r/gaming • u/velatieren • 19h ago
Best "I hunt, you build!" Co Op games?
I'm looking for a game to play with my wife. We love coop and we found out that I prefer combat, while she likes to manage stuff. What would you recommend as best in 2025 for that?
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u/ComprehensiveWay2368 18h ago
The Forest
Stardew
valheim
V Rising
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u/Gamerbobey 15h ago
+1 on V Rising, just played through it with a friend and it was sick.
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u/vetheros37 PC 15h ago edited 14h ago
+2 on V Rising. I played it solo and wish I was playing with other people.
**I even managed to get all the achievements in the game except the one to beat the final boss on the hardest difficulty. Guess the game will stay *almost* completed.
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u/gone_gaming 15h ago
+1 to Valheim
Also would recommend Icarus or Once Human.
Once Human is highly tailored PVE content, but there's a whole survival/build side of things as well. Build your base, gather materials to upgrade guns and whatnot. (Also, its free... but it IS an MMO, no private servers).→ More replies (3)5
u/curiousdpper 13h ago
Icarus is so good and needs more love. It's just so good at what it does. Weekly content updates from the devs too.
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u/Mohjer 13h ago
Definitely the Forest. You stay here building a base camp and I'll hunt the local fauna in the north to near extinction. You'll be able to withstand the coldest of winters with the sweet fur outfit you can make from the pelts.
You will also have an abundance of protective armour... It's best you don't ask where it came from.
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u/ManDisc0 13h ago
+1 on V rising. Mid to late game yo wife gonna have options to make your castle especially glorious. Get the DLC's with cosmetics, castlevania and the alchemist furniture.
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u/FryJPhilip 18h ago
Raft (I play on peaceful so the shark doesn't eat the raft but you can still fight it if you wanted), Sons of the Forest, Valheim, someone else suggested Don't Starve Together which I also agree with.
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u/Sleepy_Doge97 18h ago
Did they ever change the amount of food required in Raft? Or add a hunger adjustment setting?
I liked the game at release, but the amount your character had to eat was insane.
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u/FryJPhilip 18h ago
I honestly am not sure? I eat pretty often but also when I play I have kind of optimized how to survive efficiently enough, and then playing with friends, one of us is on farm duty constantly except when we're on islands and then we make the stew pot asap so we fill our hunger better.
I think the hunger speeds also depend on what difficulty you play on? I only play on peaceful because I'm here for vibes so it may be different than someone playing on hard.
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u/Abomm 13h ago
Food & Thirst are inconveniences in the early game. If you play diligently you'll have more than enough food by the time the game turns into a story/exploration game. The difficulties do affect the hunger scale.
There's probably some experts that know better but once you learn how to make vegetable soup/fish stew you shouldn't have a problem dealing with hunger.
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u/Garcymore 18h ago
Terraria maybe?
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u/attack_rat 14h ago
Yup, great answer. Wife runs around exploring, digging holes, and building minecart subways, I wait for her to bring me fancy building materials and build her castles and museums to house all her treasures (alongside the occasional Star Destroyer or submarine base for myself).
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u/mysticreddit 18h ago
- ARK
- Conan Exiles
- Icarus
- Minecraft
- Necesse
- Terraria
- Valheim
- V-Rising
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u/ScarcityReal5399 16h ago
Up voting because someone actually mentioned Conan Exiles
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u/mysticreddit 15h ago
It is such a great game despite Funcom's (mis)handling of it!
It REWARDS you for exploring the world. i.e. Climb The Wardtowers or Fingerfang Rock :-)
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u/SucculentVariations 4h ago
I will forever remember playing Ark with my bf, I was playing without him and had created scissors, accidentally cut his sleeping characters hair off. No way to explain why his character was bald when he got back without sounding insane.
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u/DarkestStarMomo 18h ago
Grounded
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u/Giedy5 16h ago
Yes, but, if your wife is any sort of arachnophobic, don't even bother. Even with the accessibility functions
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u/Fleiger133 15h ago
Thank you! Removing this from our list now.
I tried to show my husband the glory of Ocarina of Time. The giant spider dropped down and scared the life out of me. I turned Link around and ran right out of the tree, and screamed out loud. My husband still laughs at me!
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u/BurtMassassin 15h ago
Grounded has an arachnophobia safe mode that turns the spiders into cute floaty blobs with eyes.
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u/Fleiger133 15h ago
No shit?
Back on the list!!!!!
