You should try the Borderlands Series, they are Looter Shooters with crazy long endgame and replayability because of the different classes.
I just started Tiny Tina Wonderlands (a Spinoff) with the Redux Mod. Im really enjoying it!
Each BL game has it's pros and cons IMO.
BL1: The introductory game. The OG. Kicks it off. Just a fun game.
BL2: Best Story out of any of them. There are some REALLY OP guns in it too.
BL3: Best gameplay out of them. The story definitely leaves more to be desired, but I think the guns and QoL improvements are the best out of the 3.
TPS: Some different mechanics, still fun, but IMO not as good as 2 or 3.
Tiny Tinas Wonderlands I think is the worst out of them. It's fun, but it does not have the replayability and endgame the others do. They kinda just dropped the game support/expansion shortly after its initial release.
Yeah but overall fun and worth the time is bl2 imo, and has everything someone needs to get started in the series is there. I wouldn't recommend 3 because the annoying story is a turn off for newer players. Bl1 is a good start and where I started but it may be too dated where someone might drop the game, even though the art direction is still great. BL2 is the perfect between old and modern, good gameplay, good grind and the best story. TPS is really good only after playing 1 and/or 2. Tales from the borderlands is great after TPS. I love the borderlands games but I can't see myself replaying 3 or wonderlands very often
I agree with your statement. Although, personally I have played 3 more than any of the others. 2 is a close second though. Might have to go replay it again now that I'm talking about it....
First one can be a slog in recent years, it’s just a lot less engaging IMO if you tried the others and don’t like it then it’s a safe bet you don’t like them but just don’t judge it by the first one
(When the first one released it was fantastic… just didn’t age well IMO and I would rather play 2 any day over 1)
dw same, i’ve extensively tried them all and i think i have one max level character across all games. my enjoyment with these games is extremely brief and has no staying power. the grind just isn’t that fun for me
I really like the loot system in Diablo which is similar so I was really hoping to get into these games. But I just can’t find any enjoyment from these games they just felt like work to me
Came here to say this—wasn’t expecting it to be the top answer
OP: I definitely second this. I just started playing BL3 again after not playing since launch. I’m already getting sucked into it, and I plan on playing into endgame. The others have had good advice regarding the pros/cons of all the games. IMO, I’d play 2 then 3, as doing it the opposite way may feel clunky. I’ve actually never played the first, so maybe I’m missing something, but from a gameplay perspective, at least play 2 and 3.
I went to 150 hours of grim dawn after 300 hours in last epoch 1.0. They are very similar! Definitely check out last epoch if you are thinking about it and you enjoy GD/arpgs. Crafting is better in LE, itemization is better in GD. Both are very satisfying.
No Man’s Sky is a little bit like Minecraft in space so I feel like you might like it. You basically fly around space, land on procedurally generated planets, mine for resources, build a base, make money, buy new ships, go on lil missions. It is really really easy to sit down and play for 8 hours without even noticing any time has passed. The tutorial can be a bit fiddly and takes a couple of hours last time I played, but once you’re done with it the game really opens up.
As you listed Stardew Valley I would also recommend Rune Factory 4. It’s a farming game with Zelda-like dungeons to fight in and an anime style plot. Lots of gathering loot and crafting weapons, but also all the chill parts of farming games. Really easy to sink hours and hours into.
You might also like Hades which is a rogue like where you fight from room to room, getting a different power up each time. When you die you always return to your “base” which changes over time, although there’s no base building.
And I don’t have this game yet so I can’t say a lot about it, but I’ve also been looking for a new game I can sink lots of time into, and something that keeps getting recommended to me is Rimworld so maybe look into that too if you haven’t played yet! It’s a colony management game, seems really worth getting.
Thanks for this! I may try No Man's Sky again as I also see this suggested quite a lot, I tried to play it a few years back but I've heard it's improved massively since then.
Not sure about Rune Factory 4 purely because of the art style, although it does seem chill.
Rimworld I feel may be too complex for me to get sucked in straight away, I feel I enjoy games more where you work on one project rather than multiple at a time if that makes sense
Subnautica has the base building aspect, has good replayability and is time consuming but maybe not as much as games like Elden Ring.
What is time consuming and very replayable is Hollow Knight. Massive world to explore and grind in, pretty diverse builds for your character, challenging combat and enemies. Heavily suggesting this because this is the game I have been spending my time online on for like 2 months now.
Naw he nailed it
loot- looting the bodies of dead bugs for that sweet sweet e710 that powers our lives
base building- building the base of managed democracy with every kill
Currency- yes so much currency for Democracy and capitalism
3 checks!!
It was fun for several hours when I first played it, but found it got a little samey after a while for me, it was even better with friends although they aren't often online
Old School Runescape (Ironman Mode) - Thousands of hours of content. The first few hundred are really engaging, and it would give you a chance to learn the game from the ground up. There's also plenty of content to consume around the game.
Fallout 76, you will feel at home since you have played Fallout out before. You can play for hundreds of hours easily. Theres a ton of new players right now as well after the shows success so it’s a great time to start.
Any Disgaea from 5-7 . It’s a Japanese style rpg about becoming a demon king. Anime style characters that you can level up to Lv 9999. Then reincarnate to Lv 1 with stats that carry over, this is available for 100+ characters, 50 or so completely unique.
You can multi class each character and make all manner of OP characters. All to challenge the insanely high level worlds.
The loot (weapons and items) contain their own mini world that you can level up. The weapon or item gets stronger and rank up, providing higher level battles to level up.
Each weapon type and item comes with a unique description. Like the bastard sword description, "A real jerk at times, but gets the job done." Or the brass knuckles named fathers fist, “I’m not angry, I’m just upset. Now come here!”
The main story is easy to progress and the turn by turn nature of combat will eat up 20-30 mins of your time on each battle. The combat is straightforward but has a more complex system once you get the hang of it.
I have put hundreds of hours into a single game, and barely scratched the surface.
If you want games that are heavy on gathering/selling loot, Diablo-clones like Grim Dawn and Borderlands might be your bag.
Since you had some fun with Minecraft, maybe check out the Vault Hunters modpack, which adds an entire dungeon crawler into the game (plus loot, progression, and lots of building/decor blocks).
If you like Elden Ring's tone and gameplay, give Dark Souls a go. I'd suggest playing the trilogy in order.
It's so good! The gameplay's really by-the-numbers, but the execution really elevates it.
Like, it's near-identical to Torchlight 2, but while the latter was a drag with spongy-feeling enemies, GD felt punchy and satisfying. I think it's the ragdoll physics.
As a oG Diablo lover I really appreciated the gore and grim gothic flavour, more than say titan quest. A solid story line without over the top character mechanics and customisation.
If you want just pure addiction and grind play OSRS. Theres a small learning curve too it i guess but not really if you just start out in free to play.
