life meets quirky simulation adventure! Here you'll immerse yourself in a laid-back lifestyle full of traditional customs, make a bunch of quirky new friends, and embark on bizarre adventures.
Diluvian Winds
Diluvian Winds is a relaxing management game set in a small hamlet at the foot of a lighthouse. Welcome weary travelers and work together to expand your hamlet on land, under the sea, or among the clouds.
Backrooms Break
Explore and break the environments of the Backrooms and Poolrooms! Utilize Thor's demolition hammer, firearms, and explosives to carve your way through the walls and entities. This isn't just another mundane walking simulator game. Now the entities are the victims. Overcome your fears with violence.
Sweet Transit
Sweet Transit is a unique city builder where the railway is king. Build and automate the dream supply chain for your citizens, giving them all they need to expand quaint villages into bustling cities. Progress from steam power to diesel and beyond in this advanced train-driven experience.
Internet Cafe Evolution
This is a business simulation + construction game. It tells the evolution history of Internet cafes that began in the 1990s, and imagines the future of internet cafes. There are also some small emotional stories.
The Crew Motorfest
Welcome to Motorfest, the ultimate open-world driving experience. Explore the Hawaiian islands of O'ahu and Maui. Celebrate the best of car culture through 20+ themed campaigns (street racing, offroad, drift...) and collect hundreds of iconic vehicles. Enjoy the game free for five hours!
Survisland / 实境求生
Survisland is a super hardcore sandbox survival game that pays great attention to restoring the real survival experience. The character has rich and realistic actions and reactions to , and the process logic of making props is no different from reality.
Tinkerlands: A Shipwrecked Adventure
A Shipwrecked Adventure is a free prologue immersing you into the vast world of Tinkerlands. Uncover the story of the first survivors on these mystical islands. Explore the breathtaking archipelago, craft essential tools, build your settlement, and strive to survive!
Infection Free Zone
Choose any real region from the world. Choose your base of operations, then rebuild and readapt the buildings around you to create a self-sustaining settlement. Take charge of a group of survivors from your city. And when the night falls - Defend the zone from the infected!
Sky: Children of the Light
A breathtaking open-world adventure awaits! Explore magical realms, restore lost light, and form wordless bonds with players worldwide. Complete quests and solve puzzles in seasonal events that celebrate kindness, discovery, and heartfelt connection.
Laysara: Summit Kingdom
Build and expand your very own settlements in high mountains! Carefully plan production chains and satisfy various needs of your three-caste society while dealing with mountain hazards such as weather breakdowns and avalanches. Are you skilled enough to make your town thrive?
The Planet Crafter
A space survival open world terraforming crafting game, designed for 1 to 10 players. Alter the ecosystem of an inhospitable planet to render it habitable for humanity. Survive, gather resources, and build your base. Then, generate oxygen, warmth, and pressure to create a brand new biosphere.
Underspace
The spiritual successor to Freelancer with a Lovecraftian, sandbox RPG twist. Explore a vast handmade universe with Day 1 mod support and a planned PvP/co-op multiplayer on the Early Access roadmap. You're going to need a bigger ship.
The Lost Village
Once there was a prosperous village of Martials, now none of it remains. As the son of the former Master, you will lead your followers to rebuild this village. Recruit followers and enter the mysterious illusional domain, acquire lost wonders. Will you see the rebirth of ancestors’ glory again?
Center Station Simulator
Mine, farm, manufacture components and build a wide range of machines in an infinite basement. Forget primitive tasks thanks to automation! And sell your products to your customers! Build a parking, a gas station...
Sons of Valhalla
Sons of Valhalla is a roguelike strategy game set in the Viking Age. Build fortresses, gather warriors, and lay siege to enemy strongholds, engaging in personal combat as you raid and conquer across England.
BMX Streets
Ready to hit the streets? BMX Streets brings the essence of BMX riding to your fingertips. Experience the next generation of BMX gaming with realistic physics, massive amounts of customization and gorgeous maps. Practice, experiment and explore to find your own unique style and master the streets.
Dishwashing Simulator
A short, unique survival-farming-base-building-tycoon-horror game where you must survive through washing dishes. Explore mysterious depths, manage resources, and unravel a cryptic narrative. In DWS, a chore becomes a journey to freedom.
Anonymous Hacker Simulator
Step into the shoes of a skilled Anonymous hacker and embark on a mission to unveil the truth hidden behind a sinister organization's plans to monitor civilian data and enforce mass surveillance.
From Glory To Goo
From Glory To Goo is a Sci-Fi survival RTS set on an alien world. Serve as humanity's bulwark by establishing a colony and supporting your colonists still in orbit. But beware, for The Goo, a relentless and shape-shifting force approaches from all sides, even above and below.
Pathless Woods
Embark on a cozy open-world survival journey inspired by ancient China's heritage. Gather resources, cultivate crops, build your dream home, and defend it from marauders. Team up with friends to explore and uncover a world where adventure meets serenity.
Aquarist
A relaxing sandbox casual simulation game where you perform various, even strange, aquarium-related tasks on very diverse levels. As an Aquarist you must create and manage a home to amazing fish🐟, sea turtles🐢, sharks🦈, octopuses🐙, and more🐬. Aquarium is their world and life. Make it worth...
AutoForge
A 2D automation sandbox adventure. Build an automated factory with Mana-powered machines, progress through an expansive tech tree, explore a vast and wonderful world, upgrade yourself with ancient technologies, and defend it all from invasions.
The Magical Mixture Mill
Gather exotic ingredients, brew complex mixtures, and expand your magically automated production lines -- keeping your shelves stocked, your customers happy, and your pockets full.
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles
Bulwark blends casual and creative building elements with touches of strategy and exploration. It's an experimental mix of genres that can be enjoyed casually or as an epic conquest featuring naval units, air units, and fortresses.
Rise of Gun
Rise of Gun - immerses you in a world of zombie apocalypse as a gun store owner. Buy parts, craft, sell, upgrade your store and hire workers. Help to humanity survive