Games Like Spiritfarer

Other Games Like Spiritfarer to Play Right Now if You Loved Spiritfarer

Best Indie Games / By / / Leave a Comment
Table of contents

Spiritfarer is one of those games that stick with players. Even avid indie game fans that are no strangers to meaningful and evocative gaming experiences seem to continue harping on and on about Spiritfarer long after they completed their first run of the title. 

Of course, anyone who may come to play the game with a skeptical mindset like myself will soon realize just why all these people are crying over the loss of an anthropomorphic deer at the ripe old age of 25. Gwen was a hard loss to handle, okay! 

Spiritfarer starts with the player meeting Charon, the creature from Greek mythology that has been responsible for the transportation of souls over the river sticks for millennia.

After a short introduction, it becomes clear that Charon is ready to hand up his oar and cape in exchange for a nice little retirement cottage in southwest England and that you are here as their replacement. 

The game kicks off from here, and you must assume your role as Spiritfarer, helping each and every spirit you encounter too, in their own way, deal with the baggage of their human life before passing on to the other side in peace.

Amongst this heavy subject matter, the player must manage the day-to-day workings of their ship, keeping everything ticking over, ensuring they have everything that their soul could possibly need to cross over happily. 

The developers of Spiritfarer define the game as a “cozy management game about dying.” I cannot think of a more apt description of this game as it perfectly summarises just why so many people love this game and find the absence of it so hard to deal with. 

Therefore, in order to help with this great loss, I hope to recommend some games like Spiritfarer to you today that will truly fill that void and scratch the same itch that Spiritfarer did. So, without further ado, let’s get into the good stuff.

Selection Criteria

One of the hard things about creating this list was ensuring that each game I recommended was actually a good fit for the players who loved Spiritfarer and wanted another similar experience; after all, there are not many games like this one on the market today – especially if you are looking for that impactful emotive backstory.

However, I kept going and strode through the miasma of gaming content that infested the indie section of Steam and managed to find many games that could work.

To make sure that these games would all be of benefit to you and would fit with the feel of Spiritfarer, I then passed them through a series of self-imposed criteria that they had to fit. Let’s take a look at my requirements:

  • Each game on this list must be in some way similar to Spiritfarer. They do not need to tick all of the boxes, but they will fulfill at least some of the cravings left behind by the game.
  • Only one game per franchise may make it onto this list. While there are a lot of franchises with multiple hits, this will just muddy the waters. Therefore, only the best game of the franchise may have a place in this article.
  • Reviews matter. Therefore, any game featured on this list must have an above-average review score on Metacritic when possible. 
  • While Spiritfarer is an indie title, not all games on this list must be part of that genre, but it will definitely be a helpful trait.

Now with all that boring admin out of the way, put down those tissues and your counselor’s phone number that Gwen’s absence has driven you towards, and let’s get into the good stuff. Here is our list of all the best games like Spiritfarer.

Afterparty

afterparty game
  • Developer: Night School Studio 
  • Metacritic Score: 75%
  • Platform: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch

Any list that recommends games like Spiritfarer and doesn’t recommend Afterparty is not to be trusted. This game is the perfect accompaniment to Spiritfarer, a beautiful soul brother that any fan of the title will enjoy.

In this game, you play as both Milo and Lola. These two best friends have recently passed away in the middle of having the time of their lives at a college party. Upon waking, the pair must deal with the fact that they have woken up in literal hell.

However, instead of being stuck here, you are given an offer that is too good to pass up, a way out. Satan himself has decided that the two friends should be given an opportunity to work their way out of hell and back onto the mortal coil. To do this, the player will have to complete a multitude of quests.

This game is filled with light-hearted moments and wonderfully funny dialogue, all of which are set against a hellish backdrop that gives a certain poignance to most of the conversations. The voice acting and general story are amazing and can easily be cast in the same light as Spiritfarer in terms of depth and subtlety at times.