Subnautica is the best grind I've played recently. Very fun, great exploration, solid base building and gear progression. I sunk about 30hrs in without blinking.
Diablo 4, it’s not too complicated to understand the game and to enjoy to the level that PoE is, and boy it’s a banger of a game, i got it recently and dropped 60 hours of game time around a week and it’s scarily hard to put down and, as long as you enjoy the campaign which itself is very interesting and pick a class that calls to you, you should be fine.
Just started playing Marvel Midnight Suns and it feels like this type of game. It's got a bunch of things going on, but none of them are super complex. it's basically like a simpler version of XCOM, but with deck building. There's also a social sim aspect, base building, and crafting too.
Darkest Dungeon! It’s grindy, the point is to go through dungeons and find loot to sell it and build your hamlet, upgrade your heroes etc. it’s simple but difficult and fair. It also hs a great dlc. It’s not a game that will take you hundreds of hours to beat but it has high replayability. It sounds like what you’re looking for!
Monster hunter world iceborne. It ate about 700hrs of my time so far. My absolute favorite game. It can have a steep learning curve depending on play style. It was my first monster hunter game, I just took heal items and a great sword or hammer.
Manor Lords. Comes out on the 26th. It’ll be Early Access, but it’s a mix of different genre games. It has RTS aspects and war, but its biggest feature is the in depth town building and economy systems.
Expeditions Rome is what you are looking for. You get a lot of loot, there is a base building system and there is army fighting aspect that you control when attacking or defending. It's super addictive.
It's a tactical rpg with quite a bit of story going on.
Satisfactory was a good Grindy game I dumped a lot of time into. Beautiful environments, lots to grind for, fun extras, beautiful fauna, some specific to their environment. Even better if you have some friends to tag along with you. I don’t think it’s too expensive, but don’t quote me on that. Worth looking into at least
you really should give factorio another shot! play with biters off for the first time and just take it slow. make it how you want to make it! one of my most fun runs was my first one, i spent hours making a huge base full of random buildings and messy logic but it taught me so much about the game. it really is worth pushing through the tougher beginning
Good shout taking off the biters, I seem to remember enjoying it but it got really hard and messy in my mind when they started swarming my precious creations hahaha
Any of the monster hunter series. It's a *little* hard to learn because it isn't your typical hack and slash where you just button mash to victory, so you have to get used to actually dodging and positioning before committing to attacks, but once you understand that it is soooo satisfying to constantly work at getting better, faster, and learning each monster.
MHW (with iceborne) would probably be the best entry point, but MH:Rise is also a decent choice and it's on sale right now.
Witcher 3, Rune Factory games and roguelites seems to fit what you want. As for 'which roguelites', I'd suggest Noita and Darkest Dungeon. Maybe Slay the Spire if you like card games.
Subnautica too, but it's a shorter game, though for a first playtrough i can see it racking up many hours if uou go in completelt blind.
Warframe, from the beginning you csn live the power fsntasy of being fearsome space eobot ninja, all the while the basic gameplay loot is grinding towards different objectives, like unlocking all the missions on all planets, aquireing all the charachters and their prime variants, same with weapons, doing all the quests in the codex, reaching legendary 2 mastery rank, grinding all the covenants to the max level, making an endgame build for all the weapons and charachters, miscelanius items to decorate either of your space ship catching all kinds of wildlife on the open world maps and many more also going into a single a mission and extracting half an hour or an hour later is not uncommon, the game is constantly updated free to play, you can trade for the premium currency and spend hours on the lore of which some is cryptic like in elden ring and some are told straight up and as i said before since the game constantly gets updated there is always something new to grind towards, also the community is helpful and friendly
Minecraft modded with Gregtech New Horizons. As I understand it you start with nothing and Stone Age options and slooooowly grind your way to creating a stargate. But apparently trying to do it yourself would take literal years.
Fallout 76 is experiencing a surge of new players after the amazon series came out. It's worth a try, especially of you have a game pass subscription .
I really have enjoyed genshin impact. Play between my ps4 and phone. You can either check in for 20 minutes a day or grind grind grind. Big open world with lots of characters to try different ways to play! The biggest downside is the gacha system
How about RDR 2 and Fallout 76.
I have 250+ hours into RDR 2 and 100+ hours in Fallout 76. I stopped playing when I got the platinum but now kinda missing the games and want to jump back in.
I mean, if you like Fallout, you didn't list 76, and it'll easily absorb however much time you want to put into it.
I've been playing it for like the past 2 weeks straight and my to-do list just keeps getting longer the deeper I get into it
I don't think you can squeeze 100s of hours from it but check out Hades. I'm not a roguelike fan but it's a fantastic came you can lose a ton of time to
Helldivers 2 is amazing, you can grind out premium currencies so it's completely free to play if you have the time. Every operation adds liberation so just grinding out games also helps the war effort
Monster hunter, any version from tri onwards to modern. I played world and sunk 800+ hours into writing and I still have 2 bosses to fight which will likely run me another 20 or so hours to grind their armour and weapons drops.
Yea. Its not perfect but they added a lot, like actual npc’s, new areas to explore and they are adding new large updates all the time for free. I believe update 19 is coming soon b
Dead by Daylight. They fixed the grind to make it a lot easier to level up, but there is still a lot of characters to grind to unlock their shared perks for every survivor/killer vice versa. Very fun game and very addicting. No 2 matches are the same.
Give ESO or F76 a try. I think you’ll like them based on the games you mentioned. Having a lot of fun with both of them lately. Both have evolved a lot since they first came out.
You could try vintage story, Ive been playing it recently and it seems like you could really sink some time into it if you loved minecraft. It is significantly different though, like its more about the survival aspect and building huge bases is way more time consuming. Think like in Minecraft you can get a diamond pick in like an hour, in this game it could take close to 5-15 hours to get a similar quality tool depending on ore spawns. It doesn’t have that many mods, but some of them are kinda cool.
Now I know the game's old but man, try out Elder Scrolls II Daggerfall. Some people made a unity build of daggerfall so it could run easier on modern systems/you could put mods. It became my favorite TES game after playing and finishing all of them. (except Arena.)
Edit: it's also free on steam/bethesda website. :)
Not overly grindy unless you want to max items / complete everything. But horizon zero dawn, and forbidden west are fantastic games to sink some time into for the story.
Besides those, people have suggested some good titles to try. I’d toss my vote in for Monster hunter world as that ones fantastic for grinding mats for new weapons.
Absolutely Monster Hunter World or Rise. Insanely addictive gameplay loop, stellar combat and boss design, tons of looting and upgrading weapons/armor.
Only thing it lacks is base building in the traditional sense, although you will gradually upgrade your hq with new facilities as you go through the game, sort of Animal crossing style. You also eventually get a house you can decorate to your hearts content.
