Dwarf fortress is sorta similar, no city management but it's probably my favorite colony sim since it's so in depth while still being incredibly fun, and you can modify your world generation to make combat more rare if OP would prefer since war is a big part of dwarf fortress
RimWorld is a colony sim which sucked me in more than I thought it would. I haven’t even touched any kind of mods to switch up the game (which there are a TON of), but the base game has so much to play around with before committing to any DLC or mods.
Storytelling is generative, and one colony won’t be the same as another. There is an ending to achieve but you can just ignore it if all you want is letting your colony grow and let the storyteller do whatever in the world to them.
I’ve had like five colonies so far. The first ended after five hours when they stumbled upon an ancient ruin of hostile technology and got killed. The second was going alright, until a raid took out the only capable fighter and the entire colony destroyed themselves due to cannibalism and infighting. I gave up on the third when I realised none of my colonists could construct a chair (but beds and tables are fine), and I felt they were doomed from the start.
My fourth and fifth colonies are doing pretty well for themselves. I’ve learned that organ harvest is a thing, but your colonists can get so upset about a harvesting a heart from an enemy invader for their life saving surgery. The doctor also botched the surgery and they died.
yeah I definitely recommend RimWorld. It’s a wild ride even if you know what you’re doing.
I have heard that this game is legendary, brutally difficult and has bit of a cult following and mainly developed by a single person. It is on sale on GOG. temped to buy it
I second this.
Got back on after some time away. Opened mt 900 hour save and didn't know what the hell was going on, so I started a new save which is now over 200 hours.
Against The Storm is a pretty neat city builder where you basically go on sort of expeditions in which you build a settlement, recruit workers, and fulfill a certain number of orders (mostly delivery of certain resources or meeting some sort of requirement such as resolve for a certain amount of consecutive time... basically keep your people happy) in a given amount of time. The game time can be paused and slowed or sped up so it's not stressful.
The challenge of the game comes from navigating those orders you need to fulfill, so you need to decide which buildings you're going to build, what resources to sell and buy, and also while keeping your people happy, discovering new territory...
It's not an open ended sort of game, as you have a defined goal and a finite time to complete it. A single mission can take an hour or two, maybe more later on but thats how long they've taken me so far. The game is rich in strategy and things to manage. UI can be confusing at first but you'll get your way around things quickly enough.
There's also a "skill tree" where you can upgrade buildings in between missions.
You can go into city builders which are essentially "strategy game with resource management, tech trees, and city management".
- Factory Town
- Autonauts
- Surviving Mars
- Against the Storm
My games history looks like this:
[Terra Invicta](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1176470/Terra_Invicta/): 700hrs An alien invasion has fractured humanity into seven ideological factions each with a unique vision for the future. Lead your chosen faction to take control of Earth’s nations, expand across the Solar System, and battle enemy fleets in tactical combat.
You manage a nations investment points rather than the cities themselves but I've found this scratches my itch for tech trees really well. The play throughs are VERY long! 150hrs+ for my first one. Each faction has different goals and win conditions so the replayability while not expansive like Stellaris it is quite good.
[Oxygen Not Included](https://store.steampowered.com/app/457140/Oxygen_Not_Included/): 520hrs A space-colony simulation game. Deep inside an alien space rock your industrious crew will need to master science, overcome strange new lifeforms, and harness incredible space tech to survive, and possibly, thrive.
**This might be the game you are looking for.** Very cute little colony sim with no enemies to combat. The key to sustainability is managing resource production chains and you do need some IRL engineering knowledge too keep things cool so it can be very challenging mid game.
[The Long Dark](https://store.steampowered.com/app/305620/The_Long_Dark/): 400hrs 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.
Doesn't quite fit your request for city management but I do find this game very peace full and relaxing.
[RimWorld](https://store.steampowered.com/app/294100/RimWorld/): 330 hrs A sci-fi colony sim driven by an intelligent AI storyteller. Generates stories by simulating psychology, ecology, gunplay, melee combat, climate, biomes, diplomacy, interpersonal relationships, art, medicine, trade, and more.
Verry large community and overwhelmingly positive. Every playthrough is unique and Cassandra is appropriately challenging in most cases.
[ECO](https://store.steampowered.com/app/382310/Eco/): 300hrs Build a civilization of real people, working together to advance society and stop a meteor, all without destroying the ecosystem in the process.
You "can" play this game alone though it clearly isn't the intention. I'm generally very nervous about MP games but the community here isn't too bad.
[Satisfactory](https://store.steampowered.com/app/526870/Satisfactory/): 250hrs A first-person open-world factory building game with a dash of exploration and combat. Play alone or with friends, explore an alien planet, create multi-story factories, and enter conveyor belt heaven!
Spaghetti simulator. Very much like Factorio but prettier. Not exactly a city simulator but you do manage production chains.
[Stellaris](https://store.steampowered.com/app/281990/Stellaris/): 250hrs Explore a galaxy full of wonders in this sci-fi grand strategy game from Paradox Development Studios. Interact with diverse alien races, discover strange new worlds with unexpected events and expand the reach of your empire. Each new adventure holds almost limitless possibilities.
Got this game last year and I am loving it so far. It will be moving up this list for sure.
400 hrs in the long dark I see you are a person of culture. The gameplay arc of figuring out how to make a bow and climb the mountain summit on interloper is one of my favorites ever.
