30 Best Games Like Stardew Valley You Need To Try in 2023

There’s something wildly relaxing about running your farm, collecting resources, and micro-managing every aspect of your homestead, and this is why life-simulators orienting around farming and community are always in high demand. Stardew Valley is getting pretty old at this point, and even though the game has some exciting updates on the way, you’re probably looking for a change of scenery. This is why we decided to put together this list of the 30 best games like Stardew Valley that you can try out in 2023.

Editor’s Note: This list was updated in November 2023 and includes some of the hottest life and farming simulator releases.

1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Platforms: Switch

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is probably the game you try out immediately after Stardew Valley if you have the means. The concept is the same: you set up shop and collect resources and money until you can restore your surroundings. It’s a simple recipe that works every time.

2. Dinkum

Platforms: PC

Dinkum is an Australia-inspired family sim. Traverse eucalyptus forests, endure scorching deserts and chill by billabongs. Encounter adorable Aussie wildlife, gather resources through hunting and mining, and build your town. Attract townsfolk and businesses by customizing your surroundings. Team up with friends to explore landscapes teeming with dangers and protect each other in this unique adventure.

3. Medieval Dynasty

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S

Medieval Dynasty takes a more serious and realistic approach to life simulations; it’s fairly extensive with gorgeous graphics. As young man escaping war, players in the game develop from inexperienced individuals into skilled leaders, navigating challenges such as hunting, resource gathering, and building to establish a lasting and prosperous dynasty. The open world offers a unique gameplay experience, allowing players to explore, build a thriving village, and ultimately craft their legacy amidst the challenges of harsh winters and unexpected events.

4. My Time at Portia

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

My Time At Portia is a simulation RPG set in a charming post-apocalyptic world. Players inherit a workshop and must restore it to its former glory by farming, raising animals, and mining resources. The game also features crafting, exploration, and building elements, along with interactions with the vibrant residents of Portia. It’s like Stardew Valley, but different.

5. My Time at Sandrock

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, Play Station 4, Xbox One

In My Time at Sandrock, set in a charming post-apocalyptic world 330 years after a catastrophic event, you step into the role of a Builder. Tasked with revitalizing the city-state of Sandrock, you must gather resources, construct machines, befriend locals, and protect the community from menacing monsters. Accepting the job offer brings you to this wild and rugged city, where your trusty tools become instrumental in restoring Sandrock to its former glory. Oh, and by the way, this is from the creators of My Time at Portia.

6. Sengoku Dynasty

Platforms: PC

Sengoku Dynasty is a dynamic blend of open-world RPG, city-building, life simulation, and survival set in feudal Japan. Navigate the turbulent times of this era by building and leading your own Dynasty. Play in solo or co-op mode, with the option of first or third-person views.

In a region once ravaged by famine and war, forge your life, cultivate a community, and establish a powerful dynasty. Explore a beautiful open world, gathering resources, crafting, hunting, building, and farming to ensure survival and prosperity for your village. Face formidable enemies, rise as a great leader, and fiercely defend your creations. It’s like the Medieval Dynasty but set in the Sengoku Period.

7. Sun Haven

Platforms: PC

Sun Haven is a straightforward Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, and Animal Crossing clone. Tend to seasonal crops, raise fantastical animals, and engage in various activities. Play with up to 8 friends online, explore three different cities, and utilize over 40 crafting stations for diverse tasks like smithing and jewelry making. Decorate your house and farm with numerous furniture items. Romance from 15 marriage candidates, combat monsters using swords, crossbows, or magic and unlock mine floors to gather resources and gems. The game offers a blend of farming, crafting, and adventure elements for an immersive gaming experience.

8. Moonstone Island

Platforms: PC, Switch

Moonstone Island is a creature-collecting life simulation game set in an expansive open world with 100 islands to explore. Engage in activities such as making friends, brewing potions, and collecting Spirits. The core of the game involves testing your strength in card-based encounters to advance through your Alchemy training.

9. Farming Simulator 22

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S

Farming Simulator offers a relaxing and meditative experience as players engage in virtual farming activities, tending to crops and managing a farm. Additionally, the game provides a sense of accomplishment as players witness the growth of their virtual farm, and the variety of tasks and equipment available adds depth and engagement to the gameplay, making it a satisfying and enjoyable way to pass the time.

