The best sandbox games on PC 2024

What are the best sandbox games? Sandbox games are difficult to nail down, as the sandbox style is spread across countless genres with disparate mechanics and settings. But all sandboxes share a common trait: freedom. Whether it’s creating a whole world or building up a gang of criminals across a city, sandbox games leave most of the agency up to the player. They are universes to be experienced at a pace not dictated by developers.

Some of the best PC games of all time are those that allow total player freedom, but there needs to be a bit of clarity when looking at what makes a great sandbox game. They have, since the days of Elite and Ultima, referred to open-world games filled with choice and diversions. But revisionist history would describe them as “games like Minecraft”. For the purposes of this exploration of the best of the bunch, we’re taking a look at them all. We support sandbox egalitarianism. So, from the mean streets of Los Santos through the ruthless missions of Agent 47 and the stunning expanse of Eve’s universe, these are the very best sandbox games on PC.

Here are the best sandbox games on PC in 2024:

Genshin Impact

Combining an expansive open world with an engaging story, Genshin Impact gives you the tools and the freedom to explore Tayvat as you please. Want to plow through the engaging story? Go for it. Want to wander from the beaten path to unlock the best Genshin Impact characters? Even better.

Genshin Impact is free to play, with a gacha mechanic for unlocking new Genshin Impact weapons and characters. Thankfully, it’s pretty generous with its prizes for just playing, so while you can pay to become all-powerful, there is an excellent sandbox game in there that will reward you for your time.

Play Genshin Impact for free.

Elden Ring

We could call Elden Ring one of the greatest games of all time, and we practically did in our Elden Ring review, our Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree review, and in our Game of the Year 2022 list. From the moment you first step out onto Limgrave and spot the Erdtree sparkling in the distance, you have free rein to explore as you discover deadly enemies, new environments, and more Elden Ring bosses than you can count.

If you still haven’t given one of FromSoftware’s wonderful games a try, Elden Ring is the perfect entry point. Soulslikes have a reputation of being incredibly difficult, but most players know that you need to approach these games with a tactical mindset. You can’t treat Elden Ring like an action game, even basic enemies can strike you down in a few hits if you try to mindlessly swipe at them. After spending countless attempts against the same boss, the feeling you get when you finally slay it is almost unrivaled.

Palworld

Nintendo fans have been begging for a Pokémon game that breaks away from the series’ norms and embraces modern gameplay mechanics. Well, everything they could ask for has been implemented in Pocketpair’s Palworld, albeit with a range of creatures found in the Paldeck that, uhh, may not be as cute as Nintendo’s iconic Pokémon, but they certainly do a job. Quite literally in the case of Palworld, where your Pals can be put to work as you can set them up to do Palwork jobs in your base. You mean to tell us that we have access to a Pal that can generate electricity and we aren’t going to harness that power in some way?

After playing Palworld for several hours, eventually, you begin to welcome the idea that Pals should be pulling their weight rather than sitting pretty on a farm somewhere. You’ve also got your combat Pals, the ones you want to bring with you into battle to fight against dangerous enemies equipped with their evil Pals. Pocketpair has borrowed elements from the famous Pokémon formula, but there are enough changes in Palworld to turn it into something new. Read our Palworld review to see how impressive the game is, even in its early access state. 

Minecraft is synonymous with modern sandbox games. And it deserves to be. It’s one of the purest sandbox titles because it’s more a tool than a game. It’s a figurative sandpit, waiting to be molded into giant fortresses, complex circuits, and gargantuan spaceships suspended in the sky. Yes, you could be the next person to make one of the best Minecraft maps or cool Minecraft houses.

Minecraft captures the essence of playing – and fashion, just check out some of the best Minecraft skins for proof. It’s a tactile experience that evokes days spent building Lego creations in your bedroom. Limitations are few and far between, and usually, the simple installation of some Minecraft mods will smash down any that do exist – it’s more concerned with giving players the tools to curate their own experience than telling them what to do.

It’s bridged the gap between different generations of gamers. Its rudimentary graphics and interface inspire nostalgia, while its simple logic and blocky building appeals to mites (and a fair few adults). And it’s easy to describe; or, at least the very basics are. The common sense logic that runs through its foundations makes it accessible and less daunting for the uninitiated, making it an experience that can be shared by kids and their parents.

And if you aren’t a builder, then there’s the entire survival game aspect of Minecraft, which would can play through from start to finish and beyond without having to worry about how beautiful your base looks, retaining the sandbox experience as you explore procedurally generated caves and infinite biomes. Besides mods, there are countless other ways to improve the experience, from Minecraft shaders and texture packs that make it look like a new release to maps and servers to play on.