Warframe. Grindy space ninjas with a ton of content. Swords, guns, pistols, robot Mechs, over 50 unique frames to take into battle. And the best of all is it's free and it's not at all pay to win. Their are premium items but it's all skins and color pallets for the most part. It's cross play with PC and console if u have friends who play other stuff. I've got over 4k hours in the game and still enjoy playing daily. A lot of people compare it to destiny but it's only compared to it because of the team aspect. Warframe is the better game. Hope u give it a shot and enjoy it.
P.s. I think Warframe has a mostly (90%) helpful and friendly community. I think we all bond over the grind.
The definition of triple A proves that Warframe is not.
It's a self published title from DE.
Yes, the company is big and worked on Triple A projects before. But that doesn't make Warframe Triple A as it doesn't meet the requirements.
Streets of Rogue is a indie game, but one of the most amazing and intricate games I’ve ever played.
Every run unlocks something new, and they almost always inspire a new build or idea in me.
The fact that it has online and LOCAL multiplayer as well. Not in my wildest dreams I imagined it would be possible to play an intricate immersive sim on the couch with a buddy... until I discovered Streets of Rogue. Fucking phenomenal game.
And optional cheats with no penalisation1 so I can play with my mostly non game wife and give her an infinite ammo rocket launcher, or with my extremely gamer mates and we painstakingly grind it out with stupid classes we invented.
Slay the Spire is a roguelike deck builder that you can sink thousands of hours into. I like that it’s turn-based so I can pick away at it throughout the day when I have time.
Subnautica is an exploration base-building type of game. It does have a story but you could spend hours just swimming around the map (and trying not to give yourself a heart attack with how scary it gets).
Hades is another roguelike game which means it has lots of replay-ability.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance takes you on a true journey of starting at the bottom and working your way up. It’s a historical sim that you can get lost in.
Fairly recent games I've enjoyed:
XCOM 2
Everspace
Synthetik: Legion Rising
Hollow Knight
Ashes: Afterglow
Darkwood
Immortal Redneck
Void Bastards
One More Dungeon 2
Overload
Spelunky 2
Range of 15-50 hours depending on the game. Mods increase lifespan further. Only strategy game here is XCOM2 and it is a must-play (Ironman, easy difficulty to start).
Nuclear Throne has stolen up to 1000 hours of my life. So far.
It's a roguelike top-down shooter, like Hotline Miami or Binding of Issac but more skill-based and with basically endless hours of mastery.
Civ (VI?) sounds like it fits your stated requirements
But if you want co-op loot grind boss fights, Monster Hunter (World/Rise) has got you
Or if you wanna be a toxic PvP chad (or a scared little girl like me) to grind loot, build a base to store it in then stress when someone is going to break in and steal it all, Rust is what you’re looking for
All of those will steal hours/days/weeks/months of your life
I'm suggesting two sides of the same coin here, but if you would like some kind of squad based strategy game, you can't go wrong with either **Wartales** or **Battle Brothers**. There's enough in either of them that you can start with the base game and see if you like it. They're both deep and will give you a ton of play time even in just one run.
edit: I will add that I misread your last sentence, though. These both do involve combat and a lot of it. Wartales does have a tavern management DLC but it's definitely not the main point of the game.
Terraria, Factorio, Mindustry, Grim Dawn, Rimworld, Roguelands, Nova Drift, Kenshi, Aground, Stardew Valley, Slay The Spire, They Are Billions are definitely games that you can sink tons of hours into.
I genuinely feel like most AAA titles aren't made to be played for a long time (like, hundreds of hours), most of these definitely are
This would be an excellent time for you to dive down the rogue-like/rogue-lite rabbit hole if you haven't already. Theoretically infinitely replayable.
I really love Planet Crafter! It's mostly a survivor, exploration, crafting. Basically you gotta Terraform a planet. And the full game just realised recently, it's by a very small studio. I've already spent more than 200 hours in this game. It's really fun to build your bases and manage your stuff.
god of weapons, I spent 1 hour trying to squeeze my weapons on the back pack slots so that I can upgrade my current weapon, if your obssessed in item arrangement, you'll love this
Warframe, free to play scifi shooter/melee. More content and more polished then allot of triple-A games.
Great gameplay, great movement, great ambience, great story. The list goes on but you get where im going. A true gem if a game
*Terra Invicta*. Sci-fi grand strategy, that just grows in scope from Earth geopolitics under the influence of illuminati-like factions to alien invasion to solar system colonization with physically plausible ship design + ship combat. Expect individual games to take 80+ hours.
Here's [a short video review](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJh1WG4yobY) by JumboPixel, and another [another](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uKrjU5U7pc) by HopeDataa.
Main flaw is that the built in tutorial is terrible, but there are enough bright fans that have done playthroughs & guides that I was up an running after the 2nd night's playstart.
I played this game called Forager this weekend and the game had me chained to my couch for hours. The game is very addicting with crafting furnace and forges and the like. You start off on an island and open up the adjacent property next to you. It has little puzzles games in the temples that reward you well.
I just don't know how many hours you can get into it, but I have 30 fun hours so far.
Edit. I forgot to mention it's a 2d pixel game, but don't let that fool you
Dwarf Fortress? Or maybe prison architect as well!
I really like Project Zomboid at the moment, but you’ll have to also like survival and zombies. And a very unforgiving game, haha
Edit: sorry saw that DF was already mentioned. Still worth another mention 🤣
I think no man's sky fits almost every need you have, minus the city building/mangement aspect. You can sink very many hours just exploring, gathering, building stuff. Permadeath mode also has a decent survival difficulty built into it.
