Games like Oxygen Not Included

The Squirrel's verdictFactorio is a logistics and belt-engineering game where you build and continuously rebuild a factory to defend against enemy raids while optimizing throughput. The systems-obsession loop — designing production lines, scrapping inefficient sections, scaling up — is its core appeal, and a 231.8-hour median playtime reflects how deep that loop runs. Co-op is supported. The colony-survival angle is absent; what remains is pure industrial optimization under pressure.

Not for you if you want colonist needs, environmental simulation, or survival tension rather than production-line and base-defense optimization.

The Squirrel's verdictFirst-person factory building on a large open 3D world is Satisfactory's defining angle: you walk your production lines, place machines by hand, and watch belts carry materials across a landscape that visibly fills with infrastructure. Disassembling and rebuilding costs nothing — full materials return every time. Co-op is supported. With a 144-hour median playtime, it suits players who want the optimization loop in a more exploratory, hands-on format.

Not for you if you want a top-down colony sim with colonist management and thermodynamics-driven systems rather than first-person open-world factory logistics.

The Squirrel's verdictPlanet Crafter is a first-person survival and terraforming game where you gather materials, place machines, and watch a planet's atmosphere change visibly over time. Co-op is supported and median playtime is 66.5 hours. The optimization loop is present but the survival pressure eases as early resource scarcity is resolved, and there is no closed-loop systems engineering of the kind that defines harder entries in the genre.

Not for you if you want sustained difficulty and tightening pressure — reviewers note the challenge diminishes once early scarcity is cleared.

The Squirrel's verdictStationeers is a first-person space-station builder where you physically manipulate tools and manage a two-slot hand inventory to construct atmospheric, power, and logistics systems from scratch. Co-op is supported. Gas, heat, and power interlock the same way they do in ONI — fixing one system stresses another — but the simulation modeling goes deeper and the interface demands considerably more manual effort per action. Median playtime is 182.1 hours.

Not for you if the manual control scheme frustrates you — reviewers describe every action requiring two to three times more inputs than expected.

The Squirrel's verdictdotAGE is a turn-based roguelike village sim where you place workers each round, manage scarce resources, and watch villagers die to random events and mounting disasters. A solo developer made it; the overwhelmingly positive rating and 49.3-hour median playtime reflect a tight, repeatable loop. Runs end and restart with new seeds rather than continuing indefinitely, and reviewers describe the pacing as closer to a puzzle game than an open colony builder.

Not for you if you want continuous real-time simulation of gas and heat systems rather than discrete turn-based runs that reset.

The Squirrel's verdictBoth center a colony around scarce oxygen and citizens who die to preventable environmental mistakes. First Breath swaps ONI's gas/liquid/heat simulation for a surface-level survival city builder against wind and drought events, with weaker pathfinding AI and shallower production chains. It suits players who want ONI's premise in a short, free, low-commitment session rather than a deep systems puzzle.

Not for you if you came to ONI for its interlocking thermodynamics and gas-simulation depth rather than a simplified scavenge-and-survive loop.

The Squirrel's verdictMercury Fallen covers familiar underground colony-building ground: dig rooms, wake survivors, manage resources, and research tech on an alien world. The scope is smaller than ONI's and the systems are shallower — no layered physics simulation. Reviewers flag late-game balance problems and a content drop-off once early research is complete. Median playtime runs about 37 hours. Suits players drawn to the early setup and progression arc of the genre.

Not for you if you want sustained late-game challenge — reviewers report balance issues and little to do once the early research arc is finished.

The Squirrel's verdictOxygen shares the surface setup of ONI: settlers under a dome, oxygen generation, and resource balancing against a hostile environment. The underlying systems are considerably simpler — reviewers describe easily obtainable resources, unexplained mechanics, no win condition, and difficulty that does not increase over time. At $14.99 and a 16-hour median playtime, it fits players who want a low-stakes introduction to the dome-colony genre.

Not for you if you want interlocking physics-driven systems with a real difficulty curve — reviewers call the mechanics basic and progression essentially endless without escalation.