Those of you that have played the latter will know that it’s a laidback farming experience in a realistic setting. In some ways, Don’t Starve Together plays a bit like Stardew Valley because of its extensive crafting systems and character interactions. Of course, that’s the goal of most games, the survival aspects of this game make each death you may have that much more personal. In a game with this title, it should be apparent that you’ll be tasked with not dying. It is not the most welcoming game to newcomers, but it has all the elements that make a game engaging, challenging, and enjoyable which has given it a strong player base since release. Don’t Starve Together is a bit of an outlier, thankfully, and breaks up much of the monotony of survival games in a refreshing way. Realistically, there’s a lot of value in games that utilize this style of gameplay, though it can come off as low-effort if those crafting systems aren’t well made. Today, many survival games have minimal story and depend on these crafting, building, and progression aspects.
Games from 15 years ago or so were a bit kinder and started introducing more creative elements that focused on crafting. Original titles were unforgiving, usually forcing you to think outside the box in unique ways. Survival games have gone through several levels of evolution over the last few decades of game design.