If you think Hytale and Minecraft are too easy, this underloved sandbox survival game will truly test your mettle

It's hard to imagine a time when Minecraft, a sandbox game that now features crossover content with Star Wars and Hello Kitty, or offers 'happy Ghasts' as a mob, was scary. I remember back when I was 11 playing it on an old PC with fog covering the in-game map, where broken world generation wasn't a bug but a leftover artifact of whoever came before me. It was deeply creepy in a way that no horror mod can ever truly replicate.

I had an unreal fear of encountering Herobrine, as the Minecraft forums would scatter the name and heighten the myth over time. It wasn't just a fear of something else in my world, though, but the fact that everything was fresh. I didn't know what iron did, nor did I know the most optimized way of getting a full set of diamond gear. It was simple survival, forcing me to brave the depths of the caves in the hopes of getting strong enough to do carry on without fear. That feeling of encountering your first cavern lit up by pools of lava? Unparalleled to this day. It might just be nostalgia talking, but I don't think modern Minecraft has even a sliver of that atmosphere.

I was hoping that venturing into a new yet familiar world with Hytale would transport me back to that childhood wonder and anxiety combined. Instead, it was even more of an adventure, where the biggest fear was death and frustration. Fortunately, I managed to find my savior, a little-known gem called Vintage Story.

Let me say this straight away: Vintage Story is complex. It's hard and brutal in all the right ways. If Minecraft is a sandbox game with survival elements, Vintage Story is one of the best survival games with sandbox mechanics, a more realistic experience where progression is slower and more earned.

The first time I loaded into a Vintage Story world, I was scared. Sure, it wasn't the same type of fear I felt as a ten-year-old who was terrified of Herobrine, but the gentle feeling of dread that comes from finding yourself in a large and unexplored world. A fear of the unknown. Rain clouds in the distance flooded the grassy terrain while great mountains loomed overhead.

You can't just run up and punch trees or create a functioning pickaxe within the first day. Instead, you need to fashion bits of flint into a makeshift knife, cutting grass and creating firewood in the hopes of braving the first night. While building the foundations of your first home would be almost instantaneous in Minecraft, having a decent home with a functioning kitchen, smithy, and pantry (yes, food spoils) is the main goal in Vintage Story.

It all sounds overwhelming, and it certainly can be. There's a handy survival guide that gives you tips on how to progress, but in reality, it's still a lot more complex than Minecraft. Despite how stress-inducing it can be, this is where Vintage Story excels and steps out from Minecraft's titanic shadow.

Minecraft, and now Hytale, offer survival elements as a first step towards the creative freedom and adventure that players truly seek, but Vintage Story sits closer to hardcore survival. That doesn't mean it's lacking in imaginative building; it's just a bonus on top - chiseling out little blocks and making a doorway or an arch that looks beautiful feels more like a minor goal than the main draw.

It also plays well into the creepy vibes, despite its outwardly cozy style. At night, as expected, you have to deal with all manner of threats. Rather than bright zombies and goofy skeletons, Vintage Story's enemies are eldritch horrors that keep you cowering inside your home. Temporal storms also bring a periodic event that disturbs your vision, while monsters previously found only at night start spawning in to hunt you.

I've played around 12 hours of Hytale since it launched and grew tired of it fairly quickly. However, I've already clocked over a day in Vintage Story. While I feel I've seen everything that Hytale and Minecraft have to offer, I can't wait to brave another cruel winter in Vintage Story.

It isn't available on Steam right now. However, you can buy it for $26.50 / £19.75 from Humble Bundle and redeem your access by making an account and installing the launcher. It's worth that extra .exe for your PC, and you can always add a non-Steam game to your library if you want to access it through there.

Considering that few games have ever touched early Minecraft in my nostalgia-ridden brain, I think Vintage Story deserves more praise and attention. If you love challenging, atmospheric survival games, this one's for you.