What are the best voxel based games for the PC?

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The 2 must play gamesWhy?

Best voxel based games for the PC	Price	Steam Rating	Genre
90 7 Days to Die	$24.99	Mixed	Survival / Open World
90 Minecraft	$26.95	–	Indie / Survival / Sandbox
-- Lego Worlds	-	–	–
-- Space Engineers [Early Access]	$22.99	Very Positive	Very Positive
-- Terasology	Free	–	–

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Minecraft

Top Pro

Defined by originality

There are not many games that have become so iconic due to their original characteristics. See More

Top Con

Lack of meaningful story mode

There is no story mode in Minecraft: there is only a create mode or a survival mode. Neither, however, supply any kind of story or background as regard what is going on in the game. See More

Specs

Genre:Indie / Survival / Sandbox

Co-Op:8 Player Online / 8 Player Couch / 8 Player LAN

Controller Support:Yes

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Top Pro

Huge modding community

Even though there's no official support for mods by Mojang, the Minecraft modding community is probably the largest of modding communities out there. Most Minecraft players play the game with a wide range of mods. Tech, magic, nuclear science, space exploration - it has them all. See More

Top Con

Steep and time-consuming learning curve

Learning what items are needed to craft takes quite a bit of knowledge and time. There are guides and videos online that can help with this, but not much in-game that helps the player know exactly how and what to craft. See More

Top Pro

Enthralling, unpredictable gameplay

Exploring and fighting expands on what is a randomly generated world, never knowing what's going to happen next or what the player will find. There are no set goals and no end to reach: it is all a sandbox experience that the player formulates as they go along, making it all the more thrilling. See More

Top Pro

Easy to set up multiplayer

Both the dedicated server and "Open to LAN" options allow for easy setup of multiplayer. See More

Top Pro

Great creativity tool

It allows you to draw up ideas for buildings and structures before letting you create them. See More

Top Pro

Multitude of mini-games makes for flexibility

Due to its vast community, Minecraft has a wide variety of mini-games available for download, which can tailor to different sizes of groups. See More

Top Pro

Amazing extended community

The community surrounding this game is huge due to its popularity. There are lots of servers and projects revolving around it that allow for so many different choices in how one wants to play and who they want to play with. From crafting guides/videos, themed servers and YouTube play sessions, there is enough out there to help one find what they are looking for. See More

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13 Other Games Considered

Lego Worlds

Top Pro

It's Lego

Top Con

Bad camera angles

The camera sometimes glitches through the floor. See More

Top Pro

Has advanced tools for building things out of Lego blocks

Compared to other games that focus on building structures out of voxels, Lego Worlds offers advanced tools for building the world around you. The game includes tools for managing large amounts of surface area easily. Actions like flattening a surface, creating a sphere or extruding an area don't require tedious manual labour and can be done quickly. It allows for much quicker turnaround time from idea to end result. See More

Top Con

Lack of direction on how to explore other planets

You get stuck easily in this game. At start it automatically selects 3 planets you can visit. After that, it becomes increasingly unclear how you are to explore further. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve

The game gives access to a lot of advanced functionality right from the get-go with very barebones explanations on what the tools do. See More

Top Con

Map size is limited

While the map is large, it isn't as massive as it is in other voxel based games. See More

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Space Engineers [Early Access]

Top Con

Servers are a "lag hell"

Due to the nature of physics simulation of custom built ships, the game requires top hardware to host the game, still making it a "lag hell" if there are more than 10 players. See More

Top Pro

Destructible ships

Players are able to smash ships into each other with satisfying destruction physics. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top Con

Still not a whole lot to do

Being an early access game there is still a lot of missing features such as missions, thus leaving no much to do other than the free building mode. See More

Top Pro

Prefabricated ships available in game that are modifiable

For those that do not want to build a whole ship from scratch there are prefabricated ships available upon start that are also modifiable so users can customize to their liking. See More

Top Pro

Easy to build

Space Engineers makes it easy to build any items or objects making sure any skill level can easily have fun in game. All one needs to do is select what they would like to build from the menu and then choose the parts they would like to add. See More

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Terasology

Top Pro

Active community

The community is very active in the development of the game, they participate regularly to Google Summer of Code and Google Code In. See More

Top Pro

Open Source

Terasology is fully open source and licensed Apache 2.0 for code and CC BY 4.0 for artwork (unless indicated otherwise - see credits for minor exceptions) . See More

Top Pro

Extremely modular

The engine allows mix-and-match of features that you need. See More

Top Pro

Free sandbox alternative

The game is inspired by other titles like Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress. See More

Top Pro

Fully moddable

In the game you can create a mod and submit it as a module. You can select multiple modules when you make a new world. See More