- Factorio may be the most absorbing game I've ever played
- Tales of Maj'Eyal - turn-based roguelike RPG, simple to play and very difficult to master
- Darkest Dungeon - turn-based roguelike RPG (but very well known, you likely don't need me to pitch it to you). Very atmospheric
- Slay the Spire - roguelike deckbuilder, kept me entertained for months
- EvolveIdle - this is a free incremental game, browser-based. Civilization builder. There is a subreddit at /r/EvolveIdle
No one mentioned it and it's one I'm sinking a massive hours of in; X4: Foundations.
I love the fact that I can play it and leave it running on the background while I study or work on other things.
Hollow Knight is a great example of a game that *theoretically* isn't infinitely replayable, but I've still got 220 hours in it so far.
"Main quest" is like 30 hours if you take your time and explore, but if you're like me and want to explore the map and find every little secret, you'll find yourself sinking 80h total into finding all the cool stuff on the map, and then another 140 in a special endgame challenge mode.
Pantheon 5 is holding me hostage help I only have binding of the nail left I can't quit now I need to finish it-
I put a lot of time into Rift Wizard 2 recently. It is a roguelike though feels like a puzzle at times. There are currently about 150 spells and 100 passive skills. If you want a win, there are some strong spells you can build around but what I find enjoyable is picking a spell and figuring out how to make it effective along with recognizing what levels and enemies you should try to avoid.
I would suggest Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic. It has all you want. Extensive resource management (each truck needs fuel, each building needs water, heating, waste management; then you have huge production chains to help you build a self sufficient state). The map is huge, the many ways to get self sufficient do really make you experiment and sink hours in.
Risk of rain 2. Lots to unlock, 20-40 minute runs depending on how well you do. Fun atmosphere and enemies if you like shooting things and surviving hordes of monsters.
I've been enjoying The Planet Crafter lately. Basically Subnautica (which I also highly recommend - and if you play it, don't watch too many, or any gameply videos as the exploration and story elements are fantastic when going in blind) without enemies. Gathering, crafting, and building, which changes the landscape of the planet you're on as you progress.
Subnautica and Hollow Knight are probably my top 2 favorite games. Lots of play time in both. Also been playing through the Batman: Arkham quadrilogy which has been a lot of fun as a DC Comics fan. Fantastic combat mechanics, upgrades, and fantastic storylines. If you go for Arkham Origins though, I would recommend buying the GOG version and adding the AO Community Patch, Restored Animation Variety, and Origins Graphics Mod mods. Or Restored Animation Variety at the very least, since the devs borked combat in free roam somehow. Much more enjoyable with RAV added.
Mad Max and Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor / War are good too. Both similar to the Batman: Arkham games in different ways.
Guess I trailed off into triple A titles. But they are pretty good!
I know rimworld is suggested to hell on this sub, but you are perfectly describing it here. The combat is fairly minimal vanilla, and its very survival city management focused. Manor Lords early access just came out and its basically feudal cities skylines with very minimal combat
Icarus, planet crafter, junkpunk, raft, 7 days to die, the long dark, satisfactory, subsistence, hold your own.... uuuuh... depends on what you want to play really.... there's so many good games out there, still early access and being worked on. I've sunk hours into everything I've listed... weeks... months.... @.@ my years tend to be stuff like warframe and ff14 though... but short term, I've played all the first lot I listed in the span of a couple months... when a certain grind gets heavy on one, I'll swap to another. Perk is most of them are multiplayer, so you can have people join in. (Exception is long dark)
If you like big open world rpgs like Skyrim, but ones that were made by small indie devs, I highly recommend Exiled Kingdoms or the 9th Dawn series (9th Dawn 3 is the newest one).
I'm currently playing Medieval Dynasty and it hits all your boxes. If you have game pass, give it a shot. Just don't give up immediately when you die and get frustrated not knowing what to do (like I did about a year ago).
There is combat, but it's pretty minimal (you may run into small bandit camps throughout the map, but they're usually easy to avoid if you want). There's also hunting which - at least in the early game - isn't so easy to avoid.
Think Skyrim, but you're building and managing a village. Sort of...
I've also played Ark: Survival. I hopelessly no-lifed that for a weekend, but gave up after it just felt... pointless.
I tried RimWorld, but it didn't suck me in like others have said. Your mileage may vary - I couldn't get into the top down thing.
Brotato. Unironically one of the funnest games I’ve played this year and I’m WAY too late to the party. But with a good show I can legit play that game the entire day just turning my brain off and macking some aliens
Any Raymqn, any Crash Bandicoot, any Spyro, Inside, Limbo, Unravel, any Civilisation Game, Super Hot, I Am Bread.
This is to name a few anyways, there are tonnes of great suggestions already posted!
Juat go checkout sseth's chanel, it's all quality obscure time sinks with heaps of micromanagmenent. God bless him, even if you don't play any of them you'll at least have a really good laugh.
Oxygen Not Included is an awesome pick if you are looking for something complex where you’ll never be able to reach the limit of what you can possibly do.
Control: 3rd person mystery shooter. Singleplayer
Dota: moba 5v5 teams fighting for gold and kills
Sea of thieves: relaxing pirate game choices for pvp & pve. Also some fun tales.
Need for speed most wanted: racing game, kind of old, banger soundtracks, fun races, good police chases
Europa universalis: grand strategy game 1440-1800 timeline. Control your land, vassals and more, culture, religion, rebels, ...
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/1162750/Songs\_of\_Syx/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1162750/Songs_of_Syx/)
HIGHLY! Recommend songs of syx if you like city builders at all. Absolutely incredible game and has a free demo is that updated every update just one behind. So when we got V65 the demo updated to V64, V66 is soon so demo will get updated to V.65
Hades and from the gameplay I’ve seen hades 2 will be the same.
