Best Mining Games

Our take: The best game here if you want mining to feel like a job you actually love. You're a space dwarf dropped into fully destructible procedural caves to dig out ore, and the whole map is yours to blast apart — solo or in four-player co-op that's some of the best on PlayStation. The mining is the point, not a side activity. Rated Teen, on PS4 and PS5, 4.42 from 14,000 players. The catch is it's mission-and-extraction structured rather than open-ended, so it scratches a different itch than Minecraft. Rock and stone.

Our take: The cozy pick — but don't underestimate the mining. The Mines are a core pillar of Stardew: you descend floor by floor, break rocks for ore and geodes, fight your way down, and feed everything back into your farm and tools. It's the highest-rated game on this entire list at 4.75 from 33,000 players, and rightly so. Rated Everyone 10+, on PS4, and included with PS Plus, so many of you already own it. If you want mining wrapped in a warm, relaxing life-sim, this is the one.

Our take: Minecraft's 2D cousin, and a deeper one than it looks. You dig down and sideways through layered biomes, mining ores to craft hundreds of weapons and tools, then dig further to reach tougher bosses — the progression is gated almost entirely by what you mine. A 4.51 rating from 73,000 PlayStation players makes it one of the best-loved games here. Rated Teen, on PS4, and included with PS Plus. The honest caveat is the early hours can feel aimless until you learn what to dig for; push past that and it opens right up.

Our take: Mining, but underwater and genuinely tense. You scan and harvest minerals and resources from an alien ocean to craft tools, then dive deeper into the dark to find more — the extraction loop is wrapped in real survival dread. It's the second-most-played game on this list (87,000 ratings, 4.60) and the best pick if you want exploration over grinding. Rated Everyone 10+, on PS4 and PS5. Be warned it leans into open-ended survival with light horror; if thalassophobia is a thing for you, go in knowing that. A modern classic.

Our take: The purest dig game here. You're a miner lowering yourself into a procedurally laid-out shaft, digging for ore, hauling it up to upgrade your gear, then digging deeper — a tight, addictive metroidvania built entirely around the act of mining. Don't let the small size fool you: 4.22 from 27,500 PlayStation players, well above its weight. It's short and focused rather than sprawling, which is exactly why it's a great palate-cleanser between the bigger sandboxes on this list. If "best pure dig" is what you want, start here.

Our take: The newest sandbox here and a strong one. You wake in an endless underground cavern and mine outward in every direction, lighting up the dark, fighting bugs and bosses, and building a base from what you extract — Stardew's structure meets Terraria's digging, played top-down. Rated Everyone, on PS5, 4.39 from 6,400 players. It's smaller and lower-profile than the giants above, so expect a quieter community, but the mining-and-building core is excellent and best enjoyed in co-op.

Our take: Mining as sculpting. Astroneer lets you deform the terrain itself with a vacuum-like tool — you literally carve tunnels and dig out resources to craft, build and survive on colourful alien planets. That terrain-as-clay mechanic makes the digging feel different from everything else on this list. Rated Everyone, on PS4, and included with PS Plus, with a 4.15 from 7,500 players. It's more chilled-out exploration than survival challenge, so play it for the creativity and the co-op rather than tension.

Our take: A throwback to where this genre started — and still a great one. You pilot a mining pod straight down through the earth, digging for ore and minerals while managing fuel and upgrades, with that "one more dig" pull that hooks you for hours. Rated 4.21 from 3,300 PlayStation players. It's an older, smaller title and the loop is deliberately simple, so don't expect Minecraft's breadth — but as a pure, focused digging game it more than earns its spot.

Our take: Digging with the difficulty turned up. Spelunky is a roguelike where you mine and bomb your way down through procedural caves, except every floor wants you dead and one mistake sends you back to the top. The dig-and-descend core is pure genre DNA, just unforgiving. Rated Teen, on PS4, 4.12 from 40,000 players — a big, beloved audience. The caveat is obvious: it's hard, and the permadeath isn't for everyone. If you want digging with real teeth, this is it.

Our take: The sequel, and a sharper, deeper cave to dig through. Spelunky 2 keeps the bomb-and-descend roguelike loop but layers in liquids, mounts, branching paths and far more to discover beneath the surface. Rated Teen, on PS4 and PS5, 4.49 from 2,600 players — higher-rated than the original, if smaller in audience so far. Same warning applies, doubled: it's brutally hard. Play the first to learn the ropes, then come here when you want the genre at its most demanding and rewarding.

Our take: More Subnautica, set on a frozen alien coast. You're back to scanning and harvesting resources to craft and survive, this time across both icy land and the ocean beneath it, with a stronger story thread than the original. Rated Everyone 10+, on PS4 and PS5, 4.41 from 18,000 players. It's a standalone follow-up rather than a sequel-sized leap, so it's the pick once you've finished the first and want more of that exact resource-gathering survival loop.

Our take: The most relaxing entry on the list. Forager is a bite-sized sandbox where you mine, gather and craft on an expanding grid of islands, and the whole thing is built around a satisfying, almost idle progression loop — clear a node, buy the next island, unlock more to mine. Rated Everyone 10+, on PS4, 4.21 from 3,500 players. It's light and won't challenge you the way Spelunky or Deep Rock will, but as a low-stress "numbers go up" mining-and-crafting game it's hard to put down.