Games With Total Freedom In How You Shape The World

Some of the best games are those that give players total control over their environment. These titles allow players’ choices, actions, and long-term decisions to shape what that world becomes. Players are free to explore, settle, trade, destroy, cooperate, or simply survive. Progress is rarely tied to a single mission chain.

Some of these games take place in distant galaxies, while others take place in harsh deserts or block-based landscapes. But the common thread is control. Players decide what matters, where effort is spent, and how success is defined. If someone is looking for games that feel less like guided tours and more like blank canvases, these titles are some of the strongest examples they can find.

7 Days to Die

A Survival Post-Apocalyptic Sandbox

• Bases, defenses, and settlements exist only because players choose where and how to build them.
• Build, craft, hunt, and fight to survive.

7 Days to Die mixes shooting, survival, crafting, and building into one giant open sandbox that players can explore at their own pace. Almost all parts of the world can be explored, changed, or used as part of survival plans. Players don’t just visit places, they can change them, because the environment is made to be modified through digging, building walls and fortresses, adding traps, towers, electric systems, and other structures to protect themselves from zombie attacks.

Players can craft hundreds of different things, like tools, armor, weapons, clothing, and even vehicles. That means they decide what to make, where to build it, and how to use it. There is no single route to success or failure; players choose whether to build a simple shelter or a massive stronghold, whether to dig deep into the earth for rare resources or travel far across the land in search of better gear. On top of the freedom to explore and build, players also choose how they survive through farming, hunting, trading quests with NPCs, and navigating a world full of rewards and threats. In this way, 7 Days to Die puts almost all the power to change the world and choose a path directly into the player’s hands.

RimWorld

Sci-Fi Colony Sim

• A top-down game about managing survivors stranded on an alien planet.
• Focuses on building a colony, managing moods, resources, combat, and survival.

In RimWorld, the world around them is generated each time, with different landscapes, weather systems, and threats, so no two campaigns feel the same. In RimWorld, players decide where to build their base, what to grow for food, how to defend against raiders or animals, and how to mediate every conflict that arises among colonists.

The game doesn’t directly control the characters; instead, it gives players tasks that colonists follow, so they shape the world indirectly through orders and priorities. People in the colony have unique traits, moods, needs, and relationships, so what the player builds and how they manage people has real consequences for the colony’s development. The way the world unfolds is influenced by an AI storyteller, but the choices about how to respond to events, where to settle, what to build, and who to recruit are entirely chosen by players.

No Man’s Sky

Space Exploration In a Procedurally Generated Universe

• Sci-fi game about exploring a massive procedurally generated universe.
• Discover planets, gather resources, build bases, and fly spaceships.

No Man’s Sky is built on an enormous universe of planets, stars, and life, created by procedural systems so that there are effectively infinite places to discover. Players can explore this vast space at their own pace, flying from one planet to another without loading screens, landing on worlds that no other player might ever see. Each planet has its own plants, animals, weather, terrain, and hazards, and players decide how deeply they want to engage with them. They can land, explore the surface, gather materials, mine resources, craft tools, and upgrades that help them survive in hostile environments.

Instead of a linear path, No Man’s Sky is a space game that gives players freedom to pursue many activities, including exploration and discovering new systems, building bases on any planet they choose, trading between star systems, or fighting space pirates and hostile forces. Whether players want to be lone explorers charting unseen worlds, traders running cargo between starports, or builders constructing sprawling colonies, the game leaves that decision up to them.

Elite Dangerous

Space Flight and Trading Sim

• Realistic space sim centered on piloting ships across a 1:1 scale Milky Way.
• Players engage in trading, combat, exploration, and faction politics.

In the massive simulation of Elite: Dangerous, players find themselves in a 1:1 scale recreation of the Milky Way galaxy. In this giant open space, players begin with only a small starship and minimal resources, but they quickly find that the universe does not force a single way to play. Rather, players can choose their own goals.

