What are the best life games on PC? Well, it depends on what you’re looking for and what kind of fantasy you envision. Daily life might be demanding and exhausting at times, but life games offer a chance to unwind and have greater control over someone else’s existence.
It’s more than just farming and dating – though there’s plenty of that as well. Some of the best PC games that imitate life probe what it means to be alive, while others simply let you bake, date, or live as a witch. So, like life itself, life games come in all forms, and while your mind might leap to games like The Sims 4 and other stalwarts when the genre comes up, there are a host of inventive takes on the formula. Be they adjacent to management games, farming games, or dating sims, here is our list of the best life games for peaceful – or crazy – escapism in 2023.
Here are the best life games on PC in 2023:
Disney Dreamlight Valley might still be in early access, but that didn’t stop it becoming one of the best breakouts of 2022. If you’ve ever lived alongside the likes of Mickey, Elsa, and Wall-E once upon a dream, DDLV is a life sim to make all those childhood fantasies come true. There’s no better time to dive into your own valley than right now, either, with Buzz and Woody having recently moved in as part of the most recent update – alongside a certain little blue alien. And it looks like there will be plenty more new characters to come in the Dreamlight Valley update schedule in 2023.
In Little Witch in the Woods, you play as Ellie, an adorable little pixelated apprentice witch. Live out your days as Ellie as you learn about witchcraft, honing your spells and potions knowledge, meeting new friends, and helping to make the world a better place with the use of magic.
It’s taken a few years and a whole lot of content packs, but now The Sims 4 has almost everything you could want from either a life game or a Sims experience. It’s a massive living world that gives you nearly unlimited freedom, and you can fill in any gaps if you’re playing on PC by either installing Sims 4 CC or one of the best Sims 4 mods.
While the offering was a little bare at launch, the mechanics backing it up – an improved build mode and a much more robust interactions system – gave Maxis and modders sturdy foundations, and the visual and animation overhauls have stood the test of time. We’re still a long way from any kind of Sims 5 release date, but EA has revealed its next Sims game, Project Rene.
Hospitals are the last place you want to spend free time, but Two Point Hospital is an exception. This quirky management game tasks you with defending life – and your cash flow – by building the most efficient and desirable hospital around. Threats to patient safety include cubism and lightheadedness – and even you, depending on how well you design your facilities – but with the right research and planning, you’ll soon have the entire county lining up to be admitted. Wait, is that a good thing?
Starting life on Kickstarter, Coral Island smashed its original goals by over 2,300%, making it an instant success. If that isn’t enough on its own to make you wonder what you’re missing out on, then you might like to hear that this life sim is essentially what life should be: farming, fishing, flirting – all on a stunning tropical island. And if that’s still not enough, you can romance mermaids. Now I know you’re sold.
Littlewood is a unique twist on the life sim/RPG game hybrid, as it takes place after the battle is already won. Your hero is simply looking for a place to rest, so they work with their friends – also heroes in the final fight against evil – to establish and build a village where everyone is welcome.
Unpacking removes you from the equation for a more introspective take on life, exploring the things we find important, and how we create intimate spaces even in unpleasant places. The indie game‘s premise is simple: take belongings out of boxes and put them away. Each stage represents a different milestone in the life of Unpacking’s unseen protagonist – her first room as a child, for example, or the first time she lives with someone else – and the things that persist from space to space naturally change over time.
Since it’s technically a death simulation game, Spiritfarer can be considered the literal opposite of a life sim, but however you categorise it, this is one of the most sensitive and beautiful sim games around. Stella, the new Spiritfarer, goes about her day-to-day ‘life’ gathering lost souls, making them comfortable on her ever-expanding barge, and eventually helping them cross over.
Grow: Song of the Evertree has something for almost everyone. It deftly blends crafting, relationships, farming, exploration, and dungeon crawling in a charming package. Part of what makes it so endearing is the dream-like world your adventure takes place in.
If you wished life and life sims revolved more around making delicious confectionaries and keeping cats happy, rejoice, for Lemon Cake exists. This cute cooking game tasks you with restoring an abandoned bakery, but it doesn’t stop there.
The Good Life is easily one of the more bizarre life sim games, which is part of what makes it so interesting. In theory, you’re meant to be uncovering the truth behind a dreadful murder in a rural village, investigating clues, chatting with locals, and eventually bringing the case to a close.