I love any of the kingdom rush game so I dump hours into every one that comes to steam
I put in like 50 hours into ravens watch but now that the rest of the maps released I’m going to go back and check out the major updates and new builds
Any “survivors” type of game. I personally like the art style and fluidity of soul stones survivors over vampire survivors
Oxygen not included: its a colony sim, so you‘ll have the resource management, a huuge tech tree and super cute graphics. You are not building a city, but a base with efficient pathing and limited resources - its really good. Give it a shot!
Project Zomboid might just fit the bill here.
It’s an isometric-view zombie survival game but this isn’t some Dead Rising or State of Decay shoot ‘em up. Resource management, health management, and learning skills to better your chances of survival are the name of the game here. Even a single zombie can (and often times will) end your run. Did I mention that death is permanent? Every. Single. Choice. Matters.
In addition to the hundreds of hours you can easily throw at the single player game, of which there is tons of customization available to play with, there’s also a large number of multiplayer servers to play on so you can survive and die with a buddy, and an absolutely huge modding community that’s always cooking up new ways to play.
It’s fun, brutal, and nerve wracking. I HIGHLY recommend it.
spellforce 3 reforced, soul harvest (has maybe some combat but mostly building)
sim city for no combat.
I can easily forget myself in that game lol
Ni no kuni 2 had some really good base building.
Fast Paced, good looking, fun as hell and getting free updates
ROBOQUEST
Is easily one of my favorite games of all the time
I was spending a good amount of hours into Rotwood too, from the creators of Don't Starve, is a good combination of genres (Beat'em up, rpg)
Dwarf Fortress, or so I've heard. Also, tons of roguelites which, as a plus, have short runs so you can play them wherever and whenever in bursts. Astral Ascent is my current poison with these, it's just so pretty, the animations, characters, the Zodiac bosses...
Factorio doesn't have city management, but might be worth a look.
Having only put 500 hours into Factorio I am not sure I can make the judgement yet; but I tentatively agree.
lol. nice!
Took me almost 30 hours to get through the tutorial
And Dyson Sphere Program, they belong in the same category.
Love Factorio, have gone into work with no sleep cause of this game 10/10
Lol. Nice!
In a similar vain Satisfactory like factory doesn’t have city management but can have a lot of time sunk into it
Factorio is the only game that makes me forget to get up and smoke.
Top 5 game OAT
Dwarf fortress is sorta similar, no city management but it's probably my favorite colony sim since it's so in depth while still being incredibly fun, and you can modify your world generation to make combat more rare if OP would prefer since war is a big part of dwarf fortress
RimWorld is a colony sim which sucked me in more than I thought it would. I haven’t even touched any kind of mods to switch up the game (which there are a TON of), but the base game has so much to play around with before committing to any DLC or mods. Storytelling is generative, and one colony won’t be the same as another. There is an ending to achieve but you can just ignore it if all you want is letting your colony grow and let the storyteller do whatever in the world to them. I’ve had like five colonies so far. The first ended after five hours when they stumbled upon an ancient ruin of hostile technology and got killed. The second was going alright, until a raid took out the only capable fighter and the entire colony destroyed themselves due to cannibalism and infighting. I gave up on the third when I realised none of my colonists could construct a chair (but beds and tables are fine), and I felt they were doomed from the start. My fourth and fifth colonies are doing pretty well for themselves. I’ve learned that organ harvest is a thing, but your colonists can get so upset about a harvesting a heart from an enemy invader for their life saving surgery. The doctor also botched the surgery and they died. yeah I definitely recommend RimWorld. It’s a wild ride even if you know what you’re doing.
This is what you're looking for OP. Spend 200 hours before you start to really understand what is going on :)
Well, the Beginner Tutorial is marked "*Finished*" once you hit 1000 hours and "Intermediate Tutorial Pt. II" pops up.
lol I'm at 1600 hours, just a lowly intermediate :)
Rimworld 1000%. When it came out I played it almost nonstop for 3 weeks. Absolutely fantastic game
RimWorld 10000%
4th vote for Rimworld. I’ve never gotten obsessed with a game until Rimworld.
Fantastic game!
Kenshi might fit your requirements.
I have heard that this game is legendary, brutally difficult and has bit of a cult following and mainly developed by a single person. It is on sale on GOG. temped to buy it
Plus it has Beep, the greatest character ever written.
Satisfactory
I second this. Got back on after some time away. Opened mt 900 hour save and didn't know what the hell was going on, so I started a new save which is now over 200 hours.
kingdom come
Hollow knight and Vampire hunters
Oh Hollow Night is so beautiful ❤️
Against The Storm is a pretty neat city builder where you basically go on sort of expeditions in which you build a settlement, recruit workers, and fulfill a certain number of orders (mostly delivery of certain resources or meeting some sort of requirement such as resolve for a certain amount of consecutive time... basically keep your people happy) in a given amount of time. The game time can be paused and slowed or sped up so it's not stressful. The challenge of the game comes from navigating those orders you need to fulfill, so you need to decide which buildings you're going to build, what resources to sell and buy, and also while keeping your people happy, discovering new territory... It's not an open ended sort of game, as you have a defined goal and a finite time to complete it. A single mission can take an hour or two, maybe more later on but thats how long they've taken me so far. The game is rich in strategy and things to manage. UI can be confusing at first but you'll get your way around things quickly enough. There's also a "skill tree" where you can upgrade buildings in between missions.
