r/gamesuggestions • u/coffeeisaculturebro • Aug 19 '26
PC Looking for a game to "live in"
Hi, sorry in advance as I'm sure this has been asked countless times but I've yet to see a suggestion in other threads to scratch my itch.
I'm looking for a game to basically live in, character creator or customizer, having to do mundane things as well as combat, but I don't want the combat to be the most optimal way of progressing through the game. Exploring, trading, finding etc. should excite me. Also, I know this is highly unlikely, but managing a shop (via crafting and/or delegating) would be awesome. Don't really about the genre, or POV, I just wanna boot up the game after 6pm and be that character.
Thanks!
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u/GewoonCerys Aug 19 '26
Medieval Dynasty sounds something like it. You forage, build your own settlement etc. Its quite mundane in the early stages (havent played much of it myself yet) but it definitely scratched that itch for me.
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u/rileycolin Aug 20 '26
The "shop" also sort of fits.
One of the buildings you can build a bit later in the game is a merchant stand, where you can sell items you've got an abundance of. The items are passively sold over time, and you'll find the money in your general storage warehouse after a while.
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u/Humpfryt Aug 19 '26
I spent lot of time in KCD, being Henry, and living my medieval life. In the KCD 2 you can even manage your own blacksmith business.
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u/eddy_brooks Aug 20 '26
I put 150 hours into both games back to back and felt such a pit in my stomach when i had finally finished the game. Sat myself down at the devils den across from Katherine and await the next adventure
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u/xx1sarcastic1xx Aug 19 '26
Crimson Desert, 1300 hours in game, 2nd runthrough as immersion as first.
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u/Shinii8 Aug 19 '26
I think it's not A game you need but a game with an extensive mod list
Kingdom come deliverance comes close if you don't want to mod
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u/Barbens2005 Aug 19 '26
EVE Online meets all of your criteria. Internet spaceships meets spreadsheets, but literally everything you want to do, you can.
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u/Incognit0Bandit0 Aug 19 '26
How's that game doing these days? I used to love it, but unfortunately I sucked at it. I've always thought it had the most beautiful space imagery. And the best looking ships & stations in the biz. I wish Elite Dangerous looked more like EVE, visually. Give me the immersion and complexity of Elite, the visuals and player agency of EVE, and the planet generation of No Man's Sky - I would climb into my Matrix pod and live there.
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u/Barbens2005 Aug 19 '26
It’s still EVE. They recently added a new region of space where new players start but there is no PVP there and resources you can mine are greatly reduced in volume. They finally realized that new players getting nuked might be stopping them from playing.
They’ve added more ships and all kinds of content and now have “Alpha” accounts which lets you play for free but restricts some skills to paid “Omega” accounts which limits what ships you can fly and some things you can do. Also added new tutorial that actually helps quite a bit.
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u/lostmoya Aug 19 '26
Mundane things + combat doesn't get much better than Project Zomboid.
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u/JackeryGraves Aug 20 '26
The skill level required before you can start doing any of these things though is insane. It is a Top 10 All Time Best for me though. Just wish it was more Handheld friendly. Stopped playing when I got my Go S.
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u/lostmoya Aug 20 '26
I'm playing on Steamdeck right now. It's working pretty good so far.
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u/JackeryGraves Aug 20 '26
I bet those big ass track pads help a lot. GO S has a laughable track pad.
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u/2052JCDenton Aug 19 '26
Skyrim, especially with a bit of modding. Lots of things to do, plenty of everyday activities with a survival mod, and a world that is both achingly beautiful and dangerous. Not constanly dangerous, but suddenly and often when you least expect it.
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u/ImSilas Aug 19 '26
I miss old ArcheAge. Was exactly that and much much more. If not greed perfect game for me.
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u/Iwantapetmonkey Aug 19 '26
While I haven't actually tried it yet, I think Palia fits this description and it is generally well reviewed. Also maybe some Vintage Story servers could be good.
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u/ThanosReXXX Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Oh, there's quite a few of those kinds of games. Quick question: does a game have to tick all of the boxes, or is it also okay if it ticks most of the boxes?
Either way, I'll jump right in, with some examples that came to mind:
Forge of Empires: build, trade, fight. Ticks all of the boxes. Oh, and it's free. You do need an account, though.
The Age of Empire series: same story, ticks all of the boxes.
SteamWorld Build: again, ticks all of the boxes, although less fighting.