A decade old this year, Rockstar’s most recent GTA offering is still a true play pit of opportunities. At times, it feels like every street of the sprawling city is a destination for fun, offering up new types of people to interact with, new terrain to experiment on, and new buildings to explore, whether you’ve been playing for years or are jumping in for the first time. While there’s plenty of online content to tackle, GTA V is arguably the best offline game in the series, thanks to its lengthy campaign and huge sandbox environment.

The simulation offers an exaggeration of urban and rural America, going mental with a few firearms can lead to chaos in the streets – not to mention some exceptionally wild police chases. Pushing the world’s limitations is part of the expected experience: seeing just how many bodies you can pile up, how many hitchhikers you can kidnap, or how long you can go with a five-star wanted level without getting wasted. You can always resort to using GTA 5 cheats if needed.

The GTA 5 mods scene is booming right now so it’s the perfect place to experiment with other people’s creations. But, beyond that, the game comes bundled with its own extensive tool kit for creative types: the Rockstar Editor. A seemingly limitless machinima movie creator, it allows you to film whatever you fancy and cut and shape it into a work of cinematic art.

We can only imagine the thrilling open-world adventures that await when a GTA 6 release date finally rolls around, but knowing it’s a good year away at least, there are still plenty of reasons – and regular updates – keeping us coming back to Los Santos.

Before sandboxes were synonymous with games like GTA or low-res block building, the term was inescapably linked to the freeform murder of Hitman. After a heavy misstep with Absolution, Agent 47 retrieved his sandbox crown with 2016’s Hitman. A set of six locations provides you with uncountable opportunities to dispatch a target, from a simple sniper rifle shot to some of Hitman’s craziest kills.

Despite the huge immersive sim this generation, with the likes of Dishonored and Deus Ex, many simply can’t compare to the dense detail of a Hitman level. They provide the freedom to approach the situation in almost every manner you can imagine. And, should your imagination fail you, there are dozens of suggestions thanks to the brilliant Opportunities system. Moreover, each level is being constantly added to over time, with brand new Escalation missions and Elusive Target contracts. Hitman is a sandbox that won’t stop evolving.

The emergent fun continues in the two sequels released since, as we found in our Hitman 2 review and Hitman 3 review, respectively. There’s plenty there for returning assassins, such as Hitman 2’s Ghost Mode and an inventive AI that wants you to murder in the coolest possible ways, while the Hitman 3 keypad safe codes leave you something to come back to after completing this trilogy of stealth sandbox games.

What makes Scrap Mechanic different from other building games is how it encourages momentum with moving components. It sets it apart from most other games, which tend to stick to creating fortresses and other stationary objects. Even your static castle can come to life with elaborate unlocking mechanisms in Scrap Mechanic. But it’s the cars, tanks, and hover machines that really demonstrate the depths of its potential.

For a quick overview of what makes it special, take a look at our Scrap Mechanic beginner’s guide and then see the best Scrap Mechanic creations from the community. What’s surprising is that most are built with only a handful of basic components. Imagine what could be built when the game eventually expands its inventory.

The original Elite was one of the first sandboxes, setting the standard for future sandboxes and simulation games alike. It’s still pretty impressive, almost 40 years on, with over 200 worlds to visit and trade with. Elite Dangerous, though, is a galaxy in size, a scale that is both bewildering and extremely intimidating. Just the scope of the thing is astounding. No wonder it’s one of the best space games on PC.

Making your way through the galaxy is familiar: trading with stations, fulfilling requests for goods and assistance, chasing down bounties. But this is all taking place in our own simulated galaxy, where everything is to scale. When you leave Supercruise and are faced with a gargantuan glowing sun, it feels like you’re facing a real sun, something so massive that it’s almost inconceivable.

Even simple trips feel like significant undertakings. With every jump to supercruise, there’s the risk of interdiction, leading to a lot of flailing around as you attempt to align with the escape vector, which plonks you right in the middle of deep space. Fail, and you’ve got a dogfight on your hands. Don’t worry if that danger is too much for you, though: our Elite Dangerous guide will help out any beginners.

As still one of the best indie games around, thankfully, KSP now has a sequel in early access, so there’s even more reason to familiarise yourself with the original before the official Kerbal Space Program 2 release date. With its full feature set of missions and free-form sandbox mode, the first game provides practically endless opportunities to fiddle with big-budget science. It’s a game where your experiments and successes have extra weight, as they aren’t taking place in a fantasy realm but one grounded in real-life science.