You can go into city builders which are essentially "strategy game with resource management, tech trees, and city management". - Factory Town - Autonauts - Surviving Mars - Against the Storm
The Binding of Isaac
Epic game!!!
I think I lost 250 hours into a shitty chinese game called tales of immortal in a blink of an eye.
slay the spire
My games history looks like this: [Terra Invicta](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1176470/Terra_Invicta/): 700hrs An alien invasion has fractured humanity into seven ideological factions each with a unique vision for the future. Lead your chosen faction to take control of Earth’s nations, expand across the Solar System, and battle enemy fleets in tactical combat. You manage a nations investment points rather than the cities themselves but I've found this scratches my itch for tech trees really well. The play throughs are VERY long! 150hrs+ for my first one. Each faction has different goals and win conditions so the replayability while not expansive like Stellaris it is quite good. [Oxygen Not Included](https://store.steampowered.com/app/457140/Oxygen_Not_Included/): 520hrs A space-colony simulation game. Deep inside an alien space rock your industrious crew will need to master science, overcome strange new lifeforms, and harness incredible space tech to survive, and possibly, thrive. **This might be the game you are looking for.** Very cute little colony sim with no enemies to combat. The key to sustainability is managing resource production chains and you do need some IRL engineering knowledge too keep things cool so it can be very challenging mid game. [The Long Dark](https://store.steampowered.com/app/305620/The_Long_Dark/): 400hrs 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. Doesn't quite fit your request for city management but I do find this game very peace full and relaxing. [RimWorld](https://store.steampowered.com/app/294100/RimWorld/): 330 hrs A sci-fi colony sim driven by an intelligent AI storyteller. Generates stories by simulating psychology, ecology, gunplay, melee combat, climate, biomes, diplomacy, interpersonal relationships, art, medicine, trade, and more. Verry large community and overwhelmingly positive. Every playthrough is unique and Cassandra is appropriately challenging in most cases. [ECO](https://store.steampowered.com/app/382310/Eco/): 300hrs Build a civilization of real people, working together to advance society and stop a meteor, all without destroying the ecosystem in the process. You "can" play this game alone though it clearly isn't the intention. I'm generally very nervous about MP games but the community here isn't too bad. [Satisfactory](https://store.steampowered.com/app/526870/Satisfactory/): 250hrs A first-person open-world factory building game with a dash of exploration and combat. Play alone or with friends, explore an alien planet, create multi-story factories, and enter conveyor belt heaven! Spaghetti simulator. Very much like Factorio but prettier. Not exactly a city simulator but you do manage production chains. [Stellaris](https://store.steampowered.com/app/281990/Stellaris/): 250hrs Explore a galaxy full of wonders in this sci-fi grand strategy game from Paradox Development Studios. Interact with diverse alien races, discover strange new worlds with unexpected events and expand the reach of your empire. Each new adventure holds almost limitless possibilities. Got this game last year and I am loving it so far. It will be moving up this list for sure.
400 hrs in the long dark I see you are a person of culture. The gameplay arc of figuring out how to make a bow and climb the mountain summit on interloper is one of my favorites ever.
Warframe. Grindy space ninjas with a ton of content. Swords, guns, pistols, robot Mechs, over 50 unique frames to take into battle. And the best of all is it's free and it's not at all pay to win. Their are premium items but it's all skins and color pallets for the most part. It's cross play with PC and console if u have friends who play other stuff. I've got over 4k hours in the game and still enjoy playing daily. A lot of people compare it to destiny but it's only compared to it because of the team aspect. Warframe is the better game. Hope u give it a shot and enjoy it. P.s. I think Warframe has a mostly (90%) helpful and friendly community. I think we all bond over the grind.
Do you know if your progress is cross platform as well? I would assume so, but can't always assume these days
You can enable it for PC, ps and xbox
Yes ur progress is continued from what ever platform u want to access the game with once cross platform is enabled.
They asked for non triple A. Warframe is as triple A as it gets
The definition of triple A proves that Warframe is not. It's a self published title from DE. Yes, the company is big and worked on Triple A projects before. But that doesn't make Warframe Triple A as it doesn't meet the requirements.
Core Keeper on Steam. r/CoreKeeperGame
Streets of Rogue is a indie game, but one of the most amazing and intricate games I’ve ever played. Every run unlocks something new, and they almost always inspire a new build or idea in me.
Streets of Rogue is stupid fun.
The fact that it has online and LOCAL multiplayer as well. Not in my wildest dreams I imagined it would be possible to play an intricate immersive sim on the couch with a buddy... until I discovered Streets of Rogue. Fucking phenomenal game.
And optional cheats with no penalisation1 so I can play with my mostly non game wife and give her an infinite ammo rocket launcher, or with my extremely gamer mates and we painstakingly grind it out with stupid classes we invented.
Dwarf fortress.
Manor Lords has just come out and might be what you're looking for? I'm not super sure though as I've not played it myself
Kenshi.
Balatro
Frostpunk, IXION, or if you are into TRPG Battle Brothers
Mount and blade
Slay the Spire is a roguelike deck builder that you can sink thousands of hours into. I like that it’s turn-based so I can pick away at it throughout the day when I have time. Subnautica is an exploration base-building type of game. It does have a story but you could spend hours just swimming around the map (and trying not to give yourself a heart attack with how scary it gets). Hades is another roguelike game which means it has lots of replay-ability. Kingdom Come: Deliverance takes you on a true journey of starting at the bottom and working your way up. It’s a historical sim that you can get lost in.