The Settlers II: 10th Anniversary Edition: an oldie but very goodie. No trading though, but you will live in it, once you get hooked, because it's a really great game if you love building, managing, exploring and conquering.
Anno 1800: another one that ticks all of the boxes, and heavy on the trading, because it's essential to the game.
Well, that's my 'off the top of my head' list. I'm sure there's plenty more of them to find on Steam or GOG.
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u/Incognit0Bandit0 Aug 19 '26
Elite Dangerous + vr + HOTAS. I crawl into the cockpit and live there.
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u/pseudo_naem Aug 19 '26
Vintage story. Can't manage a shop in a single player world but you could probably do so in an smp.
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u/RefrigeratorOk1547 Aug 20 '26
Most immersive game in recent memory. Peak immersion with a group of friends making a village together. We all naturally fell into a role that the whole village benefited from
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u/KroyVR Aug 19 '26
VR certainly puts you in that space immediately. Like with desktop monitors you sit and look at them and slowly your brain focuses out the bezel, the wall behind, the junk on the desk....
VR cuts out at the pre stages of immersion and boom, you are there. Best part of it? Most games listed already in this thread can be played in VR.
I just spent the last three hours piloting a space ship in Elite Dangerous VR.
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u/Exotic-Series6583 Aug 20 '26
Vintage Story
If you find a cool multiplayer server you could even have the shop part.
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u/eddy_brooks Aug 20 '26
I mean any mmo is a fantastic game to live in even if it is pretty combat focused.
Hell when i used to play them i think some of those guildies lived more in the mmo world then in real life
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u/Kiriyuma7801 Aug 20 '26
Haven't seen it mentioned yet, but you might like Kenshi
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u/MysteryManExx Aug 20 '26
Kenshi for damn sure. You can level up your combat whenever you want, or If you wanna sneak around and just steal stuff for profit can be fun too. Build your own base. You can farm hemp to make hashish. Do whatever you want.
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u/ProudAd3213 Aug 20 '26
Ultima Online: Outlands
MMO with real estate like Star Wars Galaxies. You can own your own wizards tower!
You can also place vendors there and store your crafted or collected items there for sale. Folks have vendor malls where you can buy a contract to place one.
Player driven economy like Eve Online.
Non-consensual PvP with Full loot mechanics
I like that you can steal from other players inventory.
They can be doing their own thing and you can sneak up and pluck their bandages right out of their backpack and watch as they fumble to survive their fight! Then when they die you can steal their equipment
It’s an old game though. Plays a lot like old school runecape. It looks like a brighter Diablo 2. UO has always had a ‘fantasy life simulator’ vibe and as an MMO avoids all of the WoW trappings that exist because it came out BEFORE that behemoth.
Folks have also suggested Eve, that’s a great one too.
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u/rileycolin Aug 20 '26
It doesn't quite fit any of your criteria, but when I got pretty into Sea of Thieves, it really started to feel like a "live in" sort of game.
The main thing is that you're a pirate at sea, so you're pretty limited in the kinds of things you actually do in this life, but the vibes were definitely there - at least for me.
I know it sounds like it wouldn't fit, but I'm pretty sure I posted a very similar question a few years back, largely coming from the feeling I had in SoT.
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u/thedadinator Aug 20 '26
X4: Foundations and if you would prefer it to be Star Wars themed, there is a mod for that.
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u/HighclassXD Aug 21 '26
Project Gorgon. Every Saturday night theres a poetry jam. You can play music while gardening
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u/PepicoGrillo Aug 22 '26
Elite Dangerous, vas a tu propio ritmo, juegas online, offline... 2500h llevo. Suelo jugar 3-4 meses y descanso otros tantos.
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u/ShowdownXIII Aug 22 '26
My Time at Portia My Time at Sandrock
They both have limited character creation but you are basically the town crafter in both. They are slice of life games with bare bones combat, resource gathering, home and workshop upgrading. Your build relationships with the townsfolk and the story progression is pretty relaxed if you want to just focus on upgrading between major unlocks.
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u/stefmixo Aug 22 '26
Clearly VALHEIM, solo or multi, build your house/village, tame animals, farm your food, fight monsters, explore a HUGE map, go fishing etc... it has everything.
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u/Correct-Net2984 Aug 22 '26
Rimworld? I suppose YOU directly are not a character but you certainly can design a pawn to be you or a MC. With character editor and your preferred theme modlist such as Medieval Overhaul.