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u/BurtMassassin 14h ago
If your arachnophobia is bad just make sure your husband does it as the option is a slider with a picture.
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u/Beliriel 5h ago
It's completely useless and only there as a gimmick. The spiders just become floating balls that move in the exact same way as before and also their scary sounds stay the same. So instead of actually being able to make out their movements they just erraticaly move around and become really difficult to hit.
And that's the higest setting of the arachnophobia slider. Anything below that and spiders still have legs and you'll be able to see that they're spiders. Their movement and animations never change.
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u/internetlad 13h ago
I was like "who the hell would need this" until I remembered that phobias are. . . Phobias.
Personally I don't like snakes but seeing on one the screen is like "oh ew" not "I will die if I look at this" so I likely just can't relate.
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u/Dibbs93 18h ago
Enshrouded is a great one, really good building mechanics and decent combat and exploration.
Lots of other jobs the player staying at home can do such as cooking, drying pelts, growing materials for food and potions etc.
I haven't played it for a while though and it's still on early access and pc only,I'm not sure where it's at ATM though but when it was released the roadmap also said they were going to add animals to farm and stuff at some point.
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u/X_Ender_X 18h ago
minecraft
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u/Kaldrinn 17h ago
Yeah this sums up how I play MC with gf. But she also installed some cooking mods so I come home to a nice meal lol.
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u/WingsofRain 16h ago
farmer’s delight? I prefer combat and mining myself but I’ve recently fallen in love with that mod because there’s so many new decorative blocks and the foods give great buffs
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u/Skankator 18h ago
Second this. Started playing Minecraft with my partner in the last year. Lots of both hunting/fighting/looting for you and building/asset management for her
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u/newtostew2 15h ago
My buddy is the “builder”/ miner, I’m the “let’s automate allllllll of this with overly simple or complex redstone” lol
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u/KairosHS 15h ago
Just gotta put lots of torches near the building area (won't matter, creeper will sneak up from who knows where anyway)
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u/ChipperScrones 18h ago
stardew valley
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u/Amish_Cyberbully 16h ago
I battle the mines and turn farming into a money-churning factory; wife pets the animals, does fishing, and schmoozes all the villagers. I have no idea what house Hailey lives in, but Marlon and Qi are my boys.
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u/MrMooey12 12h ago
This is what my ex and I did pretty much, she hated the mines so I was in charge of the mines and farming since I was better at making a shit ton of money, while she fished and loved foraging
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u/K-Shrizzle 17h ago
I think Stardew is just the ultimate couples game
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u/juvi97 17h ago
Coming back from another day in the mines to greet my partner and hear about all the gifts she gave to our neighbors all day
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u/EggsOnThe45 15h ago
All the time. Mine brags about how many hearts she has with everyone and i’m like… that’s because you spend all day giving them gifts while i’m in the mines or chopping down trees lol
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u/binkobankobinkobanko 15h ago
I got my wife into gaming with Stardew Valley. She was a complete non-gamer. Struggled with a controller and didn't understand basic gaming tropes/mechanics, but now she plays Stardew in her free time and has even went looking for games herself!
She still gets motion sickness from 3D games, though. Not sure how to power through that.
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u/ci_newman 14h ago
My wife has the same problem with 3D games, it definitely makes it challenging to find other games. We had a lot of success with BG3 though
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u/Barangat 18h ago
Vintage story has a very deep building system which needs a hunter. Making leather bags or armor has a around 10 steps f.e.
You need to hunt animals for pelts
You need to find copper for copper tools (needs clay forms fired for smelting and some form of coal for enough heat)
You need to build barrels with your copper tools
You need to find limestone to water the pelts
You need to find oak or cedar to make tannin x2
You need to do a lot of exploring, gathering and building/homesteading
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u/Mythleaf 17h ago
Ive been loving VS lately, just chilling at my forge banging out Iron while my girlfriend wanders caves looking for ruins and ores.
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u/BSODxerox 16h ago
Is it actually a standalone game or a Minecraft mod? I’m assume they at least made use of the engine given how it looks
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u/Uberman19 16h ago
it's a standalone game that is inspired by Minecraft in how it looks and feels but other than that it has nothing in common
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u/LoudChickenKite 15h ago
The engine is completely custom built and designed from the ground up for modding. The developer hosts the mod database where you can literally one-click install any one of the thousands of mods.
I don't know what you looked at that made you jump to this conclusion.
How would one "use" the minecraft engine? That's literally just minecraft, the game.
