Nothing even comes close in terms of value especially with passthrough, unfortunately.

I’m so fucking glad I never have to touch microshit again

It’s a bit more basebuildy than Terraria which I actually prefer as someone who enjoys rimworld. It’s pretty big on boss fights tho, but i usually leave that to my friends and focus on the base. It has a lot of polish and quality-of-life features. I’ve sunk about 140 hours into it so far but I’ll probably rack up a lot more than that. It isn’t very replayable and has a weak endgame loop, but it’s a very solid game.

Play Necesse or Abiotic Factor. Both just left early access recently and are great real games for good prices and aren’t stuffed with the modern AAA bloat

Edit: I posted this just before reading the last paragraph… Well, glad it’s taking off lol

Stellaris. I cheat and mod to put my empire in the middle of the galaxy and have extremely overpowered player-only technologies. Then I just explore the galaxy and guide the AI; usually picking a favorite and try to help them grow e.g. a peaceful uplifted species in a very hostile galaxy. I’ve also done this in multiplayer where I played a bit of a Game Master role. Built a quest line as part of my custom mod that had lore and let players slowly discover me and the galactic core (cut off from the hyperlane network; this was all custom scripted before mods like the birchworld existed on the workshop)

When I was a kid I would play driver 3 but I hated the driving part and would mostly walk. I also played a skateboard game and ditch the board, dress up like a spy or specops guy, and run around roleplaying various scenarios in my imagination (because I didn’t have any games at the time that would let me stealth or run on rooftops, which is all I wanted)

The same shit for my whole fucking life. It’s amazing.