Military simulator Arma 3 is, like Minecraft, as much a tool for game creation as a game itself – one where much of the heavy lifting has already been done. It looks great, making the fictional Greek islands it takes place on eerily real, and the combat has benefited from this eye for detail, too. It’s a combined arms war game where you can dabble in commanding tanks, try to play it like one of the best plane games, or take advantage of the detail of this sniper game to skulk and take your foes out from the shadows.

While it comes with a three-part campaign and multiplayer, the meat is the huge editor that gives creators countless tools and assets with which they can craft their own worlds. As it allows for anything from persistent multiplayer campaigns to military operations to be created, it has birthed some of the best games ever, including DayZ and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

It’s like a Pepsi Max ad from the ‘90s but with a much higher body count. No wonder we voted it one of the best games of 2015. We got more of an iterative update with the sequel, however, but we found in our Just Cause 4 review that it didn’t stop it from being just as bombastic and fun.

Bannerlord, like its predecessor, is all about letting you roleplay in a systems-heavy medieval sandbox. Perhaps the showman in you will inspire you to become a master jouster and champion of many tourneys. Maybe your eye for a good deal will let you make money fast in Bannerlord, using your mountain of gold to fund a mercenary army to protect you and bring you glory. Or perhaps you’re just a good-for-nothing crook, and if so, then it’s the bandit’s life for you.

The blend of macro-scale management and being able to directly control your character and party gives you an unrivaled level of control, to the extent that you can either lead an army of hundreds from above or command them from the over-the-shoulder perspective of your medieval hero/warlord/dastardly baron. If you get stuck, there are always Bannerlord cheats to consider.

It’s a living galaxy with a complex player-run economy, filled with corporations and alliances that rise and fall and opportunistic pirates, soldiers, and businessmen waiting to fleece or destroy you. EVE fights the good fight by making its world a true sandbox – helping it become one of the best MMOs on PC.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, check out our EVE Online beginner’s guide. It’s in the corporations, though, that EVE’s heart really lies. The intrigue and wars that arise from them would fit neatly in the pages of The Twelve Caesars.

Four years old, RDR2 is still the latest game from Rockstar, and it received glowing praise in our Red Dead Redemption 2 review and still stands up to it today. After a somewhat sluggish start in the snow, it soon opens out into a glorious representation of the Wild West, with beautiful views of snow-tipped mountains and verdant woodlands. You can wander through the wilderness hunting animals or picking flowers for camp recipes, as well as complete missions for the locals and uncover many RDR2 easter eggs hidden throughout.

RDR2 really hits its stride during some of the key set pieces, including chaotic showdowns and contemplative aftermaths leading to a dizzying finale. After all, you play as an outlaw and, as such, are more than capable of pulling off bank jobs, train heists, and duels. If your PC can handle the Red Dead Redemption 2 system requirements, then there’s a lot to discover in one of the best western games on PC. And that’s not including the countless hours of multiplayer action in Red Dead Online, or even joining the RDR2 roleplay with like-minded gunslingers.

Equal parts creepy dollhouse and terrifying social experiment, The Sims is one of EA’s big cash cows, squeezing out expansion after expansion. It’s difficult to reconcile the game with the business model, but it’s better to simply put the latter to the back of your mind and not go crazy with the expansion purchases.

The creation tools are simple and tactile, but you can do a lot with them, and the crazy Sims 4 mods and DLC mean the toolset keeps expanding the potential of one of the best management games. But it is the emergent stories that happen to and within your creations that make The Sims so damn compelling even after you’d expect the well to run dry.

You could follow the route of the creepy, sociopathic puppet masters by creating dungeons and then setting fire to Sims once they’re inside. Yes, you could, but we’re not going to encourage that kind of behavior. Instead, why not help your Sims follow their dreams, be that hooking up with the hot person from the bar down the street or building their own Sims space rocket and blasting into the universe?

It can be an introduction to game design, countless games, or just something you can mess around with when you’re pissed. But, most importantly, you can give NPCs very silly faces. Intrigued? Discover the origin story of the game with the making of Garry’s Mod.

Don’t Starve is a great survival game, but it’s no slouch as a sandbox, either. The world might be cruel and deadly, but it can be somewhat tamed and molded into something a bit more comfortable. A simple fire and tent can flourish into a farm, fortress, or laboratory. Erstwhile nightmares can be transformed into allies that can protect you from the worst the world has to offer.

There you are, enough of the best sandbox games to get your creative juices flowing for a long time yet. We’ve supplied the bucket and spade and now it’s up to you to use your newfound videogame freedom to make your own fun. If you like doing things your own way, then check out the best crafting games available, but for when you’re more in the mood for destruction than inventive creation, there’s our list of the best FPS games around. Oh, and of course, you’ll never go wrong with our list of the best old games that continue to age better by the day.