There are many great co-op games coming out today, making it very easy to find something fun for players to participate in together. However, sometimes rest is not all a player wants. Sometimes, we just want to disconnect completely and be immersed in the game, just not alone.
Gaming has become wild and free, with many games being developed that explore different play styles. Some of these games I found and was able to play alongside others, while freely exploring, discovering all kinds of unusual secrets, or letting my mind float completely free as I enjoyed a fully realized world of some sort.
10
Revenge of a Dangerous Planet
Check & Remember: Everything Matters
The second game in the series, which chooses to laugh and scan things rather than fight enemies. Revenge of the Savage Planet gives players the opportunity to work together (both locally and online) as they visit four planets, each with its own flora, fauna, and dangers. Players are tasked by a seemingly shadowy company with gathering information, which means exploring, scanning, and even photographing creatures to study them (it’s a little more brutal than it sounds).
Revenge of the Savage Planet is a fun adventure that doesn’t have the pressure of many other, similar games, which can include many survival elements. I thought it was the perfect game to relax with after a long day, because it doesn’t take itself too seriously and doesn’t force players to do almost anything. The continuation of the story will come, but first, you can explore to your heart’s content in all the colorful, fun planets.
9
It’s satisfying
Corporate Co-Op Relaxation
A game about building bigger factories and sending resources up in a space elevator doesn’t sound relaxing. However, Satisfied is everything it wants to be and more. Players have many factories to build and create for themselves; there are many bad things to do, but there are also simple joys and rest to be had.
Exploration may not be the main point of Satisfied, but it’s one of the parts I found most enjoyable. Any alien planet, especially one that you can’t modify very well throughout the game, can create something memorably relaxing to take part in. It’s fun to engage in, to an almost horrifying level, but it’s also extremely fun and can leave you feeling refreshed, even if you can’t stop yourself from playing too much until 3 in the morning.
8
Aloft
Take to the Sky with Gentle Survival
A truly beautiful and fun sandbox game released in 2025, Aloft brings a calm tone to the genre that is always busy or scary. Players ascend to the sky in their skyship, floating between various floating islands, any of which the player can change into a different town or skyship. Players explore, must fight storms, and try to cure a fungal disease that is sweeping the lands.
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The relaxing atmosphere made this my favorite personal game to show off to someone else together. Aloft is a survival game, but in a non-stressful style, which makes it a good choice for players who just want to disappear into an amazing world. Sandbox games like this are often chosen for the breadth and depth of options offered to players in the world.
7
Dinkum
The Latest in Comfortable Survival
One of the newest games in the survival genre, Dinkum came out in 2025 and has the dream of many free games in common. To get the chance to move from the big city life to a quiet, remote town to live a simple yet extraordinary life. The colorful world of randomly generated islands the player travels to is perfect for fishing, mining, farming, and just wandering around the beautiful landscape to see what you can find.
This is a playable experience that has some similarities to other popular games that players reading an article like this should be familiar with. However, the biggest change is that players in Dinkum are trying to build a whole city with their activities. This was not only very satisfying to me, but it felt like it made this a casual survival game that had an obvious and interesting point to it.
6
Astroner
The Perfect Solar System You Can Lose Yourself In
There are all sorts of open world exploration and space survival games out there now. Astroneer is probably my personal favorite of this new wave. It features a player character who is tasked with activating the cores of seven different planets, which involves exploring and gathering resources to do the things needed for the job.
Progression in Astroneer feels very driven, meaning there is no pressure on players to progress. The style is sandbox, large planets, open world maps. In short, there was nothing stopping me from just getting lost for a while and jumping on my ship to another planet when I got tired of another. That made it easy to get a few (hundred) hours into this game.
5
Sea of Thieves
A Smooth Ship Crosses Beautiful Seas
The biggest thing about Sea of Thieves is probably the lack of story. It means that players can take on the roles of sailors, or simple ones, or they can choose to just sail through the ocean filled with blue skies. This world is full of all kinds of events, and players can choose to participate in them or not. However, some will pull you in (literally) at times, which can make the feeling restless.
However, this is the best way to play the game where you can get to see the beautiful, oceanic horizon with most of the gameplay. I don’t think I ever used a map in Sea of Thieves, I preferred to just float, I enjoyed the process of letting the journey find me.
4
Stardew Valley
No Correct Answer
Some games have so many options that there is never one right way to play. Stardew Valley is a great example of how players can come together to create a beautiful, thriving farm. Other, romance options, mining exploration, and just running around, daily fishing and finding resources, random items, and getting lost in the magic of this truly open game.
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While Stardew Valley doesn’t have a huge open world to explore or the same ability to get lost as some of the other games on this list, the intensity of everything you do after your character leaves town makes it feel like you’re really running away from life to live. It’s been my comfort game for almost a decade, and it’s just as fun, as fun as I remember it, every time.
3
Minecraft
There’s No Big World To Lose Yourself In
You never know what will be around the corner, or over the next mountain, in Minecraft. It goes without saying that this is the greatest sandbox game ever, possibly the greatest open world game ever, and the most popular game ever. It is a personal favorite of mine and millions. I’ve been building beautiful buildings and experimenting with solid worlds in this game since the Beta, and I’m always a while away from my next attempt at this world of blocks.
Minecraft is played cooperatively in many different ways, none of which are wrong. And players often leave the tour, not really knowing what they want. There is no wrong way to play Minecraft, and many ways to play it for easy, gentle, fun, and want nothing more than free time.
2
No Man’s Heaven
A Truly Infinite Universe
It’s a challenge to find a game where players can get lost more than in an infinite space. No Man’s Sky features procedurally generated planets, about 18 quintillion. It’s a great game that allows up to four players in a party to join and build bases, complete missions, and share resources.
No Man’s Sky is a smart type of survival game that focuses on exploration. It’s the epitome of the genre, a game that will never really be finished, where players can’t really get to the point where they’ve seen everything the game has to show. The thing about No Man’s Sky is that for a long time I found it almost terrifyingly large, but accepting that you can’t see everything in the game, just like in the real world, is a peaceful experience. Now, it’s a huge favorite of mine, and one of the games I’ve probably played too much to consider as a relaxing hobby.
1
A journey
The Ultimate Open-World Experience
Talk about the journey, not the destination. That’s very much the case with this open world game. The journey can be played cooperatively, as the player sees other players in their quest and can interact with them in a limited way. And it’s the absolute pinnacle of a game to get lost in. I was blown away like I’ve never been before (or since) by the quality and beauty of an indie game when I first played this one.
Since being named Game of the Year, Journey proved that no game is too small to win big. It also proved that games don’t need the fancy modern stuff we often look for to be deeply moving and satisfying. The point of the Journey was to get lost, and players continue to do so to this day.
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