survival/rpg that doesn’t have linear-based/biome-locked progression
i feel like i’ve been looking forever for a game like this. i’ve tried valheim and it’s cool and all but i hate that it doesn’t actually feel open world at all. i HAVE to kill a boss in order to progress to a different biome to unlock different recipes. each upgrade is locked behind doing a very specific task and the gameplay loop feels very mundane. windrose is the exact same.
i really enjoy minecraft and have sunk thousands of hours into vanilla and modded so i’m looking to play something else.
my friends really want me to play terraria and i’ve tried it multiple times but i get bored so fast. i don’t like that it’s 2D and i have to travel either all the way left or all the way right to find a different biome. everyone hypes this game up but i just can’t get into it. i’d rather play modded minecraft.
i really enjoy rpg mechanics with leveling up skills so if the game has that, even better. i’ve spent thousands of hours playing mmorpgs (mainly runescape).
i’ll take any rpg, survival, or survival rpg suggestions.
tldr: survival/rpg game that lets me do what i want, when i want. i don’t want to be forced to do a specific thing to make progress in the game.