Stardew Valley is a famous simulation role-playing video game by Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone. The role-playing game is about making a huge farm everyone wants to visit. You build it by growing food, raising animals, and crafting goods. It offers many chances for players to show off their farming skills because it is open-ended. However, if you’ve had enough of this game and want to play something else with a similar gameplay style, we’ve got you covered with a comprehensive list of the ten best games, like Stardew Valley, in 2023.
Best Games Like Stardew Valley in 2023
After carefully examining several other options, we chose the games that make a good match with Stardew Valley and add something new to the table. While some games focus more on action-adventure, others make role-playing gameplay more interesting.
Yes, there are also a lot of games that are meant to test your brain by offering many problems to solve. The game will always be complex and-way traffic for you to enjoy for a long time. Let’s start the roundup now that you know what these best Stardew Valley alternatives have in store.
1. Rune Factory 4
Another game that delivers a great mix of farming simulation and great RPG features that make it a unique game is Rune Factory 4. The game makes significant changes over its predecessors by delivering a better in-game marriage system and giving the player a whole town to manage instead of just a small farm area.
You are in charge of the town, and your job is to improve the town’s infrastructure and bring people there. In addition, this game offers Zelda-like parts in which you find bad forces in nearby caves and assist the people of your town in beating them. Rune Factory 4 is a fun game with a twist.
- Publisher: Xseed
- Platform: Nintendo 3DS
- Genre: Farming with dungeon adventuring.
- Buy: ($23.99)
Note: Rune Factory 5 is set to release at some point in 2020. You will have to wait for the release to buy the newest version.
2. Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town
If you’re looking for a great game like Stardew Valley but have already played Harvest Moon, you should check out Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town. The game is a follow-up to the Harvest Moon series and is like a better version of the older games.
You start in this game as a young, untrained farmer who has to work their plot of land well. After living in a city previously, you moved back to town to tend to your grandfather’s farm. Story of Seasons: Companions of Mineral Town moves faster than Stardew Valley, making the game a lot more fun overall.
- Publisher: Marvelous (XSEED)
- Platform: Nintendo Switch
- Genre: Farming/life-sim
- Buy: ($49.99)
3. My Time at Portia
Like Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia shows players a charming and engaging world called Portia, where you are tasked with repairing your Pa’s forgotten workshop. You must complete quests, grow food, and raise animals to do so.
At first, the game might seem like a bit of a grind, but I promise you will want to continue once you start playing. The community in the Land of Portia is also strong, and you can make friends with everyone there to get assistance with your quest. You can also choose how you want to play by leveling up your character and giving them skills in crafting, fighting, or making friends.
- Publisher: Team17 Digital Ltd
- Platform: Windows
- Genre: Adventure
- Buy: ($29.99)
4. Fantasy Life
Fantasy life is about having a happy fantasy life in the virtual world, as the name suggests. The game offers a beautiful and expansive open world with cute graphics and many different classes for the game to add value. Each class’s various characteristics and actions add to the game’s total repeat value.
You can pick which life to play and enjoy all the skills and advantages that come with it. In addition to making the game fun, playing each life gives you hours of fun and excitement with each class.
- Publisher: Nintendo
- Platform: Nintendo 3DS
- Genre: Adventure
- Buy: ($54.97)
5. Moonlighter
If you like action RPGs, Moonlighter is a great game that you can play instead of Stardew Valley. You play Will, an exciting shopkeeper who has to tend to his shop-keeping tasks during the day and give in to his dreams of becoming a hero at night in the game.
As a result, you must play the game so that all of your actions are advantageous to both situations. It would help if you also juggled both goals very efficiently. For instance, you can quickly make money by selling items you find in dungeons at your shop and buying better tools to help you clear dungeons more efficiently. You should check out Moonlighter because it’s a fun game.
- Publisher: Merge Games
- Platform: PlayStation 4
- Genre: Action RPG
- Buy: ($25.29)
6. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
When you can play a full farm simulation in Animal Crossing: New Horizon, there is no fun in just playing a farm simulation. Nintendo finally launched the long-awaited game during the pandemic, and it has been a huge hit ever since. In its first 11 days, the game sold a million copies. It has since gone on to sell more than 26 million units.
You can build a whole town in the game, and the business works well. Building bridges, town squares, and other land features can add to your town’s infrastructure. Additionally, you get to set and alter the rules and regulations in your town, and everyone will follow your set of guidelines. This game is all about taking care of your town and its people. It has cute graphics and characters that make it fun and playable.
- Publisher: Nintendo
- Platform: Nintendo Switch
- Genre: Life simulation
- Buy: ($59.99)
7. Recettear
We have the best simulation game for you if you like farming but want to try something new. Recettar: An Item Shop’s Tale is a game that plays very similarly to farm simulators. Yet, in this game, you are in charge of an item shop, and your job is to manage the shop. After the unexpected passing of your father, you start out as a young girl who inherits an item shop.
Remember that you have to get your things from some pretty risky places. Sometimes, it means going into caverns, killing monsters, and gathering valuable things to trade in your shop. You need to bring the shop back to its former glory to pay off all the bills. The game is a great mix of simulation and exploring dungeons.
- Publisher: Carpe Fulgur LLC
- Platform: Windows
- Genre: Role-playing game
- Buy: ($19.99)
8. Yonder: The Cloudcatcher Chronicles
This game is like a love child between Stardew Valley and Breath of the Wild. It’s called Yonder: The Cloudcatcher Chronicles. The game is a great mix of a relaxing open-world adventure game and a farming simulator. It’s also a lot of fun. A lively open world with many things to find, intricate character creation, crafting, building, and farming are all features of the game.
You can follow the quest line and go wherever it leads you or spend time doing whatever you want in the open world without worrying about anything. One of the best things about Yonder: The Cloudcatcher Chronicles’ open world is that it’s always changing with the seasons.
- Publisher: Merge Games
- Platform: Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4
- Genre: Adventure
- Buy: ($39.99)
9. Voodoo Garden
In Voodoo Garden, a great game like Stardew Valley, players must take care of a peaceful garden and grow trees, plants, flowers, and more. If you’re looking for a casual time-killing game, the game has many interesting things to offer if you do get into it. Pets are available for adoption. You can care for them and see them grow.
The game also has little helper ghosts to help you with all your jobs. Anyone can play the game without hesitation because learning is relatively simple.
- Publisher: Liu Lidan
- Platform: Windows
- Genre: Casual, Indie, Simulation
- Buy: ($1.49)
`10. Farm for your Life
In a farming game, you typically expand your farm, protect it from bad weather, expand it, and sell your goods. This is mostly fun but can get slightlymonotonous and repetitive over time. Farm for Your Life offers a lot of different styles combined in a single game, so you’ll always be energized.
You get to make a farm and expand it as a farming simulator. You also get to protect your farm from zombies and other undead by using defenses, which turns it into a tower-defense game. On top of all that, you have to run a restaurant. So, Farm for Your Life is a crazy mashup of different styles into one fun game that offers something for everyone
- Publisher: Hammer Labs
- Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux and PlayStation 4
- Genre: Casual, Indie, Simulation, Strategy
- Buy: ($9.99)
