The best sandbox games on PC

There’s something special about a game where your imagination is the only limitation of what you can do and where you can go. Open-world games offer a degree of freedom, but there’s still a critical path and a specific endpoint. In contrast, a real sandbox offers endless choices without limitations. You can play, create and destroy in as many ways as you can imagine and the only ending is the one you choose. The games on this list are some of the best sandbox games currently available on PC, providing thousands of hours of unbridled fun. They are presented in alphabetical order.

Garry’s Mod

One of the forerunners of the modern sandbox, Garry’s Mod gives you access to almost every asset in Valve’s library and the tools to do anything you can imagine. You are in control of your models, your poses, and your weapons. You can load any map from a Source Engine game and fill it with anything and everything you want. There are so many options that it can be overwhelming, but master some yourself and there is no limit to what you can do.

Minecraft

There are other block-based sandbox games, but none have ever reached the level of popularity that Minecraft enjoys. Part of this success is due to people demonstrating working computers, scale models of the earth and other giant objects, and entire orchestral pieces using only the game’s tools. Whatever the other reasons, there’s no denying that if you can dream in Minecraft, you can build. The only limitations are time, imagination and know-how.

Nobody’s heaven

The No Man’s Sky, released in 2016, would never make it onto a list like this, but it’s grown into so much more than its original state in the years since. The procedural universe is as big as you want it to be. You can remain in your starting solar system if you wish, farming the few planets available and staking your claim on the system with a vast, multi-layered base of operations. You can also spend hundreds of hours exploring the virtually limitless cosmos, stopping only to stock up on materials. That the game features a story campaign, multiplayer rooms, and additional incentives to get involved is icing on a delicious cake.

Roblox

Although aimed at kids and teens, Roblox is a great game for anyone who wants to build something of their own in their Lego-inspired world. Better still, while you can enjoy the game as is or browse other people’s worlds and creations, one of the greatest appeals is building your own game using the simple tools that Roblox offers. The variety and creativity already shown can serve as inspiration for your own creations, which you can either share with your friends or the world.

Stardew Valley

There is a story and a critical path to Stardew Valley, but at its core it is a sandbox title. How you build your home and homestead is entirely up to you. Who you love, your path in life, how much or how little you explore the world – it’s all up to you. Add in the chilled soundtrack and simple pleasures of a good day at work without breaking your back and make this one of today’s most satisfying gaming experiences.

stone hearth

A cross between Minecraft and Stardew Valley, Stonehearth tasks you with building and running a village to ensure your colonists are happy, healthy, and prosperous. How you achieve this is entirely up to you. Would you like to found a farming village, a mining colony, or some other way of earning a living? Your calls will determine the success of your town, and thanks to a well-crafted, procedurally generated terrain system and random encounters, no playthrough is the same.

tear down

Like Stonehearth, Teardown has a story for you to follow, but moment-to-moment gameplay is completely free. Everything in each level is made up of small, individual blocks with their own physics. Equipped with various construction tools and machines, your task is to destroy everything in any way you see fit. The levels get bigger and more complex as you progress, offering new and varied locations and things to destroy in as many ways as you can imagine. “Closing” the story is just the beginning, as you’re free to go back and see if you can revisit it all in a new way.

terrariums

Building your home by digging up the treasures of the earth is a quest as old as civilization itself, and Terraria gives you all the tools – literally and figuratively – to plumb the depths and from the riches, you find a home to make. There are beasts and other threats, of course, but the challenge in Terraria is imagining what you’ll build on the surface or at the bottom of a chasm, not what you’ll encounter in the gaps. Once you load into a fresh world, you have almost endless materials and options at your disposal, but the more you create, the more you can do. It’s the best kind of cycle.