There hasn't yet been a game that perfectly simulates everyday life, though a few titles and franchises have tried their hand at the art throughout the years. More often than not, games capture the routine and the mundane through a charming, quirky, and relaxing way by accident, or as a side feature or backdrop to a bigger story. There's a familiarity in such titles that doesn't feel boring or stressful—it's immersion at its finest, as you relate to your activities, the characters, and the story.
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These open-world games let you take a break from heroics to cook, farm, fish, and live a surprisingly fulfilling ordinary life, if only for a while.
From simulations to sandboxes, there's a good variety of experiences here for those who would love to add a bit of that everyday charm to their gaming catalogue. These are not boring experiences, but provide enough freedom for you to explore and live out the kind of routine you'd like to.
My Summer Car
It's Not Just About Cars, Believe It Or Not
As a native Finnish person, how could I not talk about the masterpiece that is My Summer Car and how it's the perfect emulation of a lazy '90s summer holiday in the picturesque and distant Finnish countryside? Grilling sausages, visiting the slightly rundown local pub for food and beer, and managing your needs from needing to relieve yourself to cleaning up... And who could forget about the sauna, a staple of any Finnish summer?
Very quickly, as you start customizing and tuning your car, which is also a bit of an iconic hobby for the Finnish countryside, you realize this game isn't just about the vehicles. It's a simulation of a typical Finnish summer, and the kind of life you'd lead, all packaged with delightful retro aesthetics and classic Finnish humor. I'm no car expert myself, but the game is charming and nostalgic in a quirky way that I absolutely love.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
Your Daily Routine In The Elder Scrolls Universe
Skyrim may not seem like it, but it's actually a pretty cozy game, and there are a bunch of features and activities that make you feel like you're really part of its fantastical world, just going about your daily routine. There are various houses you can buy around the province, and you can also build one with Hearthfire.
All the small things, like using the alchemy table to make potions, smithing new weapons at the forge, cooking consumables at your house, and even going out to hunt game and forage for more alchemy ingredients, truly turn you into an inhabitant and not just a chosen one. You can also get married, go fishing, and tend to crops. Nothing is hurrying you or pushing you to do anything else but live in one of the Besthesda's most immersive worlds.
Lake
A Relaxing Walking Sim About The Mundane
It's often the more slow-paced games that lean into walking sim territory that manage to nail that sense of everyday life over others, and Lake is one of them. Not only is it a wonderful blast from the past with its lovely 80s aesthetics, but it's also packed with delightful small-town atmosphere as you return to your roots in the shoes of Meredith Weiss.
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You're back to deliver some mail to the locals of Providence Oaks. Through your numerous interactions from hangouts to chatting with them during delivery, you'll develop relationships with some of the locals, which will eventually help Meredith decide whether she should stay in her lovely hometown or return to big-city life. If it sounds like the plot of a classic Hallmark movie, you'd be right about it, and it's that kind of daily, mellow, and cozy routine the game delivers (pun intended) to your doorstep. Truly, it's slice-of-life at its best.
Stardew Valley
Daily And Weekly Errands Keep You A Busy Farmer
Don't let Stardew Valley's 2D pixel graphics fool you. It's a very immersive game that runs much deeper than you can imagine. As a corporate slave who has chosen to move to Grandpa's farm to get away from big city life, you become an inhabitant of Pelican Town. Not only do you get to know all the locals and familiarize yourself with their daily routines, but they also ask for your help in the form of quests and daily requests that show up on the board.
Between mining, farming, ranching, foraging, fishing, and running errands in town for all the different characters, you start to develop a pretty distinct daily and even weekly routine. On Fridays, you go to Krobus for a few purchases, and the Traveling Merchant is also in town. On Wednesdays, you need to remember Pierre's shop is closed. It's these small things that make you feel like you're part of a living community.
The Sims 4
Life Simulation Galore
Of course, there's no better game out there to give you a sense of daily life than The Sims 4, and its franchise as a whole. It's a life simulation, after all, and that means it's all about building routines, or breaking them. You create the Sim or Sims you'd like to control, build them or buy them a house, and then tend to their needs and aspirations.
They go through daily challenges at work or with friends and family members, to simple things like getting sick, feeling bored, or having a sudden moment of inspiration. The game really likes to keep things fluid and moving, encouraging you to take advantage of your Sims' feelings and emotions on the spot to simulate the rollercoaster of a regular day you might experience in real life.
Project Zomboid
Mundane Retro Reality In The Apocalypse
Project Zomboid is quite far from our everyday lives, but just hear me out for a second. The game's survival elements and their depth are what really make this feel quite mundane and routine-like. You have cook food, preserve the food properly, refill your car's gas tank, sleep regularly to avoid fatigue, read and do things to chase off boredom, and tend to your wounds, which can take a long time depending on the type of injury.
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None of it is simple, either: a pillow is required for better quality sleep, and if you leave your food in the oven for too long and don't keep an eye on it while it cooks, you'll end up burning it. Very quickly, you'll see your post-apocalyptic routine take shape, with all these small, realistic, simulation-like variables transporting you straight into a '90s zombie movie.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Real-time Island Experience
Considering that Animal Crossing: New Horizons takes place in real-time, it's no big surprise that it has the power to nail that feeling of daily routines. Sure, it might not be your usual real-life stuff, but there's something grounded and cozy about logging in once a day to do a few tasks, tend to your island, say hi to your villagers, and maybe check out what's being sold at the store.
You can also visit your friends' islands to hang out with them, so it really does become more of a real-life hangout spot that changes with the shifting seasons and the time of the day, depending on where you are. Just don't do any time traveling, because that will break your immersion.
InZOI
Highly Realistic-Looking Life Simulation
Like The Sims 4, inZOI is here for the freedom it gives when it comes to just doing mundane things. It's KRAFTON's latest big project that's still in Early Access, but it's showing a lot of promise so far with its detailed graphics and intricate gameplay. Also, it's just a really nice game to take photos in. One of the ways you can build a routine in this game is by establishing a schedule for each individual Zoi in a household.
You can automatically send them to a gym, to the beach, or a cafe at a specific time of the day and day of the week every single time, without having to do it manually. And of course, because it's a life sim, you have all the routine tasks of everyday life: sleeping, eating, hanging out with family and friends, going to work to get paid, studying, and visiting cafes and restaurants.
Minecraft
Eat, Sleep, Build, Mine, Farm, And Repeat
Another game that oddly enough manages to replicate that feeling of everyday life (despite being a totally fantastical world) is Minecraft. Mostly in Survival Mode, and if you really want to get morbid about it, Hardcore Mode, where permadeath is a thing. Once you really settle down in the game and build yourself a house, there are a lot of little gameplay activities and tasks that constitute an actual routine.
You build more, you farm for animals and food, you cook that food, you go mining for resources, smelt those resources, and build weapons and armor. There's definitely a bit of an RPG layer to it as well that may not be as realistic, but that sense of mundane life tasks is still there, and is enhanced by the nostalgic music and the gameplay that invites you to just stand still and exist.
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