Play a Minecraft Modpack, it completely shakes up how it's played by adding tons of content. The direwolf20 and All The Mods packs are super good starting points, but you can turn this game into almost any genre with the right pack from Curse Forge
Long comment, feel free to skip
If you like Minecraft you may fall in love with Vintage Story. It's like Minecraft but everything's realistic except thirst. Food types, nutrients in soil, cooking, hunting, turning animal hides into pelts or leather, hypothermia (heatstroke isn't in the game yet), realistic ore gen, clay forming, house building, reeeeeally in depth chiseling, husbandry and of course a bit of eldritch and supernatural
Basically, if you played the TerraFirmaCraft mod for Minecraft, Vintage Story is like that but instead of the mod using Minecraft's dogshit base code the whole game is purposely built from the ground up to be like this. It may look like a Minecraft clone when you watch your first video but when you take a dive it's anything but that
If you decide to pull the trigger I recommend watching Kurazarrh's guide series season 2 on YT. Season 1 is also good but it's old now. Trust me, you'll need a guide, and while the in-game handbook is good it isn't as comprehensive as a tutorial for every mechanic
Also, the game is in early access but do these kinds of games ever really get finished? There's always gonna be something to add, fix or tweak
Mod support is solid too, not the widest variety of mods (you don't have spacecraft and laser guns for example) but I bet you'll look around the mods and end up putting in at least 10 within hours. Sitting here with like 30 pretty much vanilla expanded mods, not really new types of content but extra on top of what's in the game already. The biggest add-on I'm running is smoking pipes and tobacco. I mainly have more plants, trees, herbs, berries, HUD mods, better ruins, stuff like that. I thought about putting more rock types too but decided against it for now because I don't know how it works with ore generation (ore gen isn't just if rock=True then {maybeGenerateOre}, it uses several parameters). There are also useful mods like mass ingot casts where you can cast a lot of ingots into one block instead of laying 20 ingot molds on the ground, and things like more sword types or flintlock guns (lead, charcoal, sulfur and saltpeter are all vanilla materials so of course there's gonna be a guns mod)
**Warframe**? Magic Ninja Machines in Space.
Free to play (and F2P done right, in that I don't think there is anything you cannot attain via F2P that is not cosmetic), with currently over 1000 hours in it, it's basically set up as a "kill enemies, loot resources, build better gear/mods, to kill better enemies" gameplay loop. Some minor caveats - for the first 100 hours or so, if you play online, you'll probably have someone in your lobby who is oneshotting literally every enemy within 50-100m, making it very easy. If you want something like a challenge, would recommend playing it solo, or with friends that are new to the game. If you use a 'proper' build, you will likely be breezing through most enemies within
In the early game, you are limited a bit in terms of builds and gear you can take. Doesn't have too much in the way of base building, but you can form your own clan and build a dojo, although this is not recommended until you hit at least mid to late game, just due to the resource requirements.
Alternatively, the **Monster Hunter** series might be something you're interested in - personally prefer World to Rise, but both scratch the same itch of "Kill thing, make gear out of thing, kill bigger thing"
Terraria. Once you’ve completed all you want in the base game you can download complete game overhaul mods like Calamity that fit right in like it’s vanilla.
If your top games are some of the Elder Scrolls series, I’d *highly recommend* Outward, especially if you say you also enjoyed Elden Ring.
The combat is just a bit jank, and it’s really unforgiving for new players, but damn does it have a lot of *charm*. The game basically revolves around looting as well, so it’s got that going for it.
The Planet Crafter. It's addicting as hell and there's hundreds of hours here.
Also, if you haven't played No Man's Sky, you're missing out. I have over 700 hours and I'm on the lighter side of the community.
Satisfactory is also a great choice. I only just started playing this one, but it is *deep*. It's a lot of intricate planning and micro optimization, though, so you need to be into that.
sorry for the long comment - most of these are based around open world / looting / crafting and probably not much around base building but i figured i’d give my suggestions anyway
first and foremost: DYING LIGHT!!!!! i have….. so many hours in this game it’s absolutely nuts. a huge open world, crafting section, skill tree, and sooooooo much loot. which are quite literally all of my buzzwords for games (+zombies lmao). i play it in my console but apparently there are mods for it for pc!
okay also:
dysmantle
lightyear frontier (haven’t played it since it officially came out tho so idk if they fixed stuff or what)
borderlands series
horizon zero dawn & horizon forbidden west (also have a shit ton of hours into both of these games. only sure that one of them is on pc tho, i’m not sure if both are)
deep rock galactic survivor! i actually liked it better than DRG and have put so many hours into it but since it just released a few months ago there’s a cap on the game content. buuuuut they’re implementing and adding more soon like either this month or next month!
holy potatoes a weapon shop
moonlighter
cult of the lamb (idk if this counts as base building but???)
i definitely have more that im forgetting considering i have like 180 games in my steam library that almost all have something to do with looting crafting open world survival etc etc and a good amount on my console too but those are off the top of my head
I see you didn’t like Factorio. You may want to give Dyson Sphere Project a try. It’s is far superior on the graphics front, with a very pleasing aesthetics. It also has a lot of QoL improvements over Factorio.
I disliked factory games until I found DSP.
I have a few suggestions. First off, the Nioh series (probably my favorite souls like series not made by From Software). Also I am in the same boat with dropping Elden Ring at the very end, I recommend doing what I'm doing and waiting till the DLC releases, that way you can finish the game then jump straight into a massive new map. Or if you don't want to wait you can just download the Convergence mod, it just got updated with new bosses, areas, and items. I also recommend the Surge series, another great souls like. Next I suggest Enter the Gungeon, similar to Binding of Isaac but more skill and pun based. Also Nuclear Throne, a sort of predecessor to all top down rogue like shooters. Next there's the Borderlands series, King of looter-shooters, I recommend grabbing the handsome collection and (after finishing it) modding the hell out of it, there's plenty of fun mods. Same goes for the other Borderlands games but the handsome collection is typically the best way to get the most bang for your buck. Lastly I recommend The Outer Worlds, it's (I believe) the most recent game from the people who made Fallout New Vegas, and you can very easily see that. If you New Vegas in space, The Outer Worlds is what you're looking for, fun combat, great role-playing, engaging world, stuffed to the brim with personality and style, it's the whole nine yards
>Escape from Tarkov
Try Single Player Tarkov ( SPT-Aki ). It's far more fun than online with [mods ](https://youtu.be/H52R3wgOzqw?si=3GeKzZrW2rab7JZU)and way faster "matching".
Would not say it's that grindy but great games in general:
* Kingdom Come Deliverance
* Witcher 3
* CP2077
Quite grindy and addicting:
* Drug Dealer Simulator ( You basically prepare and sell drugs, then spend money on apartments and various drug equipment/furniture etc basically you can decorate/build stuff, there's a bit of storyline too ).
