You know the feeling. It's winter of Year 3, the sprinklers are doing the work, the Community Center is finished and you've heard every line of dialogue Pelican Town has to offer. You open the game anyway, just to walk around, and then you close it and wonder where the next one is.
Most lists answer with the same three farming sims everybody already owns. This one assumes you've played Stardew Valley to the end and want something that keeps the part you loved, whether that's the crops, the friendships or the sense that your day was well spent. Eight games, ordered from the closest match to the wildcards. No filler.
01
Farming sim / Stairway Games
Coral Island
PC · PS5 · Xbox Series X|S · Nintendo Switch
Play This First
If Stardew Valley is a farm with a bit of mining on the side, Coral Island is the same idea moved to a tropical island and drawn in 3D. You plant crops, raise animals, befriend the townspeople and work through a calendar of seasons and festivals, but there's an ocean here that needs your help too. Its underwater restoration quest has you clearing pollution and bringing a reef back to life, which gives the farming loop a longer goal than Stardew's Community Center. Cooking, fishing and a deep relationship system fill the rest of your day. Tools upgrade through the same ore-and-bars loop Stardew fans know by heart, and the festival calendar gives each season its own goals. The weakness: the first few in-game weeks feel slow, because tools are weak and stamina is tight, and the mines are more of an errand than an adventure.
The Hook: For players who want Stardew's rhythm on a sunnier island with a bigger cause.
02
Farming and crafting RPG / Pathea Games
My Time at Portia
PC · PS4 · Xbox One · Nintendo Switch
Best for Builders
Stardew asks you to grow things. My Time at Portia asks you to make them. You inherit a run-down workshop in a post-apocalyptic town and spend your days gathering materials, crafting machines and filling the commissions that keep the town running. The progress is steadier than Stardew's: each new machine unlocks a chain of recipes, and each commission pays well enough to justify the next upgrade. Relationships work through gifts and favours, and the town's cast is easy to like. The workshop itself is the progress bar: every new machine you place is a visible step up from the rusty shed you started with. The weakness: the interface is clunky, combat is basic, and the opening hours drown you in crafting menus before the loop starts to flow. Stick with it and you'll find a very different kind of cozy.
The Hook: For players who liked Stardew's machines and artisan goods more than its crops.
03
Ranching sim / Monomi Park
Slime Rancher
PC · PS4 · Xbox One · Nintendo Switch
Most Underrated on This List
The ranch loop is the entire game here. You play Beatrix, a rancher on a distant planet, collecting colourful slimes in a first-person world, feeding them and selling the plorts they leave behind. It's farming without soil: instead of planting crops you design pens and keep the right slimes apart so they don't turn into something hostile. Mix slime types carelessly and the corral fills with hybrids that can turn into hostile Tarr, so every pen is a small design puzzle. Exploring new zones to find rarer slimes feels a lot like going deeper into Stardew's mines, and the goal of paying off your ranch's growth is the same kind of slow reward. The weakness is the end: once you've unlocked everything, the loop thins out and there's little reason to keep going. There's no relationship system either, so it's a quieter experience than Stardew's.
The Hook: For players who liked the animal care in Stardew and want it to be a little stranger.
04
Management sim / Lazy Bear Games
Graveyard Keeper
PC · PS4 · Xbox One · Nintendo Switch
Darkest Sense of Humour
Graveyard Keeper is Stardew's management loop with a very different job. You're a medieval graveyard keeper who has to fix up the cemetery, prepare bodies, and run a church for the village. It's a sharp, cynical take on the genre: some tasks are unsettling, and the humour is blacker than anything you'll hear in Pelican Town. The tech tree is the real engine: dozens of crafts unlock slowly, and each one makes the next day more efficient. Almost every task feeds another: a burial earns something, the something buys a better workbench, and the workbench lets you do the next job faster. The weakness: quests are vague, and the grind to reach the tech you need can drag. It's the kind of game where you'll look up a guide, and that isn't a flaw so much as a warning.
The Hook: For players who finished Stardew and want a farm sim that doesn't pretend life is all sunshine.
That's the first half: four games that keep Stardew's loop of gathering, building and selling, but change the job. The second half moves further from the farm. Fewer crops, more feelings, and one game that is secretly a roguelite.