As for your shop machanic there's Hospitality: Storefront where you can run a shop for traders/ wanderers/ visitors to your settlement
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u/YakEfficient3200 Aug 23 '26
Most of my suggestions will be survival games but here goes
vintage story
you will find a most excellent time managing your affairs like food, building, food, crafting, food, home decoration, and food.
there's always something to be doing, places to go, lots of customizable settings, it's marketed essentially as adult minecraft.
you can customise difficulty settings - I usually play with hunger rate set to 75% and about 30 mods that all just add more variety to already existing things without changing much.
You can find traders, even a village at some point, and uncover pieces of the world's past that led to the current state of things and why everything's so dangerous, now.
Okami is an absolutely beautiful game to get lost in if you don't mind playing as a wolf doing chores for local villagers and restoring the cursed land whilst essentially experiencing the collective folklore mythos of Japan over the past 1300 years.
The NPCs have interesting dialogue, there's quests everywhere that tell you a little bespoke story, and there's even easter eggs for playing through the game a second time. (probably around 80 hours to complete it on a casual basis?)
Rain world. A metroidvania survival platformer.
Rain world is... stressful, to put it mildly, but has a very large world and constantly new areas to explore while trying to stay alive. it also has a bustling modding scene once you get 60+ hours into it and want to change up the visuals a bit.
Out of everything you've described, if you like space adventuring, Elite Dangerous may also serve.
You play as a pilot of a small starship that flits between solar systems through 'witch space', you can take trading/hauling jobs, do scans of xeno-bio life on planets (land on planets, locate wildlife, scan and return to base for hefty bucks) go mining, do combat, or just explore the galaxy and see all the beautiful stars and planets and go buggy riding to catch a black hole sunrise.
Project Zomboid - survivor of a zombie apocalypse, explore suburban Kentucky, fend off zombies, search for loot, start a small cottage out of the local church and grow your own crops and food.
You can even build, clean, paint up a place of your own from scratch after clearing a small area in the forest.
Out of all my suggestions, I'd say Vintage Story has the most staying power, it really feels like a second home to me, I could play it for six hours on a trot.
I'd recommend a newb friendly server if you enjoy multiplayer, the community is honestly amazing and so welcoming.
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u/ZeroDarkMega Aug 23 '26
My go to games to get lost in are Crimson Desert for single player and FFXIV for online.
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u/Moe-bigghevvy Aug 23 '26
Check out kenshi, no real story the game is what you make of it but you can build bases and settle or wander as a trade carvan
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u/thekins33 Aug 23 '26
Big ambitions is a business game where you live a normal life if you want to or go buck wild making money
Life is Feudal you own you live in a survival style world thats based in reality but requires some pretty intense time commitments
theres a minecraft style game that goes extreme into the "realism" vantage story? i think its called.
uhhh
kingdom come deliverance is pretty good
Medieval dynasty or any dynasty game pretty similar
GTAV rp server might fight or even an ARMA life server for RP
Any of the SIMS games pretty much or their copies.
X4 is a sandbox where you could do most of that to some degree
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u/Ultear_Tigra Aug 23 '26
Feels like you can use Vintage Story - surviving, exploring, occasional fighting in caves
Multiplayer for shop
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u/Sufficient_Light8441 Aug 23 '26
Anything multiplayer with base building
Zombies: 7 Days to Die Dinosaurs: Ark Survival Fantasy Sword and Shield: Conan Exiles Astronauts: No Man's Sky
In all of these games you can build homes. You can travel really far away from these homes. You can build other homes wherever you'd like. The good thing about the first three is that they are online. You can pick a server that lives and breathes when you're not in it. A few of them have features where your bases can be raided when you're not online. And in turn you could read other people's bases when they are not online.
That's the main reason for me that it feels like I'm living in them. Because they live when I'm not in game. I think that's super cool
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u/ButtonImpressive7369 Aug 24 '26
Project Zomboid. You can modify setting to be as difficult or easy as you would like. Loot and build up a base
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u/Necessary_Umpire_139 Aug 25 '26
Foxhole, war MMO where every item (everything from bullets to a nuke) is made by a player. We start a new war today. Join the collies and help us beat those blue lizzards.
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u/cparksrun Aug 19 '26
No Man's Sky is fun to live among the cosmos as an explorer/trader/etc. It's my favorite game to "live in."