Some may explore uncharted regions of space and scan unknown systems, adding new discoveries to the galaxy’s shared record. And then there are those who might want to focus on mining for rare materials, trading goods between starports, or hunting down bounties in dangerous regions. Space combat, trade, smuggling, mining, and exploration are all open options that players can pursue or combine in whatever mix they prefer.

Terraria

2D Action Adventure Sandbox

• A side-scrolling game focused on exploration, crafting, and combat
• Players explore an underground world filled with unique biomes, fight bosses, and upgrade gear.

The 2D world in Terraria contains unique terrain, caves, biomes, and hidden dungeons, and players are free to explore every inch of it. There is no set route to follow. So they can dig deep into underground caverns, build elaborate houses and towns, carve out farms, or fight powerful bosses.

Players decide what to build and how to shape the environment to support their playstyle. They might choose to create intricate defenses against enemies, design sprawling underground cities, or simply carve a peaceful clearing high in the sky. All in all, Terraria offers freedom both in the physical world and in how players decide to engage with its many systems. The world is not fixed, and what it becomes is a direct result of player action, choice, and creativity.

Kenshi

Harsh Open-World Survival That Leaves Everything to the Player

• A squad-based RPG set in a brutal, post-apocalyptic world.
• Start with almost nothing and improve through survival, combat, and exploration.

There is no chosen hero, no objective to follow, and no moment where Kenshi tells the player who they are supposed to be. From the very beginning, players can travel across the apocalyptic land filled with hostile factions, wild creatures, and shifting power struggles. Nothing is locked behind story missions. Every location is open as long as a player can survive long enough to get to it.

Players start out weak in Kenshi, and they become stronger by fighting, building, and crafting. Whether the player becomes a trader, a warlord, a drifter, or something quieter, the world bends slowly around what they do and what they leave behind.

Minecraft

Block-Based Sandbox That Allows Players to be Creative

• Players mine resources, craft items, build structures, and explore.
• A creative and survival game built around blocks and simple systems.

Minecraft gives players one of the clearest examples of total freedom through simplicity. The world is made of blocks, which can be used to form just about anything. Some players focus on survival, learning how to gather materials, craft tools, and protect themselves from dangers that appear at night. And there are those who choose creative freedom, where resources are unlimited, and gravity is no obstacle.

There is no required order of play in Minecraft. Exploration, building, fighting, and experimenting all exist side by side. Players decide when to dig deeper, when to expand outward, and when to simply create something because the space allows it.

Conan Exiles

Shape the Harsh Conan Exiles

• Start with almost nothing in a harsh desert and grow into a powerful warrior in the world of Conan the Barbarian.
• Gather resources, build settlements, fight enemies, and survive.

Conan Exiles is another open-world survival game where players start with just about nothing. So they have the freedom to build their base, gather resources, craft tools, and learn how to stay alive. Shaping the world in Conan Exiles largely has to do with construction, control, and defense. Players can build bases in response to threats around them. Where a player chooses to build matters, since terrain, nearby resources, and enemy activity all influence survival.

Players can form clans, work together to claim territory, or fight over valuable areas. The presence of other players means the world is always evolving, shaped by competition and cooperation alike. Some may focus on crafting and architecture, others on combat or exploration. Over time, the land becomes marked by what players build, destroy, and defend.

EVE Online

Players are Responsible for Everything That Happens

• Join thousands of players in a universe focused on player-driven conflict and cooperation.
• Trade, mine, explore, and wage large-scale wars.

EVE Online approaches world-shaping on a scale few games attempt. It offers a shared universe where thousands of players exist at the same time. This universe continues running whether someone logs in or not, and changes happen through player action rather than scripted events. Players begin with a single ship and have complete freedom to choose a path.

Players can choose to explore distant systems, scan unknown space, and gather information. If that’s not interesting enough, players can also trade items across regions and fight huge battles over territory. The economy is also driven by players. Ships, modules, and resources are produced, traded, and destroyed through interaction. When something changes in EVE Online, it is usually because players caused it.