05
Management sim / Thunder Lotus Games
Spiritfarer
PC · PS4 · Xbox One · Nintendo Switch
Best Cry on This List
Spiritfarer has the cosiest premise of the eight: you're a ferrymaster who builds a boat, hosts spirits and helps them say goodbye. The daily loop is Stardew's all over again. You gather materials, cook meals your guests love, and upgrade the boat, but each spirit's personal quests carry real emotional weight. It's a game about the way relationships end, and it handles that more gently than you'd expect. A second player can join in local co-op, controlling the cat. The weakness: the late game relies on fetch quests, and some boat-upgrade grinds make the second half drag. It's also much more sentimental than Stardew, so if you're after pure relaxation, you may find it heavy.
The Hook: For players who loved Stardew's friendships and wanted every one of them to matter more.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Nintendo Switch
The Obvious Pick, With a Reason
We're including it because Stardew fans ask for it constantly, and because it does one thing Stardew can't: it runs on your real clock. Evenings are dark, seasons turn when they do in the real world, and daily events happen on their schedule, not yours. You develop an island from a few tents into a town, catch bugs and fish for the museum, and decorate with an obsessive level of control. The weakness: it's deliberately slow and restrictive, with daily limits that stop you from binge-playing, and there's no combat or mining to break up the routine. If you want the Stardew loop in fifteen-minute chunks, nothing does it better. Browse more in our animal-crossing label.
The Hook: For players who want a cosy world that keeps pace with their actual day.
Terraria
PC · PS4 · Xbox One · Nintendo Switch · iOS · Android
Odd One Out, Worth It
This is the wildcard. Terraria is a 2D sandbox where you dig down, find ore and build a base, and it shares Stardew's mining loop of "one more floor, one more upgrade" more than most games on this list. Every pickaxe tier lets you reach a deeper layer, and each layer has its own enemies, ores and rewards. Where Stardew gives you a clear calendar, Terraria gives you a world and says nothing. Townspeople move in when you build them a house, so you'll spend as much time on architecture as on digging. Bosses give the loop a spine, and co-op with friends is where it shines. The weakness: it has no tutorial worth mentioning, and the sheer amount of items and crafting recipes can overwhelm you. Keep a wiki open and give it a few hours. Our wider sandbox label has more in this vein.
The Hook: For players who loved Stardew's mines and want a game that's all digging, all the time.
08
Roguelite / management / Massive Monster
Cult of the Lamb
PC · PS4 · PS5 · Xbox One · Xbox Series X|S · Nintendo Switch
Wildcard With Teeth
Cult of the Lamb looks like a children's book and plays like a very dark Stardew. By day you run a cult: you farm crops, build shrines, tend to your followers' needs and manage their faith. By night you go on expeditions, short roguelite runs in which you fight through four regions for resources and new followers. The loop is balanced between the two: a good run feeds the cult, and a good cult makes the next run easier. If the roguelite half sounds like your thing, our Hades list has more of it. The weakness: the cult-management chores multiply fast and get repetitive, and some of its choices are meant to be uncomfortable. It's a good deal darker than the other seven.
The Hook: For players who want to run a village where the villagers are devoted, and a little bit doomed.
What these eight games prove is that Stardew Valley's real invention isn't farming. It's the idea that a day should feel complete, with a few chores, a conversation and a small step toward something bigger. Almost every game on this list uses that same rhythm and swaps in a different job. The best entries here, Coral Island and Spiritfarer in particular, treat the daily routine as the reward instead of a path to something else. That's why management games keep finding new audiences: when the loop is right, the setting hardly matters.
Frequently asked questions
What's the closest game to Stardew Valley?
Coral Island is the nearest match, with the same farming, festivals and relationships in a tropical setting. My Time at Portia comes next if you'd rather build machines than grow crops.
Which of these games are on Nintendo Switch?
My Time at Portia, Slime Rancher, Graveyard Keeper, Spiritfarer, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Terraria and Cult of the Lamb all have Nintendo Switch versions. Check Coral Island's store page for its current platforms before you buy.
Are there Stardew-like games with no combat?
Spiritfarer and Animal Crossing: New Horizons are the most peaceful, with almost no fighting at all. Slime Rancher has no real combat either, though its slimes can be a nuisance if you let them mix.
Can I play any of these with a friend?
Spiritfarer has local co-op for two players, and Terraria supports multiplayer on most platforms. The rest are best treated as solo experiences.
Which of these is best for short play sessions?
Animal Crossing: New Horizons, because it runs on a real-time clock and rewards a quick check-in. Slime Rancher also works in short bursts, since a ranch tends to settle into a loop you can finish in half an hour.
Which of these gave you the best reason to keep farming, and what did we leave off?
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