Best Sandbox Games on Steam
Unlike generic lists, our game recommendations use a rigorous analysis of Steam user reviews to identify and feature only the best, community-validated sandbox games.
Filters & Lists
EMERGENCY 20
Coordinate your team of first responders in the anniversary edition of EMERGENCY! Featuring 10 remastered classic EMERGENCY missions and three full campaigns, EMERGENCY 20 is the complete package for both experienced and new rescue commanders!
Overgrowth
Feel like the star of a martial arts film in Overgrowth, as you jump, kick, throw, and slash your way to victory. Free the rabbits from their evil overlords in the main story, then play through the prequel story, and finally, try out nine years of mods developed by the community, or create your own!
Gold Mining Simulator
Become a gold miner. Work hard, dig deep, explore the world, and you’ll become the wealthiest person in Alaska. Use a variety of specialist machines to find as much gold as you can.
Computer Tycoon
Computer Tycoon is a fairly complex Business Grand Strategy game about Computer Evolution. Start in the 70s, invent until 2034, create the best computer systems, upgrade your infrastructure, lead a team, and alter computer history! It is time to "Think Different"
Stronghold 2: Steam Edition
Tax, torture or treat your peasants! Rehabilitate criminals or sentence them to death? Decide as you enjoy jousting over a lavish banquet, all while under siege from the warmongering Lord Barclay.
RollerCoaster Tycoon® Classic
Create incredible parks in the original rollercoaster sim from Chris Sawyer.
Niche - a genetics survival game
Niche - a genetics survival game is a turn-based strategy game combined with simulation and roguelike elements. Shape your own species of animals based on real genetics. Keep your species alive against all odds, such as predators, climate change and spreading sickness.
The Caribbean Sail
Name your crew, purchase supplies, sail the world, harpoon fish, plunder your enemies, die horribly, unlock a new Captain and do it all over again!
Oriental Empires
Turn based 4X strategy game, recreating the civilizations of ancient China. Develop your land, build great cities, raise huge armies and fight epic battles, with hundreds of soldiers fighting right on the game map. Advance your technologies, culture and religion to create one of mankind’s biggest empires.
3030 Deathwar Redux - A Space Odyssey
3030 Deathwar is a unique mix of Adventure and Space Sim. Explore star systems, mine and hunt pirates in top-down mode. Leave your ship and switch into classic Adventuring mode, where you explore derelicts, talk to shady characters or head over to the space bar for a drink.
Voxel Turf
Voxel Turf is a block based urban sandbox. Build cities, blow up buildings, complete missions or fight for territory. Build a real estate empire, or perhaps just drive around and blow stuff up. Its your choice!
Stash
Stash is an MMO with turn based grid combat, custom housing, a tabletop art style, and more loot than you can fit in a portable hole. Stash has the charm of a pen-and-paper gaming group with the gameplay of a deep, interesting, unique RPG. Join our friendly community!
ARK: Survival Evolved
Stranded on the shores of a mysterious island, you must learn to survive. Use your cunning to kill or tame the primeval creatures roaming the land, and encounter other players to survive, dominate... and escape!
Robocraft
Build insane, fully customisable robot battle vehicles that drive, hover, walk and fly in the free-to-play action game Robocraft. Add weapons from the future and jump in the driving seat as you take your creation into battle against other players online!
Chroma Lab
Chroma Lab is a VR particle physics sandbox. Surround yourself with hundreds of thousands of colorful particles that stick together like a fluid which you can interact with using a variety of tools.
The Escapists 2
Craft, Steal, Brawl and Escape! It’s time to bust out of the toughest prisons in the world as you return to the life of an inmate in The Escapists 2, now with multiplayer! Have you got what it takes to escape?
Castle Story
Castle Story is a creative voxel-based strategy game in which you can build castles one brick at a time using an army of little creatures called Bricktrons. Design and build your own castles, expand your territory in a vast landscape and defend your Bricktrons against onslaughts of hostile creatures.
Tiny Town VR
Create an original world and fill it with buildings, roads, vehicles and more. Give it life with posable characters. Tell a story with custom speech bubbles and in-game photo captures. Then, share with friends!
Slime Rancher
Slime Rancher is the tale of Beatrix LeBeau, a plucky, young rancher who sets out for a life a thousand light years away from Earth on the ‘Far, Far Range’ where she tries her hand at making a living wrangling slimes.
The Long Dark
THE LONG DARK is a thoughtful, exploration-survival experience that challenges solo players to think for themselves as they explore an expansive frozen wilderness in the aftermath of a geomagnetic disaster. There are no zombies -- only you, the cold, and all the threats Mother Nature can muster.
Airmen
Airmen is a first person ship building and battling game featuring airships, landships and watercraft. Crew your ship solo or alongside friends on dangerous expeditions into the archipelago to complete contracts, collect resources, and upgrade your ships.
Aven Colony
Build a new home for humanity in Aven Colony. Discover Aven Prime - an alien planet of deserts, tundras, and wetlands light years from earth. Build your colonies into massive, sprawling cities whilst dealing with the challenges faced when settling on a new world.
Just Cause™ 3: Multiplayer Mod
Just Cause 3 Multiplayer mod is a free fan-created project bringing an explosive and highly-customizable multiplayer.
Kingdoms and Castles
Kingdoms and Castles is a city-building simulation game about growing a kingdom from a tiny hamlet to a sprawling city and imposing castle. Make trade agreements, alliance, and war with neighboring AI controlled kingdoms. Each villager and resource is individually simulated.
Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles
Unwind and enjoy the slow life in Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles, a relaxing open-world adventure game. Yonder is set in the world of Gemea. A natural island paradise with eight distinct environments ranging from tropical beaches to snow-capped summits.
Fly Simulator
You work as a waiter and lead an uphill battle for their clients. You pushing back the flies from the food, otherwise you'll never get anything. Maybe you are a hungry insect trying to increase their population? Choose the opposing side. The war is already underway.
Rusted Warfare - RTS
{{An RTS inspired by the classics of the past!}} Making up for it's subpar retro graphics with fun gameplay and modern multi-threaded tech enabling huge battles to run smooth... Featuring singleplayer challenges, skirmish, sandbox, 10-player multiplayer & workshop modding.
Colony Survival
Colony Survival is a unique first-person strategy game developed by a two-man team. Build your own colony in a voxel world. Command guards, farmers, miners and other colonists. Defend your colony against the horde of monsters that attacks every night!
Home Wars
Do you hate bugs and arachnids? Seeing them creeps you out? Would you like them to disappear off the face of the Earth? GOOD! This is the right game for you! In HW you’ll play as a General of a toy soldiers army, with the sole purpose of saving the owner’s house from the invasion of those damn Bugs.
Pixel Worlds: MMO Sandbox
Pixel Worlds is a free-to-play sandbox MMO where players build worlds, craft items, explore dungeons, farm resources, and trade in a player-driven economy, all within a shared online universe rebuilt as a fresh start for a fair and stable long-term experience.
Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator
Here is a sandbox like no other. Create massive battles with absolutely no limits. Want to see 10,000 chickens fight an army of Romans?? Sure, why not. Want to see a company of WW2 U.S soldiers fight 11,000 Medieval soldiers?? There are simply no limits to the carnage you can achieve in UEBS.