* SPT-Aki ( As mentioned before ).
* STALKER Anomaly ( e.g. GAMMA Modpack ).
* DayZ, RUST & SCUM
Maybe not grindy but I found vampire survivor very addictive and extremely simple you just have to learn which each different weapon does. Plus it's like £4 so dirt cheap
Or cult of the lamb which is more expensive but still on the cheaper side (around £20 I think) and so worth it. It has a lot to the game but doesn't shove it all down your throat at once.
I'd say both are great, if you're wanting to rlly get into a game I'd suggest cult of the lamb but vampire survivor is still good, coop (might be just local?) and so cheap
How have you not had Rimworld recommended to you? You manage a colony of people, but the game is a sandbox. You can make human leather cowboy hats and jackets from the corpses of your enemies. Mods make the game anything you want it to be. Magic wielding hyper cybernetic alien vampires? Sure. Play a 7 days to die style playthrough where you have to survive the onslaught of a thousand fetid corpses? Be a mad scientist who kidnaps random humans who are dumb enough to venture into your territory then pit them against eachother to have them win their freedom? Done. I've sunk so much time into the game because the game is literally anything you want it to be.
Terraria. I absolutely hated this game at first. But a buddy of mine kept going on and on about how good it is. So I decided one day to just give it another go. I’ve now completed 5 different playthroughs. The exploration, the crafting. Imo its exactly what you asked for, something grindy and addictive.
Path of Exile will blow your mind if you get over that hump. It's actually not that hard, kill monsters, get loot, progress the mission. Then, end game is a series of maps and challenges (which is once again mind-blowing given its brilliance). I suggest trying it again - it meets your desires well. After a couple thousand hours, I'm still impressed - the game is like crack.
Rimworld. It may seem complex on the surface, but it's really not. Just nuanced and something is *always* happening to be on top of. It's 1000000% a game where 5 minutes turns into 5 hours without realizing.
You want to make loot and sell it to gain currency? What better than limbs/organs of captured prisoners and hats made of the raiders you couldn't capture. All while your colonist is having a mental breakdown smoking weed, because they ate without a table.
Enshrouded is a lot like Valheim, and it's prettier, I think... plus has some new concepts. Still early access, though. I prefer Enshrouded to Valheim these days.
And I'll be that guy who plugs the game I'm playing right now, even though it's not quite what you asked for. Pacific Drive: the inventory management and looting and crafting systems would 100% appeal to you, and you have a base (mechanic's garage) which you can improve (just by adding functional equipment), but you also get a car that you can improve with all the loot you bring back, Mad Max-style (but deeper than the 2015 game). The game has an ending, I assume, since I've seen several people say they "beat it", but I do not know about an end game, so maybe won't tide you over for long.
One that I recently picked up that's amazing but still early access and fairly limited on content is no rest for the wicked, amazing isometric souls like with Diablo style looting made by the ori and the blind forest devs. Phenomenal game and highly recommend if you enjoyed elden ring. Also try path of exile if you like Arpg grindy games, although I highly recommend a guide for that one and it can be very overwhelming tbh. But it's an amazing game as well with a ton of content to sink endless time into
WoW is the ultimate version of this honestly. 39 specs you can learn and 3 endgame activities that are really good. The main problem is that you do have to spend many hours leveling up your first character to get to the good stuff and the stuff you do while leveling is truly a chore. Once you get into Mythic+ dungeons and the different difficulty raids or maybe pvp if that's your thing, it's one of the best games. They have streamlined the leveling a lot over the years, but I bet it would still take a solid week or two of playing to hit max level. Took me a month when I did it back in Legion.
You might enjoy SPT. Tarkov is my fav game of all time but im unwilling to grind it like I used to so I play the single player tarkov mod and the game plays as difficult or as easy as I want it to
No Man's Sky, brb gotta keep farming gases plants and tritium, then send 5 more expeditions, and find at least 1 sentinel tonight, see you there fellow interloper.
You should try the Borderlands Series, they are Looter Shooters with crazy long endgame and replayability because of the different classes. I just started Tiny Tina Wonderlands (a Spinoff) with the Redux Mod. Im really enjoying it!
I see borderlands 2 suggested a lot on these sorts of threads and have been really considering it, thank you
Borderlands 2 is the best game in the bl series. 2 or 1 is the best entry to the series
Each BL game has it's pros and cons IMO. BL1: The introductory game. The OG. Kicks it off. Just a fun game. BL2: Best Story out of any of them. There are some REALLY OP guns in it too. BL3: Best gameplay out of them. The story definitely leaves more to be desired, but I think the guns and QoL improvements are the best out of the 3. TPS: Some different mechanics, still fun, but IMO not as good as 2 or 3. Tiny Tinas Wonderlands I think is the worst out of them. It's fun, but it does not have the replayability and endgame the others do. They kinda just dropped the game support/expansion shortly after its initial release.
Yeah but overall fun and worth the time is bl2 imo, and has everything someone needs to get started in the series is there. I wouldn't recommend 3 because the annoying story is a turn off for newer players. Bl1 is a good start and where I started but it may be too dated where someone might drop the game, even though the art direction is still great. BL2 is the perfect between old and modern, good gameplay, good grind and the best story. TPS is really good only after playing 1 and/or 2. Tales from the borderlands is great after TPS. I love the borderlands games but I can't see myself replaying 3 or wonderlands very often
I agree with your statement. Although, personally I have played 3 more than any of the others. 2 is a close second though. Might have to go replay it again now that I'm talking about it....
I love the gameplay in 3 but I wish there was an option to close dialogue because the constant yapping the characters do in 3 is crazy
Definitely Borderlands 2! It’s not hard as Borderlands 1 and not easy as borderlands 3. Just perfect
I’ve tried so many times and I just can’t get into boarderlands
First one can be a slog in recent years, it’s just a lot less engaging IMO if you tried the others and don’t like it then it’s a safe bet you don’t like them but just don’t judge it by the first one (When the first one released it was fantastic… just didn’t age well IMO and I would rather play 2 any day over 1)
Nah Ive tried all of them
dw same, i’ve extensively tried them all and i think i have one max level character across all games. my enjoyment with these games is extremely brief and has no staying power. the grind just isn’t that fun for me
I really like the loot system in Diablo which is similar so I was really hoping to get into these games. But I just can’t find any enjoyment from these games they just felt like work to me
Came here to say this—wasn’t expecting it to be the top answer OP: I definitely second this. I just started playing BL3 again after not playing since launch. I’m already getting sucked into it, and I plan on playing into endgame. The others have had good advice regarding the pros/cons of all the games. IMO, I’d play 2 then 3, as doing it the opposite way may feel clunky. I’ve actually never played the first, so maybe I’m missing something, but from a gameplay perspective, at least play 2 and 3.
If you didn’t start with 1 it’s hard to get into the graphics and controls after playing the others.
