Skip to content
indielist (beta)

The best base-building indie games, ranked by reviews

5 min read for players

base-buildinggenre-guidedata-reportrecommendations

Data report Assembled from live indielist data on 2026-06-06. Rankings update as data changes.

indielist tracks 64 base-building indie games on Steam, holding 4,628,331 reviews at an average of 87% positive. This list ranks them by Steam review count, the most reliable public sales proxy, with a white-box sales estimate behind every title. The most reviewed is ARK: Survival Evolved with 579,234 reviews. Figures are tracked by indielist; sales numbers are modeled estimates that each expand into their full formula.

The ranking

  1. ARK: Survival Evolved · 579,234 reviews · 83% positive · 2017
  2. Valheim · 452,821 reviews · 94% positive · 2021
  3. Palworld · 355,335 reviews · 94% positive · 2024
  4. Subnautica · 331,738 reviews · 97% positive · 2018
  5. Raft · 318,148 reviews · 93% positive · 2022
  6. Schedule I · 275,336 reviews · 98% positive · 2025
  7. Satisfactory · 228,423 reviews · 97% positive · 2024
  8. RimWorld · 203,546 reviews · 98% positive · 2018
  9. Factorio · 191,633 reviews · 98% positive · 2020
  10. Oxygen Not Included · 132,230 reviews · 97% positive · 2019
  11. ASTRONEER · 117,846 reviews · 92% positive · 2019
  12. Frostpunk · 112,340 reviews · 93% positive · 2018
  13. Cult of the Lamb · 107,145 reviews · 96% positive · 2022
  14. Scrap Mechanic · 104,924 reviews · 92% positive · 2016
  15. Subnautica: Below Zero · 97,547 reviews · 90% positive · 2021
  16. Kenshi · 95,289 reviews · 96% positive · 2018
  17. House Flipper · 91,596 reviews · 94% positive · 2018
  18. Enshrouded · 90,330 reviews · 86% positive · 2024
  19. This War of Mine · 88,714 reviews · 94% positive · 2014
  20. Dyson Sphere Program · 82,685 reviews · 97% positive · 2021

How this list is built

Games are ranked by Steam review count, the most reliable public proxy for sales when actual figures are private. Each title links to its indielist page, where the white-box sales estimate expands into the full Boxleiter formula, so you can audit the number rather than trust a black box. Review counts come from Steam; sales figures are modeled estimates, not official sales data.

Want the underlying estimate for your own game? Try the sales estimator, or browse the full game directory.