10. Coral Island

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S

In Coral Island you have the opportunity to transform a neglected piece of land on Coral Island into a vibrant dreamscape. The game allows you to make choices about what to build, which crops to grow, and which animals to tend. Life on Coral Island evolves with each season, offering a variety of activities such as exploration, building relationships, and focusing on farm life. Express yourself by choosing from a diverse range of outfits, accessories, and physiques.

11. Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Embark on your farming journey in Mineral Town, a picturesque village surrounded by nature. Your mission is to restore your late grandfather’s farm to its former glory after returning from many years away. Care for crops, livestock, and more to unfold your unique story of seasons.

Delve into a menagerie of fruits, veggies, and livestock, raising them with love for a bountiful harvest to sell or cook with. Explore the charming town of Mineral Town, befriending both familiar and new faces as you stroll down memory lane.

12. Wylde Flowers

Platforms: PC, Switch, iOS

Wylde Flowers is where farming intertwines with magic and personal discovery as Tara’s journey unfolds, bringing a town together in an earnest and emotional story. Experience over 18 hours of fully voiced dialogue in English. Engage in a sweet romance with seven eligible characters, from the local butcher Kim to the flirty doctor Amira, while developing both domestic and magical crafts through activities like cooking, fishing, farming, and casting spells.

13. Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S

Alchemist Simulator allows you to Indulge in a unique potion-making experience with visuals inspired by medieval manuscripts and medical books. Enjoy hyper-satisfying physical interactions with ingredients and equipment in a sandbox-style gameplay that offers various avenues to complete tasks. Roleplay as a noble artisan, a greedy weasel, or an occult dark master as you sell your potions to the townsfolk, utilizing a diverse range of ingredients, from leaves and flowers to berries, roots, fruits, minerals, and mushrooms, with a focus on the precision of the grind.

14. Traveller’s Rest

Platforms: PC

Embark on a crafting and progression journey in Travellers Rest, where you can brew beers, distill spirits, and create a variety of food and items. Customize your character by gaining experience and spending points in six technology trees related to nature, building, cooking, brewing, socializing, and magic. Build and manage your fantasy tavern, fully customizing it with furniture and decorations, increasing its reputation over time to earn rewards.

15. Ranch Simulator – Build, Farm, Hunt

Platforms: PC

You’re on a mission to restore your family ranch to its former glory by buying tools, vehicles, and renovating the main house. Manage and expand your livestock, focusing on daily care, breeding, and rearing for a profitable operation. Venture into the open-world environment to hunt wildlife, but be vigilant, as the wilderness poses its own challenges, and your ranching skills are crucial in turning your off-grid dream into a successful reality.

16. Paleo Pines

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S

In Paleo Pines, you go on an adventure with your dinosaur companion, Lucky, as you search for the missing parasaurolophus on Paleo Pines, a charming island filled with friendly townsfolk. Build a new home, make friends, and unravel the island’s lost history while expressing your creativity by customizing your ranch and character. From setting up your home base to curating a colorful collection of clothing, get ready for delightful discoveries alongside your trusty steed Lucky in this unique and expressive journey.

17. Outpath: First Journey

Platforms: PC

Experience the gratifying gameplay loop of Satisfactory, Minecraft, and Forager in the 3D first-person platformer Outpath. Gather, craft, build, and automate your base at your own pace, exploring and relaxing with no time limits or pressure. Engage in resource management, item crafting, base building, and automation, unlocking new blueprints and uncovering the secrets of this stylishly designed world, all while enjoying parkour movements and a music soundtrack that reacts to your actions.

18. Staxel

Platforms: PC

Staxel is a creative farming and village life adventure, where you build your farmhouse, cultivate crops, and interact with quirky characters. As the newest resident in a budding village, your task is to restore the farm to its former glory with the help of your eccentric neighbors. Whether nurturing your farm, pursuing hobbies, completing collections, or making your mark on the town, Staxel offers a vibrant and social experience where you can even invite friends to join in the fun.

19. The Lost Village

Platforms: PC

In The Lost Village, you play as the son of a sect leader tasked with rebuilding an immortal mountain. Lead disciples in resource gathering, facility construction, and magical treasure refinement to restore the sect’s former glory. Enjoy the freedom to build your home with visually pleasing sects, assign tasks to diverse disciples, engage in immersive activities, and explore the illusory realm to conquer powerful bosses in every playthrough.

20. Wildmender

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S

Explore the vast desert in search of plants, crafting tools, and channeling water to create a thriving garden in this magical world of Wildmender. Uncover the mysteries of a fallen civilization, befriend animals and spirits, and seek out gods to defend the land from vicious wraiths. With crafted tools, turn the once barren desert into a lush oasis acre by acre, while exploring, foraging, and surviving in diverse landscapes filled with rare minerals, exotic plants, adorable creatures, and ancient spirits.