Mutazione

Mutazione
  • Developer: Die Gute Fabrik
  • Metacritic Score: 80%
  • Platform: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch

Where Spiritfarer tends to spend a great deal of time focusing on the past lives of the characters you meet and help along the way, Mutazione tends to take the same seriousness and writing quality to look at the relationship between human life and the nature that surrounds it. 

This game can be seen as another direct relation of Spiritfarer due to the motifs and style of the entire game. The hand-drawn and slightly abstract presentation of the game does help to separate the two, but the intense similarities are still there. 

In Spiritfarer, your main loop is spent traveling between islands, searching for resources or souls that can somehow further your quest. However, in this game, the player will spend most of their time hopping between islands of botanical splendor, speaking with the inhabitants and planting their own seeds along the way.

In the same way as Spiritfarer, the inhabitants of these locations will initially present as closed books to the player, but through a little perseverance and a couple of quests, they will begin to open up to and confess their hearts to the player. 

As you continue your journey, you will find that through hard work and kindness; you will begin to establish and build deep, complex relationships with these inhabitants along your journey, forming an emotional bond very similar to that of Spiritfarer.

If Mutazione possessed this aspect of Spiritfarer alone, it would have made this list; however, the similarities continue and continue into oblivion, so please be sure to check it out.

Stardew Valley

stardew valley game

Not many games can be easily described as entirely cozy and welcoming for players who enjoy this element of Spiritfarer; however, I can honestly say that Stardew Valley is probably the coziest experience you will ever have in gaming to date.

This RPG-style farming management game is filled with amazing moments, buttressed by a wonderful and cute art style that is endearing to even the most stone-hearted of gamers.

In this game, the player can choose their own path and create their own story. You can spend your time as a dedicated farmer, cultivating your arable land in the most efficient way possible, or you can look after your herd of animals.

Outside of the farming side of this game, the player can also spend a great deal of time interacting with and helping the local inhabitants of nearby villages. Lastly, if you want a little bit of danger in your cozy existence, you may want to head into the nearby mountain caves to deal with some of the monsters therein. 

The best thing about this game is just how replayable it is and how much time it can suck up without running out of stuff for the player to get up to. There is always something to do and manage.

This feeling adds to the coziness of the game, as your small portion of land begins to feel like a second home after hours and hours of gameplay, much like your ship did by the end of Spiritfarer. 

If you enjoyed the relationships and bonds you managed to build in Spiritfarer, then Stardew Valley may be the game for you. The relationships or the issues that you can get into may not be as deep but interspersed with the rest of the game’s content; you will definitely not feel like you’re missing out.

Subnautica

subnautica game

While the feeling of Subnautica may be completely different in terms of gameplay when compared with Spiritfarer, I do have to say that the overhaul effect the game has on the player is the same.

The fact that the player is thrown headfirst into this new environment without much context in both games is extremely bewildering and takes some time to get mastery. 

In Subnautica, the player must explore and conquer the ocean on an alien planet known only as 4546B after their spaceship, the Aurora, crashlands on the surface of the aquatic planet.

Much like Spiritfarer, the player starts with nothing and must travel around their new world to gain experience, knowledge, and tools to help with their continued survival and progression. 

Players who enjoy the overall atmosphere and environment of Spiritfarer may enjoy the aesthetic of Subnautica while they explore the depths of this new world, completing main and side quests as they progress.

However, if you are looking for a calm or cozy experience like you found in Spiritfarer, maybe give this one a miss for now.

Cozy Grove

cozy grove game

One of the more recent releases on this list, Cozy Grove, is another game that I recommend to anyone who enjoys the cozy, laid-back atmosphere of Spiritfarer.

In this game, the player takes on the role of a Spirit Scout, someone who must wander the grounds of an island forest all-day in order to find and help out the ghosts that inhabit the ever-changing forest.