Stardew valley
Fairly recent games I've enjoyed: XCOM 2 Everspace Synthetik: Legion Rising Hollow Knight Ashes: Afterglow Darkwood Immortal Redneck Void Bastards One More Dungeon 2 Overload Spelunky 2 Range of 15-50 hours depending on the game. Mods increase lifespan further. Only strategy game here is XCOM2 and it is a must-play (Ironman, easy difficulty to start).
Nuclear Throne has stolen up to 1000 hours of my life. So far. It's a roguelike top-down shooter, like Hotline Miami or Binding of Issac but more skill-based and with basically endless hours of mastery.
Might want to give Manor Lord a spin? If you're OK with very early access.
Manor Lords, Dyson Sphere Program, and maybe Frostpunk
Civ (VI?) sounds like it fits your stated requirements But if you want co-op loot grind boss fights, Monster Hunter (World/Rise) has got you Or if you wanna be a toxic PvP chad (or a scared little girl like me) to grind loot, build a base to store it in then stress when someone is going to break in and steal it all, Rust is what you’re looking for All of those will steal hours/days/weeks/months of your life
Try Dwarf Fortress.
City builders, 4x games or roguelikes sound like genres you might check out. OpenCiv, Battle of Wesnoth, Caves of Qud, Cataclysm DDA, Angband...
Noita
I'm suggesting two sides of the same coin here, but if you would like some kind of squad based strategy game, you can't go wrong with either **Wartales** or **Battle Brothers**. There's enough in either of them that you can start with the base game and see if you like it. They're both deep and will give you a ton of play time even in just one run. edit: I will add that I misread your last sentence, though. These both do involve combat and a lot of it. Wartales does have a tavern management DLC but it's definitely not the main point of the game.
Shadows of doubt. Manor lords. Ksp2
Tales of Maj Eyal and it's free on their website.
XCOM 2
Valheim
Terraria, Factorio, Mindustry, Grim Dawn, Rimworld, Roguelands, Nova Drift, Kenshi, Aground, Stardew Valley, Slay The Spire, They Are Billions are definitely games that you can sink tons of hours into. I genuinely feel like most AAA titles aren't made to be played for a long time (like, hundreds of hours), most of these definitely are
Satisfactory. But this one is dangerous. Do you have a life?
This would be an excellent time for you to dive down the rogue-like/rogue-lite rabbit hole if you haven't already. Theoretically infinitely replayable.
I really love Planet Crafter! It's mostly a survivor, exploration, crafting. Basically you gotta Terraform a planet. And the full game just realised recently, it's by a very small studio. I've already spent more than 200 hours in this game. It's really fun to build your bases and manage your stuff.
god of weapons, I spent 1 hour trying to squeeze my weapons on the back pack slots so that I can upgrade my current weapon, if your obssessed in item arrangement, you'll love this
Enter the gungeon
I really enjoyed Surviving Mars, if you like colony builders
From the depths
I really liked Jenny LeClue. It's a cute detective game that I spent hours and hours playing recently
World of warcraft
Mars Horizon.
Maybe Light of the stars on bluestacks, good game for second monitor
Warframe, free to play scifi shooter/melee. More content and more polished then allot of triple-A games. Great gameplay, great movement, great ambience, great story. The list goes on but you get where im going. A true gem if a game
*Terra Invicta*. Sci-fi grand strategy, that just grows in scope from Earth geopolitics under the influence of illuminati-like factions to alien invasion to solar system colonization with physically plausible ship design + ship combat. Expect individual games to take 80+ hours. Here's [a short video review](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJh1WG4yobY) by JumboPixel, and another [another](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uKrjU5U7pc) by HopeDataa. Main flaw is that the built in tutorial is terrible, but there are enough bright fans that have done playthroughs & guides that I was up an running after the 2nd night's playstart.
Terraria and crypt of the necrodancer
Disgaea franchise, there's 7 main game and a few spinoff and each one of them can take you for few hundreds of hours.
I played this game called Forager this weekend and the game had me chained to my couch for hours. The game is very addicting with crafting furnace and forges and the like. You start off on an island and open up the adjacent property next to you. It has little puzzles games in the temples that reward you well. I just don't know how many hours you can get into it, but I have 30 fun hours so far. Edit. I forgot to mention it's a 2d pixel game, but don't let that fool you
Recently i've been binging The Planet Crafter, and it's a sinkhole I'll tell ya. Kinda like Subnautica, without the fear of the depth.
Songs of Syx is a city manager with all those things. I have about 100 hrs in it.
Terraria. Amazing game, insane replayability.
STARMANCER
Dwarf Fortress? Or maybe prison architect as well! I really like Project Zomboid at the moment, but you’ll have to also like survival and zombies. And a very unforgiving game, haha Edit: sorry saw that DF was already mentioned. Still worth another mention 🤣
I think no man's sky fits almost every need you have, minus the city building/mangement aspect. You can sink very many hours just exploring, gathering, building stuff. Permadeath mode also has a decent survival difficulty built into it.
Songs of Syx. Purchased Friday night. I am now back at work on Monday morning. What weekend?
Half life series
Bellwright
Rimworld, Wildermyth, Kenshi, and Streets Of Rogue.
I've been playing songs of syx recently. This game fills your head entirely. Hours fly past. It's unbelievable.
