Pokemon Pokopia has taken the gaming world by storm, combining the creature-collecting charm of the Pokemon franchise with the cosy, creative sandbox gameplay that fans have been craving for years. Playing as a Ditto transformed into a human, you’ll craft, build, garden, and befriend Pokemon as you cultivate a desolate landscape into a thriving paradise.
With its real-time day and night cycle, multiple biomes to explore, and an irresistible ‘build it and they will come’ gameplay loop, Pokopia scratches an itch that many other beloved games have explored in their own ways. If you’re looking for more of that magic, these nine titles are the perfect place to start.
9
Ooblets
If the creature-collecting side of Pokopia is what hooked you, Ooblets deserves a spot at the top of your playlist. This indie gem blends farming simulation with creature collecting, tasking you with growing adorable little Ooblets from seeds, then using them in dance battles against other collectors.
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The town of Badgetown is packed with personality and charm, and the daily rhythm of tending your farm, discovering new Ooblets, and upgrading your home has a similar cosy cadence to Pokopia’s gameplay loop. It’s a little quirkier and more offbeat in its humor, but the combination of nurturing creatures and building up your homestead will feel instantly familiar.
8
My Time At Sandrock
My Time at Sandrock takes the crafting and community-building elements of Pokopia and wraps them in a post-apocalyptic desert setting that’s far more charming than it sounds. As a builder new to the frontier town of Sandrock, you’ll gather resources, craft machines, and take on commissions to help the town grow and prosper.
There’s a strong narrative thread tying everything together, and the relationships you build with the townsfolk give real weight to your efforts. If you love the way Pokopia makes you feel like your work is directly shaping the world around you, Sandrock delivers that same sense of tangible progress with every project you complete.
7
Slime Rancher 2
Slime Rancher 2 is pure joy distilled into a video game. You play as Beatrix LeBeau, exploring a colorful alien world and collecting adorable, gelatinous slimes to raise on your ranch. The appeal here mirrors Pokopia’s creature-befriending loop — you’re constantly discovering new slime species, learning what they eat, how they behave, and how different combinations produce entirely new hybrid slimes.
The first-person exploration across vibrant, distinct biomes also echoes Pokopia’s sense of discovery. It’s less focused on building structures and more about managing a living ecosystem, but the dopamine hit of finding a rare new creature in a hidden corner of the map is almost identical.
6
Stardew Valley
It’s almost impossible to make a list like this without including Stardew Valley. This farming masterpiece is the gold standard for cosy life sims, and its influence on Pokopia is unmistakable. The daily rhythm of watering crops, foraging, fishing, and slowly expanding your farm is endlessly satisfying, and the charming pixel-art town of Pelican Town is filled with memorable characters to befriend.
Shane is the best, no contest.
Where Pokopia leans into creature collecting and sandbox building, Stardew focuses more on farming and relationships, but the underlying appeal is the same – the quiet joy of building something beautiful from nothing, one day at a time.
5
Minecraft
The sandbox titan needs little introduction. Minecraft’s influence on Pokopia is well-documented – Omega Force, the co-developer of Pokopia, was specifically chosen for their experience with sandbox games, and the DNA is clear in the way Pokopia handles crafting, biomes, and freeform building.
What Minecraft offers that Pokopia doesn’t is truly limitless creative freedom. There are no creature-collecting elements to speak of, but the sheer depth of its building systems and the endless variety of its procedurally generated worlds mean you’ll never run out of things to do. If the building side of Pokopia is what grabbed you most, Minecraft is the bottomless well you’re looking for.
4
Dragon Quest Builders 2
This one’s a no-brainer. Dragon Quest Builders 2 was developed by Omega Force, the very same studio that co-developed Pokopia, and the lineage is obvious. It blends block-based building with a full JRPG story, asking you to rebuild towns destroyed by a cult that has outlawed all creation.
The building mechanics are deep and satisfying, the story is surprisingly heartfelt, and the sense of watching a ruined village transform into a bustling community through your efforts is incredibly rewarding. If you want to understand exactly where Pokopia’s building systems came from, this is the most direct line you can draw.
3
Viva Piñata
Viva Piñata is the spiritual godparent of every ‘build a habitat and creatures will come’ game ever made, and its similarities to Pokopia are striking. You cultivate a neglected garden, planting flowers, building fences, and shaping the terrain to attract increasingly rare and exotic piñata species.
Each species has specific requirements – the right plants, the right environment, the right neighbours – and figuring out how to coax a new piñata into taking up permanent residence is endlessly satisfying. It’s an older game, originally released for Xbox 360, but it holds up beautifully, and its core loop of environmental design as creature collection is exactly the same magic that makes Pokopia sing.
2
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
The comparison between Pokopia and Animal Crossing was drawn from the very first reveal trailer, and for good reason. New Horizons drops you on a deserted island and tasks you with transforming it into a thriving community, decorating every inch of it to your liking along the way.
The real-time clock, the seasonal events, the gentle daily routine of checking in on your island and its animal residents — it all maps directly onto what Pokopia offers, just without the Pokemon. What New Horizons does better than almost any other game on this list is create a sense of place. Your island becomes yours in a deeply personal way, and that same attachment to a world you’ve built with your own hands is at the very heart of Pokopia’s appeal.
1
Pokemon Legends: Arceus
If you’ve fallen in love with Pokopia’s world and want to experience the Pokemon franchise from a different angle, Legends: Arceus is the perfect companion piece. Set in the ancient Hisui region, it reimagines the traditional Pokemon formula by placing you in an open wilderness where Pokemon roam freely, and the act of catching and studying them feels more hands-on and immediate than ever before.
While it’s an action RPG rather than a life sim, it shares Pokopia’s emphasis on building a connection with the natural world and its creatures. The research-focused gameplay, where you observe Pokemon behaviors and fill out the region’s first Pokedex, captures a similar sense of wonder and discovery. For Pokopia fans who want more Pokemon but a completely different kind of experience, Arceus is an essential play.
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