Top Pro

Well written in Java

Java is well documented. See More

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Marvel Super Heroes

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Planet Explorers

Top Con

Developers switched to another project

Developers have switched to another project, causing development of Planet Explorers to halt completely. See More

Top Pro

Lots of transportation options

Users can build their own vehicles which makes the options pretty much limitless. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mixed

Top Con

Jack of all trades master of none

The scope of the game is quite large when compared to something like Minecraft, which means there are quite a few mechanics in the game that just do not feel that fleshed out. While there is much one can do in the game, when closely looking at how these things work one can see their failings easily. See More

Top Pro

Massive game world

The world is almost too big to traverse on foot. See More

Top Con

Development progress is slow

Often many devs that do Early Access bite off more than they can chew which tends to slow down development when they inevitably need to switch engines or do rewrite large portions of the game from scratch. See More

Top Con

In early access

The game is not yet finished and any design decisions can change. A good amount of the functionality is in an early state and bugs are common. See More

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Avorion [Early Access]

Top Pro

Beautiful, new and fun

The game is beautifully made. The visuals are fascinating. The ship building process is not traditional. You can build any kind of ship you like. Weapon variety is huge. Game mechanics are smooth and easy to understand. Less graphical requirements. It works like a charm even on on-board graphics, though OpenGl graphics are known to cause problems in the games and slight lag/performance issues. Almost everything is available in the Demo version. The demo map is huge enough that it'll take you 2-3 months to explore if you play everyday for 2-3 hours. Plenty of weapons are upgrade options in the demo version. Multiplayer on LAN and Internet and Hosting capabilities, making it easier to play with your friends See More

Top Con

Slow updates for Demo Version

The devs are concentrating more on the full version. The demo version has not been updated since the last released (2016) 8.1.5 . 8.1.5 is stable but no major/minor updates have been seen so far. See More

Top Pro

Free Demo

The demo of this game is available from the official website. The demo offers all the features of the game but in limited quantity. You can build custom ships but certain blocks are not available in the demo version, certain weapon types and logic upgrades are also not available in the demo version. See More

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Creativerse

Top Con

Badly optimized, huge memory hog and has a ton of microstuttering

Top Pro

Logical programing objects with switches, buttons, doors, lights etc.

GregariousPhylonoe's Experience

Very cute voxel game with mobs, a huge number of blocks for building (a lot more advanced than Minecraft plus almost all blocks can be rotated giving extra looks and allowing more creativity), taming of mobs and harvest, wash and feeding them for resources. Has very diverse server settings - and if you buy the game (you don't have to) you get your own hosted for free. Has logical programing objects as well as adventure-mode objects (chests, teleport between servers, buttons etc). See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Top Pro

Extensive resource generation system

Every creature can be killed for loot or tamed for resource farming. See More

Top Pro

Very large number of blocks and decorative items

These can be rotated for further variety in looks/texture. See More

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StoneQuest

Top Pro

Amazing graphics

The graphics are just insane with only few games looking comparable. See More

Top Con

High hardware consumption

In order to run it with an intermediate FPS rate on high or ultra graphics you need a high-end PC. See More

Top Pro

No installation required

The program can be directly launched after download, without the need for an installation or even a reboot. See More

Top Con

Still some bugs

The game is being updated on a regular base. However, it still contains a few bugs and unfinished elements like missing models etc. See More

Top Pro

Small size

The application only needs a few megabytes to be downloaded and saved on your disk. See More

Top Con

No modding

There is currently no possible way to create own ingame content or custom textures. See More

Top Pro

Free

The game is 100% free at the moment, with no ingame-purchasing or ads. However, donations are allways welcome. See More

Top Con

No single player or offline mode

In order to play the game, you need a permanent internet connection. Everyone can see anyone and there is currently no protection system against vandalism of ie. buildings yet. See More

Top Pro

Active development

Development streightly driven-ahead by enthusiastic guy who spends his whole free time with improving the game. See More

Top Pro

Multiplayer

All players are put together in a giant procedurally-generated world and can build whatever comes to their minds. See More

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Voxatron

Top Pro

Build your own version of the game with the included design tools

There are design tools included with the game that allows anyone to design their own monsters, levels and music as well as remix other user created content. This not only allows for unlimited replayability but also a great way to guarantee a longevity to the game. See More

Top Con

Still in alpha

The game is not complete yet which means there can be bugs as well as promised features that will never see the light of day. See More

Top Pro

Can be played in the browser

For users who have purchased the Humble Mozilla Bundle, Voxatron can be played in their browser by just typing in an URL. This is great for those people that do not want to use up storage on games. See More

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Stellar Overload [Early Access]

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

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