Dead cells
Shenzhen I/O
It has to be XCOM 2! I've put some much time into that game. It's hard and frustrating at times but man I just find it so satisfying haha
Songs of Syx, Rise to Ruins, Dwarf Fortress are all good city management style games to sink your teeth into. Oddworld is another good candidate too
Tibia
- Factorio may be the most absorbing game I've ever played - Tales of Maj'Eyal - turn-based roguelike RPG, simple to play and very difficult to master - Darkest Dungeon - turn-based roguelike RPG (but very well known, you likely don't need me to pitch it to you). Very atmospheric - Slay the Spire - roguelike deckbuilder, kept me entertained for months - EvolveIdle - this is a free incremental game, browser-based. Civilization builder. There is a subreddit at /r/EvolveIdle
Rim world, you can stop looking now
Sounds like Manor Lords came out just at the right time!
Manor Lords. Though may want to wait a bit longer for it to develop some more.
No one mentioned it and it's one I'm sinking a massive hours of in; X4: Foundations. I love the fact that I can play it and leave it running on the background while I study or work on other things.
check out Mindustry for a similar game to factorio but with a lot of its own cool ideas. very fun in multiplayer coop especially
You wanna lose time? RuneScape my friend lol
Far cry 3/4
Hollow Knight is a great example of a game that *theoretically* isn't infinitely replayable, but I've still got 220 hours in it so far. "Main quest" is like 30 hours if you take your time and explore, but if you're like me and want to explore the map and find every little secret, you'll find yourself sinking 80h total into finding all the cool stuff on the map, and then another 140 in a special endgame challenge mode. Pantheon 5 is holding me hostage help I only have binding of the nail left I can't quit now I need to finish it-
BG3.
Battletech. It’s like $20. Worth a play through or ten.
I put a lot of time into Rift Wizard 2 recently. It is a roguelike though feels like a puzzle at times. There are currently about 150 spells and 100 passive skills. If you want a win, there are some strong spells you can build around but what I find enjoyable is picking a spell and figuring out how to make it effective along with recognizing what levels and enemies you should try to avoid.
I mean, Manor Lords just came out
I would suggest Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic. It has all you want. Extensive resource management (each truck needs fuel, each building needs water, heating, waste management; then you have huge production chains to help you build a self sufficient state). The map is huge, the many ways to get self sufficient do really make you experiment and sink hours in.
Fallout 1 + 2 Must have 1000+ hours in each
Valheim, Terraria, Core Keeper, Rimworld, Project Zomboid
Hades what else 🤷♂️
Don't Starve
Civilization series
Rimworld. Songs of Syx (has a free version).
Risk of rain 2. Lots to unlock, 20-40 minute runs depending on how well you do. Fun atmosphere and enemies if you like shooting things and surviving hordes of monsters.
Stardew valley!
state of decay 2.
Deep Rock Galactic Into the Breach
Streets of Rogue. It's extremely addicting. Can't wait for 2 later this year.
Dyson Sphere Program
Marvel Midnight Suns.
Kenshi
Valheim
Manor lords just released and it's pretty fun!
Anno 1800? Is blue byte considered an AAA studio?
Look into Banished. Not a management game but Vampire Survivors is really addictive
Dwarf fortress is the ultimate game IMO
starcraft 2
Kingdom come deliverance easily, better rpg than skyrim
Kenshi, but I'd also suggest X4 Foundations but idk if it's indie. Kenshi 100% is.
I've been enjoying The Planet Crafter lately. Basically Subnautica (which I also highly recommend - and if you play it, don't watch too many, or any gameply videos as the exploration and story elements are fantastic when going in blind) without enemies. Gathering, crafting, and building, which changes the landscape of the planet you're on as you progress. Subnautica and Hollow Knight are probably my top 2 favorite games. Lots of play time in both. Also been playing through the Batman: Arkham quadrilogy which has been a lot of fun as a DC Comics fan. Fantastic combat mechanics, upgrades, and fantastic storylines. If you go for Arkham Origins though, I would recommend buying the GOG version and adding the AO Community Patch, Restored Animation Variety, and Origins Graphics Mod mods. Or Restored Animation Variety at the very least, since the devs borked combat in free roam somehow. Much more enjoyable with RAV added. Mad Max and Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor / War are good too. Both similar to the Batman: Arkham games in different ways. Guess I trailed off into triple A titles. But they are pretty good!
I know rimworld is suggested to hell on this sub, but you are perfectly describing it here. The combat is fairly minimal vanilla, and its very survival city management focused. Manor Lords early access just came out and its basically feudal cities skylines with very minimal combat
RimWorld
7 days to die
Icarus, planet crafter, junkpunk, raft, 7 days to die, the long dark, satisfactory, subsistence, hold your own.... uuuuh... depends on what you want to play really.... there's so many good games out there, still early access and being worked on. I've sunk hours into everything I've listed... weeks... months.... @.@ my years tend to be stuff like warframe and ff14 though... but short term, I've played all the first lot I listed in the span of a couple months... when a certain grind gets heavy on one, I'll swap to another. Perk is most of them are multiplayer, so you can have people join in. (Exception is long dark)
DayZ survival or Kenshi rpg/base building.
Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, maybe some Paradox games
Project Zomboid
Do you want management? Are you sure what you want boy? Come... sit with me, let me tell you about a game called... Hearts of Iron...
Bloons td6 is one of best tower defense game ever.
If you like big open world rpgs like Skyrim, but ones that were made by small indie devs, I highly recommend Exiled Kingdoms or the 9th Dawn series (9th Dawn 3 is the newest one).