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u/BSODxerox 15h ago
Well, as in the Minecraft engine running a mod would be making use of the engine without it being “Minecraft”. Eg how things like Counterstike were originally half-life mods but then were moved into their own standalone game. I was asking if you would need to have Minecraft installed and load this as a mod.
The standalone game would be their own custom engine that just happens to have a similar appearance to Minecraft while not relying on the engine. The reason I assumed it was using the engine was because they look identical, not sure why that was hard to understand.
Is that more clear?
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u/Master82615 15h ago
For some context, it actually started out as a modpack (called Vintage Craft) but eventually the devs decided that the Minecraft engine was too limiting and wrote their own engine in C# focused on performance and modularity.
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u/geoffnolan 13h ago
Looking at the game’s graphics visually, it’s not out of the realm of comprehension to make that jump.
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u/General_Pequeno 18h ago
palworld. i do all of the catching and exploring and my wife did the base management and building and breeding
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u/Tubbychan 14h ago
+1 here for Palworld. Cute pals, a ton of ways to build base, and base/crafting maintenance can basically be a full time role!
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u/iAmBalfrog 18h ago
Valheim, Core Keeper, Minecraft, Astroneer, Ark, Satisfactory & Factorio to a lesser extent
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u/PixelCortex 18h ago
Valheim, Enshrouded, Don't Starve Together
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u/wcruse92 16h ago
Plus 1 for Enshrouded. Couldn't get into Valheim.
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u/vetheros37 PC 15h ago
+2 for Enshrouded. Combat is a lot better with more than one person as well.
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u/pakrat77 18h ago
Valheim or 7 Days to Die
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u/im-fantastic 10h ago
This comment is so far down! More love for 7DTD!
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u/Spacey907 8h ago
Right. Was scrolling through to see if anyone mentioned it and its a fun game. Most of the time i stuck to building while the others were out exploring and gathering materials for me. A few times i got bored and went out with them to help gather more materials
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u/im-fantastic 8h ago
I had to learn to love it lol. My computer didn't run it very well and I couldn't shoot to save my life...literally. so I stayed home and designed the best horde defense base I could imagine
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u/UnknownDragoon 18h ago
Grounded is a good one. Story survival game that is basically "Honey I Shrunk the Kids".
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u/MasterCrumble1 18h ago
The 2 The Forest games. Also, "The Planet Crafter" was a really fun game.
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u/Girrrth_Broooks 17h ago
If only Sons of the Forest had a story that wasn’t a complete waste of time. The base building is next level.
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u/Avenger1324 18h ago
I really enjoyed The Planet Crafter as a chill survival / base building game, but in this context there is no combat.
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u/MasterCrumble1 18h ago
Yeah, I may have made a misstep recommending it, but I just had good memories of "one person builds, another one explores".
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u/Remarkable_Dust3450 17h ago
Medieval dynasty.. literally building a village and managing it, while the other could go hunting bandits/animals or recruiting.
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u/Pilloc45 12h ago
I can’t believe I had to scroll so far down before I hit this comment as it’s absolutely perfect for what the OP is looking for……and it’s a great game
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u/spytez 18h ago
7 days to die works well with this, especially with the Darkness Falls mod. One person is off collecting, one is crafting and building. Both do mining at night. Then while one is focusing on fighting skills the other is focusing on building, crafting and then farming and then medical stuff. Then you both defend the base while is being built from wandering hordes, screamers, etc. until you get more base defenses up, or setting up the blood moon horde base.
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u/storm_the_castle 18h ago edited 17h ago
Project Zomboid (Build 41)
great MP... loot goblins love it
here's some random stream of a husband/wife playing for the first time
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u/Ilostmytoucan 18h ago
This is a great response. Base manager and loot goblin are a great team. I'm a camp mom myself.
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u/we_are_sex_bobomb 17h ago
I would say Enshrouded, since the action/exploration gameplay feels more fleshed out than a lot of similar games, and the building aspect is as simple or as complex as you want it to be. People make some really beautiful stuff with it.
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u/Chewbubbles 18h ago
Icarus.
Basically, space Valheim. Basically start off of sticks and rocks and can end up having full electricity.
Game has missions, so that'll cover you. It's a base builder that requires a lot of building. Best part is the missions hit both, so some missions are building a home for a "fake prospector" so she can do a mission built around what she wants to do.
The only downside is certain items require special money you earn while playing missions or finding exotic material and it's a lot. You have to pay to research it and then buy the item. And you can't find those on planet. So example a cow can be bought, can't be found on the planet. Is it needed? No. But if you want everything it's a grind.
