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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Lakeview Cabin Collection
Delve into the diverse world of horror movies in this 2D action puzzler. Nothing can prepare you for the R-rated challenges you will face!
Elite Dangerous
Take control of your own starship and blaze your trail in an ever-changing galaxy. Master the arts of combat, mining and trade or venture out into the unknown across a 1:1 scale universe.
VoidExpanse
Explore the vast reaches of VoidExpanse -- mine asteroids, upgrade your ship, trade, complete missions, advance your character and survive fast-paced combat with hostile aliens and mercenaries in the rich and exciting Sci-Fi universe of VoidExpanse!
RUNNING WITH RIFLES
RUNNING WITH RIFLES is a top-down tactical shooter with open world RPG elements. In RWR, you join the ranks of an army as a common soldier, just like the thousands around you.
War for the Overworld
War for the Overworld is an unholy union of Dungeon Management and Strategy that rewards all those villainous thoughts you’ve been having. Craft your own perilous dungeon and defend it against pesky heroes who keep exploring it and taking your stuff.
The Spatials
It's the year 5781 -- and you have been chosen to build and lead a space station in a wild corner of the galaxy! Attract visitors and explore hundreds of planets to fund your station.
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
Make your dream cars a reality with Automation’s unparalleled car and engine design tools. Gain a competitive edge through smart engineering and business decisions to help you build an automotive empire. Will you become an industry leader, or just a footnote in automotive history?
Cities: Skylines
Cities: Skylines is a modern take on the classic city simulation. The game introduces new game play elements to realize the thrill and hardships of creating and maintaining a real city whilst expanding on some well-established tropes of the city building experience.
Reassembly
A spaceship building and universe-exploration game. Collect resources, expand and grow your fleet, and conquer your personal galaxy. Stellar ambience by Peaks.
The Escapists
The Escapists provides players the opportunity of experiencing a light-hearted insight into everyday prison life with the main objective being that of escaping!
Destination Sol
Pilot your ship in the seamless open world made of space, planets, and more. Find new ships and equipment, find allies and beat all the enemies in this open source space shooter!
Seven Kingdoms 2 HD
Get ready for an exciting real-time strategy game experience like no other with Seven Kingdoms 2! Say goodbye to the monotony of resource gathering and army building, its unique gameplay offers a thrilling blend of city management, trade, industry, espionage, diplomacy, and conquest!
Grow Home
Experience the freedom of unbounded climbing as you take control of BUD, a procedurally animated robot on a quest to save his planet. Create your own path through an alien world as you control and ride a giant plant on a vertical journey to the stars.
Survivalist
It's one year after the collapse of civilization and self-centered hedge fund manager Joe Wheeler emerges from his specially constructed bunker in search of food. This is a huge open-world RPG where you have the freedom to play how you want - but your choices have consequences.
Making History: The Great War
The Great War is a turn-based grand strategy game based on the epic struggles of the WWI era. Experience the battles of attrition and punishing artillery barrages. Play as any nation of the period as the modern world of industrialized warfare replaces an age of kings with a struggle of ideologies.
Gear Up
Feel the adrenaline as you control your unique tank in multiplayer arcade action! Build your ultimate war machine from over a million different combinations. Now, will you go for the rumbling caterpillar tracks or the crawling spider legs?
Among Ripples
Control a pond's ecosystem; experiment with what you can do and see what happens. Among Ripples is a meditative ecosystem management simulator; you add different creatures to the pond and see how they interact.
Saints Row: Gat out of Hell
Join Johnny Gat & Kinzie Kensington as you tear apart Hell in a quest to save the Boss’ soul. Historical icons, old friends, older enemies, a talking gun, a full length musical number & a whole lot more shenanigans await!
PARTICLE MACE
A space game about swinging trash into things and dying.
Xsyon - Prelude
Xsyon is a player driven apocalyptic fantasy sandbox MMORPG, set in a living and evolving environment. Players create the world they want to live in as they form tribes, construct towns, shape landscapes, create quests, hunt, farm, gather, build societies and develop a New World.
Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition
Take to the skies in the World’s favourite flight simulator! The multi award winning Microsoft Flight Simulator X lands on Steam for the first time. Take off from anywhere in the world, flying some of the world’s most iconic aircraft to any one of 24,000 destinations.
METAL GEAR SOLID V: GROUND ZEROES
World-renowned Kojima Productions brings the Metal Gear Solid franchise to Steam with METAL GEAR SOLID V: GROUND ZEROES. Play as the legendary hero Snake and infiltrate a Cuban military base to rescue the hostages. Can you make it out alive?
NEO Scavenger
NEO Scavenger is a game where you must survive in the wasteland long enough to figure out who you are. Each turn, you must decide where to go, how to scavenge for supplies, and how to deal with anything and anyone you encounter.
StarMade
The ultimate space sandbox. Participate in epic fleet battles, form alliances, strive to dominate entire galaxies and harness the universe’s resources for your industrious empire or the destruction of others. Customise your experience, the universe is yours!
Dead State: Reanimated
Dead State is a narrative-driven survival RPG set at the dawn of the undead apocalypse. Drawing inspiration from classic RPGs like Fallout, X-Com, and Suikoden, Dead State combines strategic, turn-based combat with base building mechanics, character creation, and social management.
Rising World
Rising World is a voxel based open-world sandbox game, featuring a procedurally generated world, playable in single and multi-player.
Craft The World
Craft The World is a unique sandbox strategy game, the mix of Dungeon Keeper, Terraria and Dwarf Fortress. Explore a random generated world populated by dangerous creatures, build a dwarf fortress, gather resources, and craft all the items, weapons, and armor you need.
Amazing Frog?
Amazing Frog? is an openworld, sandbox, physics game. Grand Frog Auto in Swindon, with farting ragdoll frogs.
Celestial Command
Mine asteroids, salvage space debris, design your own small or massive spacecraft using individual functional components, complete missions, and engage in battles against enemies in a vast galaxy with realistic physics based on orbital mechanics or in a classic physics mode.
Bloons TD 5
Five-star tower defense with unrivaled depth and replayability. The Bloons are back in full HD glory and this time they mean business! Build awesome towers, choose your favorite upgrades, hire new Special Agents, and pop every last invading Bloon in the most popular tower defense series in history.
Construction Simulator 2015
In Construction Simulator 2015, you take the controls of 16 realistic construction machines made by LIEBHERR, STILL and MAN with high-quality 3D graphics.
Far Cry® 4
Hidden in the towering Himalayas lies Kyrat, a country steeped in tradition and violence. You are Ajay Ghale. Traveling to Kyrat to fulfill your mother’s dying wish, you find yourself caught up in a civil war to overthrow the oppressive regime of dictator Pagan Min.
Homebrew - Patent Unknown
Unleash your creativity and craft anything from flying cars to jet-powered toilets.Fair warning: there's a learning curve. But once you've got it, the sky's the limit for your creations!While active development is paused, we focus preserving the game and keeping it accessible.
LEGO® Batman™ 3: Beyond Gotham
The Caped Crusader joins forces with the super heroes of the DC Comics universe and blasts off to outer space to stop the evil Brainiac from destroying Earth.