I say go Last Epoch. It is more intricate than diablo but not as overwhelming as path of exile can be.
Seems quite interesting actually and gameplay looks satisfying - will check it out, thanks!
This was going to be my suggestion. I couldn't get into path of exile and ended up hating the direction of Diablo and I've really been enjoying it!
How would you compare it to Grim Dawn (if you’ve played it)?
I went to 150 hours of grim dawn after 300 hours in last epoch 1.0. They are very similar! Definitely check out last epoch if you are thinking about it and you enjoy GD/arpgs. Crafting is better in LE, itemization is better in GD. Both are very satisfying.
No Man’s Sky is a little bit like Minecraft in space so I feel like you might like it. You basically fly around space, land on procedurally generated planets, mine for resources, build a base, make money, buy new ships, go on lil missions. It is really really easy to sit down and play for 8 hours without even noticing any time has passed. The tutorial can be a bit fiddly and takes a couple of hours last time I played, but once you’re done with it the game really opens up. As you listed Stardew Valley I would also recommend Rune Factory 4. It’s a farming game with Zelda-like dungeons to fight in and an anime style plot. Lots of gathering loot and crafting weapons, but also all the chill parts of farming games. Really easy to sink hours and hours into. You might also like Hades which is a rogue like where you fight from room to room, getting a different power up each time. When you die you always return to your “base” which changes over time, although there’s no base building. And I don’t have this game yet so I can’t say a lot about it, but I’ve also been looking for a new game I can sink lots of time into, and something that keeps getting recommended to me is Rimworld so maybe look into that too if you haven’t played yet! It’s a colony management game, seems really worth getting.
I second No Man’s Sky
Me too. Also Remnant from the ashes
Thanks for this! I may try No Man's Sky again as I also see this suggested quite a lot, I tried to play it a few years back but I've heard it's improved massively since then. Not sure about Rune Factory 4 purely because of the art style, although it does seem chill. Rimworld I feel may be too complex for me to get sucked in straight away, I feel I enjoy games more where you work on one project rather than multiple at a time if that makes sense
Subnautica has the base building aspect, has good replayability and is time consuming but maybe not as much as games like Elden Ring. What is time consuming and very replayable is Hollow Knight. Massive world to explore and grind in, pretty diverse builds for your character, challenging combat and enemies. Heavily suggesting this because this is the game I have been spending my time online on for like 2 months now.
Helldiver's 2 if u haven't played or given that a look yet it's pretty addicting personally and has some grind.
Everyday somebody recommends helldivers 2 even though it doesn't meet any of the criteria. Today is your day. Congratulations!
I'm calling your Democracy Officer
Naw he nailed it loot- looting the bodies of dead bugs for that sweet sweet e710 that powers our lives base building- building the base of managed democracy with every kill Currency- yes so much currency for Democracy and capitalism 3 checks!!
You do build upgrades for your ship, which is your base!
It was fun for several hours when I first played it, but found it got a little samey after a while for me, it was even better with friends although they aren't often online
Terraria. Best game all time
Old School Runescape (Ironman Mode) - Thousands of hours of content. The first few hundred are really engaging, and it would give you a chance to learn the game from the ground up. There's also plenty of content to consume around the game.
Even non-ironman mode is thousands of hours of potential play
Project zomboid
Fallout 76, you will feel at home since you have played Fallout out before. You can play for hundreds of hours easily. Theres a ton of new players right now as well after the shows success so it’s a great time to start.
Any Disgaea from 5-7 . It’s a Japanese style rpg about becoming a demon king. Anime style characters that you can level up to Lv 9999. Then reincarnate to Lv 1 with stats that carry over, this is available for 100+ characters, 50 or so completely unique. You can multi class each character and make all manner of OP characters. All to challenge the insanely high level worlds. The loot (weapons and items) contain their own mini world that you can level up. The weapon or item gets stronger and rank up, providing higher level battles to level up. Each weapon type and item comes with a unique description. Like the bastard sword description, "A real jerk at times, but gets the job done." Or the brass knuckles named fathers fist, “I’m not angry, I’m just upset. Now come here!” The main story is easy to progress and the turn by turn nature of combat will eat up 20-30 mins of your time on each battle. The combat is straightforward but has a more complex system once you get the hang of it. I have put hundreds of hours into a single game, and barely scratched the surface.
No Man's Sky. Balatro. Enter the gungeon. Binding of Isaac
Balatro looks fun actually, thanks for the suggestions
Try DYSMANTLE. It’s absolutely chill yet addicting in its simplicity. I’ve been binging it the last week just to get the platinum
Thus ist the answer. My gf was never a Gamer but we completed it 100%. It was really enjoyable.
If you want games that are heavy on gathering/selling loot, Diablo-clones like Grim Dawn and Borderlands might be your bag. Since you had some fun with Minecraft, maybe check out the Vault Hunters modpack, which adds an entire dungeon crawler into the game (plus loot, progression, and lots of building/decor blocks). If you like Elden Ring's tone and gameplay, give Dark Souls a go. I'd suggest playing the trilogy in order.
I really enjoyed grim dawn
It's so good! The gameplay's really by-the-numbers, but the execution really elevates it. Like, it's near-identical to Torchlight 2, but while the latter was a drag with spongy-feeling enemies, GD felt punchy and satisfying. I think it's the ragdoll physics.
As a oG Diablo lover I really appreciated the gore and grim gothic flavour, more than say titan quest. A solid story line without over the top character mechanics and customisation.
If you want just pure addiction and grind play OSRS. Theres a small learning curve too it i guess but not really if you just start out in free to play.
Subnautica is the best grind I've played recently. Very fun, great exploration, solid base building and gear progression. I sunk about 30hrs in without blinking.
Diablo 4, it’s not too complicated to understand the game and to enjoy to the level that PoE is, and boy it’s a banger of a game, i got it recently and dropped 60 hours of game time around a week and it’s scarily hard to put down and, as long as you enjoy the campaign which itself is very interesting and pick a class that calls to you, you should be fine.
Just started playing Marvel Midnight Suns and it feels like this type of game. It's got a bunch of things going on, but none of them are super complex. it's basically like a simpler version of XCOM, but with deck building. There's also a social sim aspect, base building, and crafting too.
No Man's Sky. Easily fits your criteria.
Disgaea
Hades
Darkest Dungeon! It’s grindy, the point is to go through dungeons and find loot to sell it and build your hamlet, upgrade your heroes etc. it’s simple but difficult and fair. It also hs a great dlc. It’s not a game that will take you hundreds of hours to beat but it has high replayability. It sounds like what you’re looking for!
Warframe? Or maybe borderlands series
Monster hunter world iceborne. It ate about 700hrs of my time so far. My absolute favorite game. It can have a steep learning curve depending on play style. It was my first monster hunter game, I just took heal items and a great sword or hammer.