21. Havendock

Platforms: PC

In Havedoc, maintaining a positive outlook as you collect resources from floating debris and build self-sufficient facilities is crucial. Customize your settlement at your own pace, constructing farms to grow food, cooking delicious meals, and raising friendly animals to aid in your endeavors. Welcome new survivors, manage tasks, and boost production to meet the needs of an expanding community, teaching them to work and automating tasks you find less enjoyable.

22. Ooblets

Platforms: PC, Switch, Xbox One

Ooblets is a charming and eccentric game that combines farming, creature collection, town life, and dance battles with a unique and heartfelt character. Tailor your experience by transforming your shack into a cozy homestead, spooky sanctuary, or retro-futuristic retreat, and customize your character with various hairstyles, hats, clothes, and accessories.

23. Verdant Skies

Platforms: PC

Verdant Skies, a life simulation game inspired by Harvest Moon and other classics, immerses players in the hand-painted alien world of Viridis Primus. As you ensure the success of the colony, forge friendships and pursue romance with a diverse cast of characters. Customize your avatar with natural skin tones, varied hairstyles, and clothing choices, and enjoy a gender-inclusive character creation experience while balancing activities like farming, fishing, and building relationships in this unique and mod-friendly game.

24. Len’s Island

Platforms: PC

Len’s Island offers a unique blend of peaceful building, farming, and crafting alongside intense skill-based combat with roguelike dungeon crawling and open-world exploration. Armed with only your backpack and a can-do attitude, create a new life on a mysterious archipelago, combining procedural generation with hand-made elements for the ultimate adventure.

25. Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S

In Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles, immerse yourself in a relaxing open-world adventure set in the diverse island paradise of Gemea. As the hero, unravel the mysteries of the land and combat the mysterious Murk by seeking out and utilizing the power of whimsical creatures called Sprites. Explore, barter with locals, customize your character, master professions, and create your own working farm across eight distinct biomes, offering a vibrant world filled with discovery, adventure, and the joy of slow-paced activities like fishing and farming.

26. Garden Paws

Platforms: PC, Switch

nherit your grandparents’ farm and collaborate with Frank at the local construction shop to enhance your home and contribute to the development of the town with Mayor Wilson. Earn coins by running a shop, exploring islands, and engaging in various activities like farming, crafting, fishing, mining, and questing. Commission new buildings through Frank to unlock unique upgrades, shops, quests, and new areas while exploring each location to discover, collect, sell, and wear a variety of items, and even venture to Halloween Island during Fall for epic loot.

27. Plantera

Platforms: PC, Android, iOS

In Plantera, you create and cultivate your garden with a variety of plants, bushes, trees, and animals, attracting helpful round blue creatures as you expand. These helpers assist in picking up items and harvesting your plants, allowing you to watch or focus on building and investing in new additions. Keep an eye out for invading critters, hunt them yourself, or invest in a guard dog to maintain order as you level up, unlocking new elements to continue expanding and improving your garden.

28. Kynseed

Platforms: PC

In Kynseed, live a quirky life where aging and mortality apply to both humans and pets, controlling the mystical Kynseed to grow a multi-generational family legacy with inherited skills and powers. Embark on adventurous journeys, battling dark faery tale creatures, and run various businesses such as a blacksmith, apothecary, or goods store. Develop relationships with NPCs, uncover proverbs to reveal the secrets of the dark faery tale world, and buy unique artifacts from Mr. Fairweather, all while navigating a world and story that mirror the complexities of real life.

29. Garden Simulator

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S

Cultivate your own virtual garden with fresh vegetables, healthy fruits, and beautiful flowers, eliminating boredom at home and providing a relaxing nature experience. Manage your patch of land, place decorative elements, nurture plants, and harvest for a richer yield that you can sell to enhance your paradise. With countless unlockable features and additional content, this simulator challenges your green thumb to the max, offering a beautiful and engaging time in nature with lawnmowers, watering cans, and seedlings at your disposal.

30. Another Farm Roguelike

Platforms: PC

Another Farm Roguelike is a 2D farming and crafting game with roguelike elements, challenging players to earn maximum money to pay rent. Grow crops, build various buildings, create tools, recycle resources, and gather a wide array of items among the game’s extensive features, including 30 different buildings and over 250 items.

Have a game to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below!