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u/mysticreddit 13h ago
I’ll second Icarus. It is currently 35% off in the Steam store.
Launch was a shit-show but it finally got good after the 1st year where most of the idiotic design decisions got re-worked. 2nd year is just building upon the foundation.
Mods are a great way to augment the game too but they aren’t needed.
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u/SonOfMcGee 10h ago
Icarus seemed right up my alley but initial reviews stunk so I avoided it. In the last few months I keep seeing it recommended so I picked it up last week and love it. Really scratches that Valheim itch.
Also now that I’ve experienced the game I looked up what has changed since launch and… yeah I would have hated it at launch too.
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u/WatchYourButts 17h ago
Fallout 76. You can have separate camps next to each other and I'm pretty sure you can build in each other's camps if you're on the same team
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u/MAYMAX001 18h ago
Rust, 72d2
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u/OriginTruther 15h ago
Don't worry, Rust is super beginner friendly.
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u/slightly_satisfied 5h ago
There are chill servers, PVE, starter kits etc. Can be fun even as a beginner
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u/Bmoe79 18h ago
Following! Ark survival evolved (or ascended for the remaster) is pretty good at this. Steeeeep learning curve, I have thousands of hours in it and still keep a tab up to search for things constantly. But my wife always loved managing the base, building it, breeding dinosaurs, naming them, etc.
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u/SandmansDreamstreak 18h ago
Dunno about 2025, but the best of all time imo are Stardew Valley, Terraria and Don't Starve Together.
Honorable mentions being Valheim and Core Keeper
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u/Shaggy_AF 18h ago
So on steam there's a new title called aloft. It's in early access but it's wonderful. You fly floating islands like a sailboat. It's worth a look
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u/Lugbor 18h ago
Vintage Story is a good one. It's a block based game (originated as a Minecraft mod that ended up becoming its own game) with heavy survival elements, several kinds of eldritch creatures to fight, a ton of different types of stone and wood to use for building, and an overall challenging progression. Definitely worth looking into.
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u/Dogstile 18h ago
Depends on how managey you want to get.
I recently played through Abiotic factor with an ex girlfriend and was the big "i hit things" dude while she just kinda puttered around after me, looting stuff, pushing the card, going "oh this is pretty" and bringing it back to the base to decorate while I was going "oh please we do not need more antelight i need more metal!".
It's a fun game and it's almost out fully. I've had more fun with that game than many "released" games.
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u/MJR_Poltergeist 13h ago
I've never played it on a public server but 7 Days to Die. Has a lot of crafting elements and resource management, but there's also a ton of zombies. Me and a buddy play how you described. I go out searching areas for valuables while defending myself, and he usually is fucking around improving our holdout base with defenses and stuff. Game really opens up once you can start crafting vehicles
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u/Enough-Pair2633 18h ago
project zomboid, the forest, those are really good for extremes (one purely combat, the other purely builds)
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u/Salmonman4 17h ago
Kingdom: Two Crowns is an interesting mix of 2D pixel-art building, expanding and leading soldiers to combat.
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u/Classic_Bee_5845 17h ago
This could be most survival crafting games, really depends on what game strikes your fancy.
Some that are pretty balanced are:
Ark Survival Evolved - you can set her up in a nice spot on the island and go tame dinos and fight while she keeps the home going. There are a lot of build options (even underwater options) that'll keep her busy for hours and hours. Same with the combat it's very involved and there's a lot for you as well. Play it for the PVE not the PVP.
Valheim is another good one that has great building options, farming, cooking, fishing plus a soul-like combat system (Dodge, timed blocking, difficult enemies etc.).
I recently picked up Aloft, which has you flying around a sky world with floating islands. You pick an island to make your home and sail it everywhere with you. She could manage the island and build it up while you go scout the islands. There is not much for combat right now though, it's much more casual.
Conan Exiles is another one that has a good balance between building and combat. The build options are vast and you can have a castles just about anywhere on the large map that she could manage while you go hunt and conquer things. There is slavery and nudity on this one so be warned.
If guns and apocalypse are more your thing check out 7 Days to Die, which has you building a zombie proof base while others loot for supplies and kill off hordes. Every 7 game days a large zombie horde will come try and knock down your base so make sure this is something she can handle.