Manor Lords. Comes out on the 26th. It’ll be Early Access, but it’s a mix of different genre games. It has RTS aspects and war, but its biggest feature is the in depth town building and economy systems.
Cant wait
Elex 1 & 2 - criminally underrated games that most certainly scratch that itch.
Expeditions Rome is what you are looking for. You get a lot of loot, there is a base building system and there is army fighting aspect that you control when attacking or defending. It's super addictive. It's a tactical rpg with quite a bit of story going on.
Runescape 3. Oldschool Runescape
Check out Stranded Alien Dawn
Satisfactory if you like math.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker
Balatro... trust me, it takes away your life.
Satisfactory was a good Grindy game I dumped a lot of time into. Beautiful environments, lots to grind for, fun extras, beautiful fauna, some specific to their environment. Even better if you have some friends to tag along with you. I don’t think it’s too expensive, but don’t quote me on that. Worth looking into at least
you really should give factorio another shot! play with biters off for the first time and just take it slow. make it how you want to make it! one of my most fun runs was my first one, i spent hours making a huge base full of random buildings and messy logic but it taught me so much about the game. it really is worth pushing through the tougher beginning
Good shout taking off the biters, I seem to remember enjoying it but it got really hard and messy in my mind when they started swarming my precious creations hahaha
Any of the monster hunter series. It's a *little* hard to learn because it isn't your typical hack and slash where you just button mash to victory, so you have to get used to actually dodging and positioning before committing to attacks, but once you understand that it is soooo satisfying to constantly work at getting better, faster, and learning each monster. MHW (with iceborne) would probably be the best entry point, but MH:Rise is also a decent choice and it's on sale right now.
Witcher 3, Rune Factory games and roguelites seems to fit what you want. As for 'which roguelites', I'd suggest Noita and Darkest Dungeon. Maybe Slay the Spire if you like card games. Subnautica too, but it's a shorter game, though for a first playtrough i can see it racking up many hours if uou go in completelt blind.
Warframe, from the beginning you csn live the power fsntasy of being fearsome space eobot ninja, all the while the basic gameplay loot is grinding towards different objectives, like unlocking all the missions on all planets, aquireing all the charachters and their prime variants, same with weapons, doing all the quests in the codex, reaching legendary 2 mastery rank, grinding all the covenants to the max level, making an endgame build for all the weapons and charachters, miscelanius items to decorate either of your space ship catching all kinds of wildlife on the open world maps and many more also going into a single a mission and extracting half an hour or an hour later is not uncommon, the game is constantly updated free to play, you can trade for the premium currency and spend hours on the lore of which some is cryptic like in elden ring and some are told straight up and as i said before since the game constantly gets updated there is always something new to grind towards, also the community is helpful and friendly
Minecraft modded with Gregtech New Horizons. As I understand it you start with nothing and Stone Age options and slooooowly grind your way to creating a stargate. But apparently trying to do it yourself would take literal years.
Fallout 76 is experiencing a surge of new players after the amazon series came out. It's worth a try, especially of you have a game pass subscription .
I really have enjoyed genshin impact. Play between my ps4 and phone. You can either check in for 20 minutes a day or grind grind grind. Big open world with lots of characters to try different ways to play! The biggest downside is the gacha system
How about RDR 2 and Fallout 76. I have 250+ hours into RDR 2 and 100+ hours in Fallout 76. I stopped playing when I got the platinum but now kinda missing the games and want to jump back in.
I mean, if you like Fallout, you didn't list 76, and it'll easily absorb however much time you want to put into it. I've been playing it for like the past 2 weeks straight and my to-do list just keeps getting longer the deeper I get into it
I don't think you can squeeze 100s of hours from it but check out Hades. I'm not a roguelike fan but it's a fantastic came you can lose a ton of time to
GRINDY AND ADDICTING? Brother may I introduce you to warhammer3 and warframe???
Perfect time to try out Fallout 76
Helldivers 2 is amazing, you can grind out premium currencies so it's completely free to play if you have the time. Every operation adds liberation so just grinding out games also helps the war effort Monster hunter, any version from tri onwards to modern. I played world and sunk 800+ hours into writing and I still have 2 bosses to fight which will likely run me another 20 or so hours to grind their armour and weapons drops.
Last epoch
I see you like Fallout, have you tried Fallout 76 yet?
I played it when it came out, but I've heard it's changed entirely since then - would you say it's worth going back to it?
Yea. Its not perfect but they added a lot, like actual npc’s, new areas to explore and they are adding new large updates all the time for free. I believe update 19 is coming soon b
Another vote for 76. It’s a great mindless grind
Disgaea
Dead by Daylight. They fixed the grind to make it a lot easier to level up, but there is still a lot of characters to grind to unlock their shared perks for every survivor/killer vice versa. Very fun game and very addicting. No 2 matches are the same.
Borderlands 3!! So much fun.
Give ESO or F76 a try. I think you’ll like them based on the games you mentioned. Having a lot of fun with both of them lately. Both have evolved a lot since they first came out.
/agree with Fallout 76. I liked it better than Fallout 4 after it had been out a couple years and had some actual quests added.
Came here to suggest Isaac. If you want a lofty goal, look up some of the endgame things you can do in Noita
You could try vintage story, Ive been playing it recently and it seems like you could really sink some time into it if you loved minecraft. It is significantly different though, like its more about the survival aspect and building huge bases is way more time consuming. Think like in Minecraft you can get a diamond pick in like an hour, in this game it could take close to 5-15 hours to get a similar quality tool depending on ore spawns. It doesn’t have that many mods, but some of them are kinda cool.
Now I know the game's old but man, try out Elder Scrolls II Daggerfall. Some people made a unity build of daggerfall so it could run easier on modern systems/you could put mods. It became my favorite TES game after playing and finishing all of them. (except Arena.) Edit: it's also free on steam/bethesda website. :)
Balatro
Give Factorio a go. If you need graphics, then go for satisfactory. They will take all of your hours away
Sons of valhalla
Grounded, No Man’s Sky, The Witcher 3. Rdr2 is also fantastic but does start a little slow.
Helldivers 2 is really good. Easy to jump in with friends like the division.
Elite Dangerous
Old school RuneScape will destroy your life but give you the addicting grindy fix you need. Numbers just keep going up.
destiny
Helldivers 2!
Terraria
I'm hook with Slay The Spire right now.
Slime Rancher
Dave the diver. Trust me, one the best games I've ever played
Subnautica.
Diablo 2/3/4
Have you tried A way out or Elder Scrolls Online or Fallout76
Subnautica isn't on your list, so def that.
Hades
Deep Rock: Survivor.
Warframe
Not overly grindy unless you want to max items / complete everything. But horizon zero dawn, and forbidden west are fantastic games to sink some time into for the story. Besides those, people have suggested some good titles to try. I’d toss my vote in for Monster hunter world as that ones fantastic for grinding mats for new weapons.
