Best Games Like Teardown

Teardown continues to deliver a fun and unpredictable PC sandbox powered by cutting-edge physics and unparalleled destruction.

Now that the game has received its 1.0 Version Update and is no longer in Steam Early Access, players stand to benefit from a suite of new tools, maps, and missions.

However, those looking to add even more chaotic and destructive sandboxes to their Steam library are welcome to join as we countdown the best games like Teardown on Steam and other platforms.

For more recommendations, we suggest checking out our other curated gaming lists, and leaving a comment with your top picks for games similar to Teardown!

Related:Best Moddable PC Games 2023Best Heist Games 2023Best FPS Games 2023

To get started, we recommend Teardown fans pick up Demolish and Build 2018, another indie destruction sandbox that features realistically rendered physics simulations.

In it, you play as the leader of a construction company tasked with demolishing huge buildings to make way for new properties.

To carry out your plans, the game provides you with a variety of specialized hand tools and big machinery such as cranes and bulldozers that will make quick work of structures.

Like Teardown, Demolish and Build takes place in a freely navigable world spanning four unique locations.

Red Faction: Guerrilla was originally released in 2009 as a futuristic third-person shooter in which players are sent to Mars to liberate the planet from corporate overlords.

What made the game so remarkable at the time and even still to this day is its highly-detailed physics engine that allows you to level structures across the Red Planet.

Combine this with a deep arsenal of weapons and vehicles and you end up with a destructive playground disguised as a run-of-the-mill shooter.

The best way to experience Red Faction: Guerrilla these days is in the updated Re-Mars-tered edition with improved graphics for PC and modern consoles.

Allow us to go “medieval” for a second and recommend Besiege, a physics-based building simulator where players get to destroy and defend fortresses using customizable contraptions.

These can range from mobile cannons to flying war machines and just about anything else you can imagine making with medieval tools.

Similar to Teardown, the game features a single-player campaign with 54 levels along with sandbox, level editor, and multiplayer modes.

Additionally, Besiege supports modding via Steam Workshop where players can share and download custom machines, skins, levels, and more.

If your favorite aspect of Teardown is getting to plan and execute elaborate heists, then you’ll surely get a kick out of American Theft 80s.

The game comes from the same team behind Thief Simulator and sees you earning your way to the top of a crime-ridden county full of corruption and secretive residents.

Every house you encounter can be broken into but requires you to watch its tenants beforehand to learn their routines and strike when it’s empty using a crowbar, bolt cutters, or lockpick.

Valuables and cash can be traded or used to purchase new vehicles, houses, or disguises to trick NPCs into dropping their guard and prevent run-ins with the police.

Picklock is another thief simulator-style game with a short but sweet single-player campaign that casts you as a hot-shot crook looking for their next score.

In order to save up enough money to retire from the business of stealing, players will have to take on increasingly tough jobs that can be tackled in a variety of ways.

This is very reminiscent of Teardown’s campaign missions where different approaches are supported and players are incentivized to go out of their way to complete secondary objectives.

Over time, Picklock players can turn their stolen goods and money into fancy cars and luxury homes, or save up for retirement as quickly as possible.

Our next recommendation is Hardspace: Shipbreaker, a space salvage sim with physics-driven gameplay similar to Teardown.

In it, you take on the role of a salvager working for a company contracted to carve and slice apart spaceships to recover valuable materials using cutting-edge tools and equipment.

Each job functions like a puzzle with different hazards and challenges that players must navigate to get the biggest payout at the end.

Since space stations are chockfull of machinery that can explode or otherwise go haywire, you’ll end up sabotaging your character quite frequently, especially at the beginning.

On the other hand, if driving is your favorite part of playing Teardown, you’ll probably enjoy a game like Car Mechanic Simulator 2021.

Billed as a highly-realistic driving sim, it sees you managing your own mechanic shop and providing customers with a wide range of services.

Of course, things aren’t all business as the game allows you to buy new cars from auction houses and take them for test drives.

In the event of a collision, vehicles will dent or become otherwise damaged until you repair them using an extensive set of tools.

Instead of blowing buildings up to smithereens in Teardown, why not try your hand at constructing them yourself in Builder Simulator.

This first-person game lets you build your own houses from scratch brick-by-brick using an assortment of tools and materials with realistic qualities.