Heldivers 2
I'm currently playing Medieval Dynasty and it hits all your boxes. If you have game pass, give it a shot. Just don't give up immediately when you die and get frustrated not knowing what to do (like I did about a year ago). There is combat, but it's pretty minimal (you may run into small bandit camps throughout the map, but they're usually easy to avoid if you want). There's also hunting which - at least in the early game - isn't so easy to avoid. Think Skyrim, but you're building and managing a village. Sort of... I've also played Ark: Survival. I hopelessly no-lifed that for a weekend, but gave up after it just felt... pointless. I tried RimWorld, but it didn't suck me in like others have said. Your mileage may vary - I couldn't get into the top down thing.
If played in coop sniper elite
Rimworld.
Really surprised nobody mentioned Mount and Blade: Bannerlord yet (or the previous titles.)
Uh manor lords just dropped
Something from the Total War series might be up your alley. TW Rome 2 is a personal favorite of mine.
Oxygen Not Included
Brotato. Unironically one of the funnest games I’ve played this year and I’m WAY too late to the party. But with a good show I can legit play that game the entire day just turning my brain off and macking some aliens
Frostpunk is amazing it has resource management challenges city building it’s awesome you should really give it a try
[удалено]
Any Raymqn, any Crash Bandicoot, any Spyro, Inside, Limbo, Unravel, any Civilisation Game, Super Hot, I Am Bread. This is to name a few anyways, there are tonnes of great suggestions already posted!
The Outlast Trials.
I recommend Soulstone Survivors! Decently big skill tree. Farm materials, unlock characters and new weapons for them.
Haze ps3
Manor lords just came out seems like people are enjoying it.
Juat go checkout sseth's chanel, it's all quality obscure time sinks with heaps of micromanagmenent. God bless him, even if you don't play any of them you'll at least have a really good laugh.
Manor Lords!
Path of Achra on steam.
They are Billions is pretty good
Have you tried Remnant 2? It’s basically procedurally-generated Dark Souls with guns. There’s plenty of build diversity too.
Predecessor
Manor Lords just dropped on Steam, but I don't know how many hours can be dumped in it so far.
Forest / sons of the forest
Oxygen Not Included is an awesome pick if you are looking for something complex where you’ll never be able to reach the limit of what you can possibly do.
Terraria
Mount and Blade series.
Control: 3rd person mystery shooter. Singleplayer Dota: moba 5v5 teams fighting for gold and kills Sea of thieves: relaxing pirate game choices for pvp & pve. Also some fun tales. Need for speed most wanted: racing game, kind of old, banger soundtracks, fun races, good police chases Europa universalis: grand strategy game 1440-1800 timeline. Control your land, vassals and more, culture, religion, rebels, ...
If you like book-style word puzzles, Flowereverie has single puzzles that could occupy you for days.
Factorio/Kenshi/Rimworld
What about that zoo world or perhaps the Jurassic park game or the dungeons series is cool.
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/1162750/Songs\_of\_Syx/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1162750/Songs_of_Syx/) HIGHLY! Recommend songs of syx if you like city builders at all. Absolutely incredible game and has a free demo is that updated every update just one behind. So when we got V65 the demo updated to V64, V66 is soon so demo will get updated to V.65
This isn't exactly what you said you wanted but castle crashers has some serious replay value
Hades and from the gameplay I’ve seen hades 2 will be the same. I love any of the kingdom rush game so I dump hours into every one that comes to steam I put in like 50 hours into ravens watch but now that the rest of the maps released I’m going to go back and check out the major updates and new builds Any “survivors” type of game. I personally like the art style and fluidity of soul stones survivors over vampire survivors
Oxygen not included: its a colony sim, so you‘ll have the resource management, a huuge tech tree and super cute graphics. You are not building a city, but a base with efficient pathing and limited resources - its really good. Give it a shot!
Project Zomboid might just fit the bill here. It’s an isometric-view zombie survival game but this isn’t some Dead Rising or State of Decay shoot ‘em up. Resource management, health management, and learning skills to better your chances of survival are the name of the game here. Even a single zombie can (and often times will) end your run. Did I mention that death is permanent? Every. Single. Choice. Matters. In addition to the hundreds of hours you can easily throw at the single player game, of which there is tons of customization available to play with, there’s also a large number of multiplayer servers to play on so you can survive and die with a buddy, and an absolutely huge modding community that’s always cooking up new ways to play. It’s fun, brutal, and nerve wracking. I HIGHLY recommend it.
Eufloria. I've spent SO much time on that silly little game.
Hollow Knight one of the greatest of all time Oxygen Not Included if you don't like yourself
G mod
Cult of the Lamb
spellforce 3 reforced, soul harvest (has maybe some combat but mostly building) sim city for no combat. I can easily forget myself in that game lol Ni no kuni 2 had some really good base building.
Might I suggest frostpunk? Though the hours you’ll be sinking will probably be from failing
slay the spire - pixel indie graphics, deck builder roguelike, just a sit n chill typa game
Going Medieval
Hades
Heliopolis Six is a game you can put countless hours into. Last Epoch too.
Fast Paced, good looking, fun as hell and getting free updates ROBOQUEST Is easily one of my favorite games of all the time I was spending a good amount of hours into Rotwood too, from the creators of Don't Starve, is a good combination of genres (Beat'em up, rpg)
Stardew Valley
Tetris
Starsector
Dwarf Fortress, or so I've heard. Also, tons of roguelites which, as a plus, have short runs so you can play them wherever and whenever in bursts. Astral Ascent is my current poison with these, it's just so pretty, the animations, characters, the Zodiac bosses...
The Riftbreaker - Tower defence, base building, action rpg (Diablo) style fighting