When you get down into the gameplay of Cozy Grove, you will instantly fall in love with the art style and the gameplay loop that you find yourself in.

One of the best things about your overall experience is how each and every day feels fresh as the island changes around you, creating new challenges and sites daily for you to explore. 

Much like Spiritfarer, the core of this game revolves around exploring the map in order to help out some ghosts. However, the emotional heights you may have experienced in Spiritfarer may not be found here again.

The lack of emotional upheaval is, however, more than made up for by the coziness of the game, which can suck you in for hours on end if you aren’t careful. All of this is only bolstered by a heartwarming and relaxing soundtrack that can easily melt away the stresses of day-to-day life or any recent game-related stress.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin

Sakuna Of Rice and Ruin

If you go looking on any forum or Reddit post relating to either Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin or Spiritfarer, you will see comparisons between the two games almost instantly. This is the game that anyone who has experienced and loved Spiritfarer will probably have moved on to next. 

This game is complex and rich with story and gameplay mechanics, blending together a beautiful story of self-discovery with side-scrolling action, multi-layered crafting and mining systems, and a good helping of colony/area management quirks.

The game starts off in the same way many of these games do, with the player character, Sakuna, being exiled to a remote island for a reason you and the character is unaware of. It quickly dawns on her that she must now begin planting and harvesting rice crops if she has any hope of surviving this far away from where she used to call home.

During your journey with Sakuna, you will develop crafting and farming skills alongside relationships with some of the other outcasts on the island. 

You will also learn a great deal about their backstory and what happened for them to end up as outcasts. Simultaneously, the game will begin to drip-feed what happened to the player character to result in them being exiled from their home. 

This role-playing action game is filled with wonderful touches, beautifully drawn 2D sprites, and interesting sites to see. It is, undoubtedly, an experience anyone who enjoyed Spiritfarer would love.

Oxenfree

oxenfree game
  • Developer: Night School Studio
  • Metacritic Score: 80%
  • Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC, Xbox One

Here we have another game from Night School Studio, the team that also brought you Afterparty. Once again, they have decided to take another swing at the supernatural/horror element that we indie game fans love to get our hands on now and again. 

Unlike Spiritfarer, this game decides to focus predominantly on the uncozy side of life, subjecting the player to a more horror-filled ride than the titular title of this list.

In this point-and-click adventure game, the player follows a group of friends as they deal with the fact that they somehow opened up an interdimensional rift to the other side, letting a string of ghosts into the world. 

The main thing I point to in this game as being similar to Spiritfarer is how you deal with and develop relationships with the other characters in the game. Oxenfree doubles down on the idea of developing and branching dialogue trees that slowly draw you into the inner workings of characters and their relationship with the player.

Over time, you garner a deeper understanding and bond with some of these characters, much like in Spiritfarer. One of the best aspects of this game is the writing.

This was always going to be important for a game that allows the player to make impactful decisions that actually affect the story of the game and how everything unravels. In this aspect, I would say that Oxenfree does a much better job in terms of video game-level storytelling than Spiritfarer.

Night in the Woods

Night in the Woods

One of the main things I thought about when constructing this list was to include games that people who either can’t or don’t want to deal with stressful or distressing games can play. In essence, I wanted to ensure that you guys got a healthy helping of cozy, relaxing titles to help you relax in this difficult world. 

Night in The Woods is one of those games that I thought of when trying to fill that criterion. It is a 2D, story-focused adventure and exploration game that allows the player to either follow a set path or branch off in their own directions to enjoy some hidden gems along the way.

The game itself is about a twenty-something-year-old feline named Mae Borowski who has recently moved back to their hometown after making the incredibly tough decision to drop out of college.

From this simple starting point, I can understand why many of you around this age could find it impossible for such a premise to be relaxing; however, it does get better. 

Like in Spiritfarer, the majority of the game’s time is spent moving around your hometown, interacting and meeting people from your past and newbies to the area. Through these conversations and journeys with people she used to be quite close to and even her parents, some poignant lessons are learned. 