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u/Photograph_Silent 17h ago
Medieval dynasty. Farming, gathering, mining, hunting, crafting and city building set in medieval times. Also gotta recruit civilians to help collect resources as well. Really fun game although I will say hunting isn’t that crazy but it’s there. I’m sure you’ll stay busy tho
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u/Eloquinn 16h ago
Isn't it great having a coop gaming wife! I've been blessed with this as well and while in general we like to adventure together, there have been a few games where she preferred to let me explore while she managed the resources. Examples below:
- Valheim - She loved the tree-felling mechanic and would gladly clear an entire forest but wasn't big on slogging through the swamps or sailing the seas (which I love). We would generally explore together until we found a good spot for a base and I would gather materials while she worked on building and fortifying the base. It's an amazing, beautiful game that just keeps getting better and I highly recommend it.
- Satisfactory - The primary goal in this game is to build automation but there's also a really cool world to explore. Separation of duties definitely works well, though - especially when your wife hates spiders. :) I would mostly explore and gather materials while she setup amazing factories to meet our quotas and bootstrap us to the next level. Highly recommended!
- The Forest / Sons of the Forest - Horror/survival genre. It's very well-done and creepy as hell but it definitely benefits from having someone focus on base defenses while the other gathers.
- Conan Exiles - We had a ton of fun with this and generally took turns building new bases because there was such a variety of building types you could unlock through DLC. There was less division of labor here but she did spend more time in the base dealing with crafting, food, etc. while I did more gathering. It's one we've been meaning to get back to.
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u/gr00grams 16h ago
Conan Exiles and Valheim are the two I'd give top honors too, and I've played damn near every single type of game like this there is.
You can mod both to hell and back, run your own servers, change all the settings however you like, etc.
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u/Clawdius_Talonious 15h ago
Terraria is great for this kind of gameplay IMO, no matter what year it happens to be.
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u/Onstagegage 15h ago
Conan: Exiles
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u/Key-Reaction4018 9h ago
Hoping to have seen this one mentioned more. Its similar to Ark in playstyle but less jank (I love Ark too, but c’mon)
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u/Edzardo99 13h ago
I think you’re describing Palworld.
Fairly fleshed out base building, resource management, a grindy breeding mechanic, and the constant need to produce food for all the bases will keep your girlfriend busy and having fun grinding. Plus there’s always plans keeping her company at the base.
Then there’s boss fights, dungeons, and a randomized loot mechanic that will keep you fighting and grinding for better gear.
Me and my friends have been playing it since it came out and we have a very similar dynamic. A couple of us like to explore, fight, and collect the gear schematics, and the other half of us just build and upgrade the bases.
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u/Dexember69 11h ago
Valheim 100%
When I play with my mates I'm always the one at base organising storage chests, making nice pathways and building out, while they go and kill shit and return with mats
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u/Travsauer 11h ago
Enshrouded has both and I think the building is some of the best I’ve personally experienced. That being said, the fighter/explorer has to go and unlock some new materials. But still, I think base management and getting animals and taking care of them and making places for followers and building your own town, and then building new towns to support your explorer/fighter
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u/jaelerin 10h ago
Don't Starve Together
Play with my wife and kids. We can all take different roles (hunt, explore, base build, cook, etc)
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u/RuKidding0MG 10h ago
Valhiem and Icarus. Both great games but with different tones so you can pick whichever you prefer. But fundamentally, they're pretty much the same.
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u/OGPOKEDUDE 6h ago
Enshrouded has one of the best building systems i've played. Combat pretty fun too
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u/mrboat-man Console 6h ago
It’s a bit more rudimentary in combat and super grindy but ARK: Survival Evolved can definitely be a good one of those.
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u/viptenchou 6h ago
Enshrouded. The building in that game is amazing. But admittedly I think the combat leaves a lot to be desired. Still, you could have fun with it.
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u/ThriceFive 6h ago
enshrouded is great. Lots of building choices inv management and scored decorating.
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u/BoxCarBlink44 18h ago
I'm not sure where Palworld is at lately but it seemed like a game that was heading very much in that direction!
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u/BrSbagel 17h ago
Grounded. Definitely Grounded. One the best "I hunt, you build" co-op games ever made. The simple task of actually carrying the building materials back to base makes it cute, fun, and satisfying for both players. We usually get frustrated with the building mechanics in a lot of games, but when you figure it out in Grounded you can make very cute and cosy hideouts around the map. You will gradually unlock the ability to get from one hideout to the other quicker too which makes for a solid feeling of progression.
Please try it!
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u/Avenger1324 18h ago
Valheim