10 Games Like Valheim with Survival, Crafting and Co-op

What makes Valheim worth replacing

Valheim makes preparation matter: explored territory supplies new resources, crafted equipment opens tougher encounters, and a functioning base supports the next journey. The closest replacements connect those same systems rather than treating building, combat and exploration as separate activities, though only Tribes of Midgard keeps the Norse setting central.

The picks at a glance

Grounded

Grounded is an open-world survival adventure in which a backyard becomes a vast landscape after the characters are shrunk to ant size. Giant insects supply the central threat, while gathering, crafting and base construction give each expedition a practical purpose.

That structure closely matches Valheim’s movement from safer shelter to increasingly dangerous exploration, and both support solo play or online co-op. Grounded differs through scale and setting: grass towers overhead, familiar garden spaces become distinct regions, and insects replace mythological creatures. The backyard premise makes navigation more recognizable while preserving the danger of crossing into territory dominated by larger enemies. It is the most balanced option for players who want Valheim’s connected survival systems but prefer a more directed adventure and a less austere world.

V Rising

A vampire’s needs shape every part of V Rising, from hunting for blood in settlements to raising a castle in an open world. Crafting and building create the same relationship between preparation and outward expansion found in Valheim, while online co-op supports a shared progression path.

The meaningful change is that survival follows vampiric rules. Sunlight is an active environmental danger, blood restores strength, and the castle is both a functional base and a statement of growing power. Its combat emphasis gives moment-to-moment encounters a sharper action focus than Valheim’s broader mix of sailing, gathering and homestead work. V Rising works especially well for players who want base construction tied to character growth and frequent combat, with PvP available alongside solo and cooperative options.

The Forest

The Forest strands a plane-crash survivor in a first-person wilderness inhabited by cannibalistic mutants. Trees and other resources support shelters, tools and defensive construction, so leaving safety to gather materials creates a familiar Valheim-style risk-and-reward pattern.

Horror is the decisive difference. Valheim’s Viking saga frames danger as conquest and progression, while The Forest makes the surrounding population an unsettling, persistent presence. Its first-person perspective also brings forest exploration and close encounters nearer to the player, changing the tone even when the underlying action is still gathering, crafting or building. Solo play is available, but co-op lets a group divide construction and survival tasks. This is the pick for players who value Valheim’s hostile wilderness and base preparation more than its mythology, and who want every trip beyond the shelter to carry horror tension.

ARK: Survival Evolved

A mysterious island filled with primeval creatures forms the survival sandbox of ARK: Survival Evolved. Players gather materials, craft equipment and establish bases, mirroring Valheim’s climb from vulnerable arrival to control over a dangerous open world.

Creature taming is the major departure. Dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals are not merely enemies blocking access to resources; they can become part of how a survivor travels, fights and operates across the island. That shifts progression toward managing creatures as well as improving personal equipment and construction. Multiplayer can also make survival more competitive, while single-player and co-op leave room for a more controlled campaign. ARK fits groups that enjoy Valheim’s long resource progression but want wildlife to become a strategic system rather than simply a sequence of threats.

Tribes of Midgard

Tribes of Midgard is a survival action RPG for 1-10 players built around procedural realms, crafting and a growing home base. Its Norse mythology makes it the closest thematic match to Valheim, and towering creatures provide large targets for a prepared group.

The home base changes the rhythm. Instead of treating a settlement mainly as shelter and production space, Tribes of Midgard applies direct defensive pressure as forces pursue Ragnarök. Action RPG combat and roguelite structure also move progression at a more compressed pace than Valheim’s patient exploration and construction. The result favors players who want Viking imagery, group roles and crafted equipment without committing to the same slow homestead development. Among these picks, it preserves Valheim’s theme most clearly while changing the campaign into a faster cycle of excursions and defense.