In the end, though, this is a game about a difficult time in life wherein you are no longer a kid, no longer able to stay inside your parent’s protective bubble, and must explore the big bad world for yourself and make that transition into adulthood.

This game outlines how people do not always make this transition as well as others or in the same way. This message has just as much of an emotional impact on me as Spiritfarer did. 

Wandersong

wandersong game

One of the best things about the entire Spiritfarer experience is the cozy and calm ambiance that the art style gives you. Thankfully then, a game like Wandersong can come along with an art style just as aesthetically pleasing and relaxing.

The core of Wandersong is based on myriad puzzles and a great deal of adventure, with a lovely musical melody carrying the player forward. 

In this game, you play as a character simply known as The Bard. Throughout, you will strive to save the world, one song at a time. This musical element is the mechanic that drives the game forward.

Admittedly, this is a big change from the core gameplay of Spiritfarer, but the overall ambiance is something that anyone who enjoyed the titular game of this article. 

What Remains of Edith Finch

What Remains of Edith Finch
  • Developer: Giant Sparrow 
  • Metacritic Score: 88%
  • Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

One of the main things that grew such love amongst the community for Spiritfarer was how it dealt with the difficult concepts of death, grief, and regret. This was the core and heart of Spiritfarer and was only possible through the amazing writing of the team behind the game. 

Unfortunately, not many development teams today can boast the writing chops that the guys over at Thunder Lotus Games had access to, and even further, teams want to take on the challenging topic of death and grief. 

What Remains of Edith Finch is one of the few exceptions wherein another great set of writers get to express their own thoughts and feelings on the process. In this game, the player is taken on a journey through the Finch family, experiencing, through the medium of short stories, the deaths and ramifications of such on the family.

Each one of these stories explores the process a little bit differently, giving the player an alternative look at how each person deals with these hardships. 

Overall, the player experiences a great deal of catharsis from the game, and the way it can tug on your heartstrings at times is second to none, even better than Spiritfaer. Therefore, if you are looking for a game that can make you laugh and cry just like Spiritfarer, this is the game for you.

Honorable Mentions

bear and breakfast game

Unfortunately, not every game that I considered for this list could have made the final cut, but it would be a real shame if some of these crackers didn’t get recommended to you lovely people. So, to that end, let’s take a look at some more suggestions like Spiritfarer:

Coming To an End Again

As with all good things, this guide must, too, come to an end. Spiritfarer teaches us a lot about saying goodbye, letting go, and moving on in a positive and uplifting manner that sticks with us for a long time.

This is one of the beautiful things about the game and gaming in general that many avid players tend to miss in their gaming journeys. However, for us lucky few who have experienced just how impactful and emotionally charged games can be, Spiritfarer and games like it are simply special.

I hope that, through this list, you have managed to find a new favorite that you can move onto after your experience with Spiritfarer has come to an end. After all, once you experience a game like this, you’re going to need that feeling over and over again. With this in mind, I wish you good luck.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: Is Spiritfarer Kid Friendly?

Answer: This one really comes down to the individual child. Of course, the game is rated only for children over 12 years of age.

However, even for children slightly older than this, Spiritfarer may not be appropriate, given the games focus on death and the grieving process. Some of these issues can be a lot to deal with and not suitable for some.

Question: Is Spiritfarer better on PC or Console?

Answer: While the game is perfectly playable on any current platform it has been released for, it was originally designed to be played with a controller in hand. Therefore, the optimum gameplay experience will always come for players on the console.

Question: Does Spiritfarer Make You Cry?

Answer: Again, the answer to this question really does come down to the individual. However, when you delve into this game’s online fandom, one thing you will see a lot is how it made people cry or have some form of cathartic release.

Latest posts by James Gibson (see all)

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Start typing and press enter to search

Scroll to Top