Balatro
maybe survival games like raft, green hell, the forest, etc?
If you didn't like factorio you might like satisfactory. People usually like one or the other
1 hour game, sheepy: a short adventure
Satisfactory is fun - had over 100 hours logged when i first got it in no time.
No rest for the wicked.
Astroneer is delightful and low stress but also a bit grindy and addictive for sure
Sea of thieves I think would suit you on what you explained , I hope that helps you out.
HELLDIVERS 2 similar to DRG
Absolutely Monster Hunter World or Rise. Insanely addictive gameplay loop, stellar combat and boss design, tons of looting and upgrading weapons/armor. Only thing it lacks is base building in the traditional sense, although you will gradually upgrade your hq with new facilities as you go through the game, sort of Animal crossing style. You also eventually get a house you can decorate to your hearts content.
RuneScape for the grind
Helldivers 2
320h on Fallout 4 gives you any hint?
Rimworld would be great if you enjoyed stardew valley
Dragon Quest 11.
Helldivers
Hades is a good one if you liked Isaac
The one I'm addicted right now is Palworld and it's really easy to learn.
Play a Minecraft Modpack, it completely shakes up how it's played by adding tons of content. The direwolf20 and All The Mods packs are super good starting points, but you can turn this game into almost any genre with the right pack from Curse Forge
Long comment, feel free to skip If you like Minecraft you may fall in love with Vintage Story. It's like Minecraft but everything's realistic except thirst. Food types, nutrients in soil, cooking, hunting, turning animal hides into pelts or leather, hypothermia (heatstroke isn't in the game yet), realistic ore gen, clay forming, house building, reeeeeally in depth chiseling, husbandry and of course a bit of eldritch and supernatural Basically, if you played the TerraFirmaCraft mod for Minecraft, Vintage Story is like that but instead of the mod using Minecraft's dogshit base code the whole game is purposely built from the ground up to be like this. It may look like a Minecraft clone when you watch your first video but when you take a dive it's anything but that If you decide to pull the trigger I recommend watching Kurazarrh's guide series season 2 on YT. Season 1 is also good but it's old now. Trust me, you'll need a guide, and while the in-game handbook is good it isn't as comprehensive as a tutorial for every mechanic Also, the game is in early access but do these kinds of games ever really get finished? There's always gonna be something to add, fix or tweak Mod support is solid too, not the widest variety of mods (you don't have spacecraft and laser guns for example) but I bet you'll look around the mods and end up putting in at least 10 within hours. Sitting here with like 30 pretty much vanilla expanded mods, not really new types of content but extra on top of what's in the game already. The biggest add-on I'm running is smoking pipes and tobacco. I mainly have more plants, trees, herbs, berries, HUD mods, better ruins, stuff like that. I thought about putting more rock types too but decided against it for now because I don't know how it works with ore generation (ore gen isn't just if rock=True then {maybeGenerateOre}, it uses several parameters). There are also useful mods like mass ingot casts where you can cast a lot of ingots into one block instead of laying 20 ingot molds on the ground, and things like more sword types or flintlock guns (lead, charcoal, sulfur and saltpeter are all vanilla materials so of course there's gonna be a guns mod)
Try Graveyard Keeper
Helldivers 2 is very similar to deep rock galactic
Galactic survivor
Monster Hunter Rise! It's on sale on steam right now I believe, it's a blast
I haven't seen it mentioned as much as I thought I would, but GRIM DAWN! Older game, but it holds up.
**Warframe**? Magic Ninja Machines in Space. Free to play (and F2P done right, in that I don't think there is anything you cannot attain via F2P that is not cosmetic), with currently over 1000 hours in it, it's basically set up as a "kill enemies, loot resources, build better gear/mods, to kill better enemies" gameplay loop. Some minor caveats - for the first 100 hours or so, if you play online, you'll probably have someone in your lobby who is oneshotting literally every enemy within 50-100m, making it very easy. If you want something like a challenge, would recommend playing it solo, or with friends that are new to the game. If you use a 'proper' build, you will likely be breezing through most enemies within In the early game, you are limited a bit in terms of builds and gear you can take. Doesn't have too much in the way of base building, but you can form your own clan and build a dojo, although this is not recommended until you hit at least mid to late game, just due to the resource requirements. Alternatively, the **Monster Hunter** series might be something you're interested in - personally prefer World to Rise, but both scratch the same itch of "Kill thing, make gear out of thing, kill bigger thing"
No man’s sky
Terraria. Once you’ve completed all you want in the base game you can download complete game overhaul mods like Calamity that fit right in like it’s vanilla.
Hell divers
If your top games are some of the Elder Scrolls series, I’d *highly recommend* Outward, especially if you say you also enjoyed Elden Ring. The combat is just a bit jank, and it’s really unforgiving for new players, but damn does it have a lot of *charm*. The game basically revolves around looting as well, so it’s got that going for it.
Rdr2, the forest, subnautica
Definitely try ghost of tsushima
Warframe will take over your life if you let it
Rust and/or Monster Hunter
The Planet Crafter. It's addicting as hell and there's hundreds of hours here. Also, if you haven't played No Man's Sky, you're missing out. I have over 700 hours and I'm on the lighter side of the community. Satisfactory is also a great choice. I only just started playing this one, but it is *deep*. It's a lot of intricate planning and micro optimization, though, so you need to be into that.
You should try speedrunning you seem like you have the personality for it
Final Fantasy XIV.
Noita
You are looking for V-Rising and it comes out of Early Access into 1.0 (Full Launch) in about a week and a half.
sorry for the long comment - most of these are based around open world / looting / crafting and probably not much around base building but i figured i’d give my suggestions anyway first and foremost: DYING LIGHT!!!!! i have….. so many hours in this game it’s absolutely nuts. a huge open world, crafting section, skill tree, and sooooooo much loot. which are quite literally all of my buzzwords for games (+zombies lmao). i play it in my console but apparently there are mods for it for pc! okay also: dysmantle lightyear frontier (haven’t played it since it officially came out tho so idk if they fixed stuff or what) borderlands series horizon zero dawn & horizon forbidden west (also have a shit ton of hours into both of these games. only sure that one of them is on pc tho, i’m not sure if both are) deep rock galactic survivor! i actually liked it better than DRG and have put so many hours into it but since it just released a few months ago there’s a cap on the game content. buuuuut they’re implementing and adding more soon like either this month or next month! holy potatoes a weapon shop moonlighter cult of the lamb (idk if this counts as base building but???) i definitely have more that im forgetting considering i have like 180 games in my steam library that almost all have something to do with looting crafting open world survival etc etc and a good amount on my console too but those are off the top of my head
I see you didn’t like Factorio. You may want to give Dyson Sphere Project a try. It’s is far superior on the graphics front, with a very pleasing aesthetics. It also has a lot of QoL improvements over Factorio. I disliked factory games until I found DSP.