ICARUS

ICARUS sends solo players or cooperative groups into a wilderness damaged by failed terraforming. Hunting, resource collection, crafting and construction connect survival to exploration, and its PvE focus avoids making hostile players the central source of risk.

Its mission structure is the key distinction from Valheim. Narrative quests can unfold through open-world operations or individual missions, giving expeditions defined objectives rather than relying entirely on self-directed expansion across one procedural afterlife. That structure suits players who like building for a purpose and want each period of preparation to feed into an assigned task. Environmental danger remains central, but the science-fiction setting replaces Viking mythology with prospecting and a damaged alien frontier. ICARUS is a strong match for a regular co-op group that wants survival work organized around goals.

Abiotic Factor

Scientists become survival crafters in Abiotic Factor, a 1-6 player experience set deep inside an underground research facility. A paranormal containment failure, military forces and threats arriving from multiple realms turn exploration into a search for both resources and safer ground.

Like Valheim, it joins cooperative roles, gradual crafting and base development to escalating danger. The facility creates a very different spatial problem, however: rooms, corridors and laboratories replace broad forests and coastlines, so expansion feels like reclaiming compromised infrastructure rather than founding a wilderness settlement. The scientific cast and interdimensional chaos also give improvised equipment a different context from Valheim’s Viking tools. It suits groups that enjoy coordinated scavenging and defensive preparation but want a denser, stranger environment where the next threat may come through a containment breach or portal.

The Planet Crafter

The Planet Crafter begins with survival on an inhospitable world, then expands into the deliberate creation of a habitable biosphere. Players gather resources and construct a base, preserving Valheim’s link between exploration, crafting and a safer home.

Terraforming gives every structure a planetary purpose. Generating oxygen, warmth and pressure changes the ecosystem itself, so progression is visible beyond equipment tiers or the walls of a settlement. That makes the game less centered on combat and more focused on environmental transformation. Support for 1-10 players also makes it suitable for a Valheim-sized group that prefers shared construction and exploration over constant enemy pressure. The Planet Crafter is the calmer alternative for builders who want their resource work to produce forests and a new biosphere rather than primarily preparing them for the next battle.

Satisfactory

A first-person factory-building game on an alien planet, Satisfactory turns gathered resources into multi-story factories and automated production lines. Open-world exploration, construction and co-op overlap with Valheim, particularly when a group turns a basic foothold into an increasingly capable base.

Automation is the defining difference. Valheim’s workshops support survival and equipment upgrades, but Satisfactory makes the production network itself the main project. Conveyor layouts, resource management and factory expansion reward planning at an industrial scale, with alien-world exploration and combat surrounding that work. It is better for players whose favorite Valheim sessions are spent organizing materials and enlarging a settlement rather than hunting the next threat. The trade-off is reduced survival pressure, replaced by the challenge of making a large production system function cleanly.

No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky combines exploration and survival across a procedurally generated universe. Mining resources, establishing bases and traveling into unfamiliar environments reproduce Valheim’s pull toward the next horizon, with solo, co-op, multiplayer and PvP modes supporting different social preferences.

Scale changes the experience most. Valheim connects its biomes within a single Viking afterlife, whereas No Man’s Sky spreads discovery across planets and space, making movement between worlds part of progression. The science-fiction sandbox therefore favors roaming and discovery over defending one deeply rooted homestead. Players drawn to Valheim’s sailing and procedural exploration may find the clearest connection here, especially if reaching an unknown planet matters more than preserving a Norse atmosphere. For tighter survival horror, The Forest is the better fit; for sheer exploratory range, this universe goes much farther.

How we chose these games

Each pick supports Valheim’s core appeal through several connected features: survival, crafting, building, open exploration or cooperative play. The list favors games where those systems affect one another, then separates them by a defining change such as vampire survival, creature taming, factory automation, terraforming or defensive pressure on a Norse home base. Readers planning a shared world can also use the Valheim server hosting guide, while the Valheim cross-platform guide explains the primary game’s multiplayer compatibility.