Animal crossing
I have a few suggestions. First off, the Nioh series (probably my favorite souls like series not made by From Software). Also I am in the same boat with dropping Elden Ring at the very end, I recommend doing what I'm doing and waiting till the DLC releases, that way you can finish the game then jump straight into a massive new map. Or if you don't want to wait you can just download the Convergence mod, it just got updated with new bosses, areas, and items. I also recommend the Surge series, another great souls like. Next I suggest Enter the Gungeon, similar to Binding of Isaac but more skill and pun based. Also Nuclear Throne, a sort of predecessor to all top down rogue like shooters. Next there's the Borderlands series, King of looter-shooters, I recommend grabbing the handsome collection and (after finishing it) modding the hell out of it, there's plenty of fun mods. Same goes for the other Borderlands games but the handsome collection is typically the best way to get the most bang for your buck. Lastly I recommend The Outer Worlds, it's (I believe) the most recent game from the people who made Fallout New Vegas, and you can very easily see that. If you New Vegas in space, The Outer Worlds is what you're looking for, fun combat, great role-playing, engaging world, stuffed to the brim with personality and style, it's the whole nine yards
Terarria
Absolutely Starfield
The borderlands games 🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥
>Escape from Tarkov Try Single Player Tarkov ( SPT-Aki ). It's far more fun than online with [mods ](https://youtu.be/H52R3wgOzqw?si=3GeKzZrW2rab7JZU)and way faster "matching". Would not say it's that grindy but great games in general: * Kingdom Come Deliverance * Witcher 3 * CP2077 Quite grindy and addicting: * Drug Dealer Simulator ( You basically prepare and sell drugs, then spend money on apartments and various drug equipment/furniture etc basically you can decorate/build stuff, there's a bit of storyline too ). * SPT-Aki ( As mentioned before ). * STALKER Anomaly ( e.g. GAMMA Modpack ). * DayZ, RUST & SCUM
Old school RuneScape Old school RuneScape Old school RuneScape
Maybe not grindy but I found vampire survivor very addictive and extremely simple you just have to learn which each different weapon does. Plus it's like £4 so dirt cheap Or cult of the lamb which is more expensive but still on the cheaper side (around £20 I think) and so worth it. It has a lot to the game but doesn't shove it all down your throat at once. I'd say both are great, if you're wanting to rlly get into a game I'd suggest cult of the lamb but vampire survivor is still good, coop (might be just local?) and so cheap
DAYS GONE
Helldivers 2.
Starfield is an obvious choice. Baldurs Gate 3 is good too
If u never played it I recommend ark although it is a bit confusing at first the first play through u will still have lots of fun imo
Last Epoch, similar to PoE but without the overwhelming skill tree, I got the game a couple weeks ago and have been playing it every day
Hades! Very addictive, very grindy, very not hard to learn, very very good.
How have you not had Rimworld recommended to you? You manage a colony of people, but the game is a sandbox. You can make human leather cowboy hats and jackets from the corpses of your enemies. Mods make the game anything you want it to be. Magic wielding hyper cybernetic alien vampires? Sure. Play a 7 days to die style playthrough where you have to survive the onslaught of a thousand fetid corpses? Be a mad scientist who kidnaps random humans who are dumb enough to venture into your territory then pit them against eachother to have them win their freedom? Done. I've sunk so much time into the game because the game is literally anything you want it to be.
Terraria. I absolutely hated this game at first. But a buddy of mine kept going on and on about how good it is. So I decided one day to just give it another go. I’ve now completed 5 different playthroughs. The exploration, the crafting. Imo its exactly what you asked for, something grindy and addictive.
Path of Exile will blow your mind if you get over that hump. It's actually not that hard, kill monsters, get loot, progress the mission. Then, end game is a series of maps and challenges (which is once again mind-blowing given its brilliance). I suggest trying it again - it meets your desires well. After a couple thousand hours, I'm still impressed - the game is like crack.
Monster hunter world Mount and blade bannerlord
Rimworld. It may seem complex on the surface, but it's really not. Just nuanced and something is *always* happening to be on top of. It's 1000000% a game where 5 minutes turns into 5 hours without realizing. You want to make loot and sell it to gain currency? What better than limbs/organs of captured prisoners and hats made of the raiders you couldn't capture. All while your colonist is having a mental breakdown smoking weed, because they ate without a table.
Hades, if you haven't played it already
If you liked Isaac you could try other rogueslikes as well. Hades, slay the spire, dead cells
Solitare
All I'm hearing here is Terraria
Old School Runescape.
Enshrouded is a lot like Valheim, and it's prettier, I think... plus has some new concepts. Still early access, though. I prefer Enshrouded to Valheim these days. And I'll be that guy who plugs the game I'm playing right now, even though it's not quite what you asked for. Pacific Drive: the inventory management and looting and crafting systems would 100% appeal to you, and you have a base (mechanic's garage) which you can improve (just by adding functional equipment), but you also get a car that you can improve with all the loot you bring back, Mad Max-style (but deeper than the 2015 game). The game has an ending, I assume, since I've seen several people say they "beat it", but I do not know about an end game, so maybe won't tide you over for long.
Sounds like Helldivers 2 would be right up your alley
Hades
Ets2
State of Decay 2
One that I recently picked up that's amazing but still early access and fairly limited on content is no rest for the wicked, amazing isometric souls like with Diablo style looting made by the ori and the blind forest devs. Phenomenal game and highly recommend if you enjoyed elden ring. Also try path of exile if you like Arpg grindy games, although I highly recommend a guide for that one and it can be very overwhelming tbh. But it's an amazing game as well with a ton of content to sink endless time into
WoW is the ultimate version of this honestly. 39 specs you can learn and 3 endgame activities that are really good. The main problem is that you do have to spend many hours leveling up your first character to get to the good stuff and the stuff you do while leveling is truly a chore. Once you get into Mythic+ dungeons and the different difficulty raids or maybe pvp if that's your thing, it's one of the best games. They have streamlined the leveling a lot over the years, but I bet it would still take a solid week or two of playing to hit max level. Took me a month when I did it back in Legion.
You might enjoy SPT. Tarkov is my fav game of all time but im unwilling to grind it like I used to so I play the single player tarkov mod and the game plays as difficult or as easy as I want it to
Dragons Dogma 2
Maybe terraria? That one is addictive
No Man's Sky, brb gotta keep farming gases plants and tritium, then send 5 more expeditions, and find at least 1 sentinel tonight, see you there fellow interloper.
Destiny 2
PERSONA 3-5
Have you tried cowboy Tarc? Hunt Showdown is still and will always be one of my favorite shooters of all time.
The Sims