It offers the freedom to pick which materials you’d like to work with as well as what furniture and decorations go into each home.

If you ever grow tired of the designs included with the base game, you can browse through a plethora of community-made projects.

Exclusive to VR, Boneworks is a virtual sandbox powered by advanced physics simulations that are leaps and bounds ahead of most games.

However, Teardown players will feel right at home exploring the game’s dynamic environments and devising creative solutions to puzzles and combat scenarios.

This is done by using a wide selection of melee weapons, firearms, traps, and other objects to defeat enemies and traverse environments.

As if that wasn’t enough, Boneworks features a technically-accurate kinetic body damage system that makes every blow feel more real and immersive than the last.

BeamNG.drive is another driving sim that boasts realistic physics like Teardown along with soft-body damage modeling that allows for jaw-dropping car crashes.

It also happens to be one of the most mod-friendly titles on this list, something Teardown fans have been spoiled with ever since the game entered Steam Early Access.

This has led to an exhausting amount of community-made content adding new vehicles, parts, maps, and more to BeamNG’s offerings.

Furthermore, it’s the perfect Teardown alternative for players who want to simulate realistic driving conditions and scripted scenarios that push the envelope for vehicle destruction.

Similarly, Wreckfest does a great job at replicating realistic driving conditions thanks to its soft-body damage modeling and visceral car combat.

Billed as a spiritual successor to the FlatOut series, it sees players crushing, smashing, and ramming their way to the finish line across a variety of race modes.

While most of them focus on coming in 1^st place, others revolve around pure chaos where players try to destroy opponents’ vehicles while protecting their own.

If you’re a fan of chaotic racers with tight controls and superb handling, then you’ll enjoy Wreckfest’s modern approach to car combat.

Next on our list is Garry’s Mod, a beloved sandbox game that offers a similar experience to playing Teardown while also functioning as a dynamic game creation tool.

Despite being more than a decade old, it still manages to draw in new players thanks to a welcoming community and robust suite of sandbox tools.

If you want to generate a variety of different things and build strange creations, design your own shooting levels, or speed around the neighborhood, Gmod is here to support you.

There are a plethora of activities, modes, and mini-games beyond what we’ve outlined with support for online multiplayer and the ability to remix creations with your own twist.

While not as graphically impressive as Teardown straight out the gate, Minecraft has a similar blocky aesthetic that can be taken further using Minecraft PC mods.

These allow you to up the graphical fidelity as well as visit new and exciting worlds, customize different blocks, and craft items that push the boundaries of your imagination.

To this point, the game perfectly captures Teardown’s feeling of limitless potential thanks to its flexible crafting system that lets you construct a variety of weapons, tools, contraptions, and decorations.

And while they may present completely different gameplay loops, the ability to custom-script scenarios in Minecraft means you can do pretty much anything you want with the game.

A big part of Teardown’s appeal is getting to blow stuff up and see how the game’s detailed physics engine reacts.

So while Grand Theft Auto V may not offer the same degree of realism when it comes to terrain destruction, it’s just as satisfying to cause destruction and general mayhem.

What’s more, Teardown players are presented with an even-bigger sandbox world to explore spanning two regions: Los Santos and Blaine County, both of which offer an exhaustive number of locations.

This makes GTA V one of the best digital playgrounds for criminal masterminds looking to flip stolen cars, participate in street races, carry out heists, and much more.

If sneaking your way around Teardown’s environments leaves you giddy, you’ll love exploring Hitman 3’s elaborate sandbox levels and the many hijinks and gags they have to offer.

Those unfamiliar have nothing to worry about as the third entry brings you up to speed on the trilogy’s story in which you play as a deadly bald assassin on a mission to bring down a shady organization.

Teardown players are sure to get a kick out of donning different disguises, exploring various hiding spots for dead bodies, and seeing how the AI reacts to their behavior.

Lastly, Hitman 3 introduces a couple of notable improvements over its predecessors, including the ability to unlock permanent shortcuts as well as play the game in VR.

If it feels like we’ve been building up to something huge in this list, allow us to introduce you to our final recommendation for games like Teardown: Universe Sandbox.

That’s right, instead of being limited to one voxel-based world, players can set their sights on outer space and simulate destruction and chaos on a galactic scale.

In this space simulation sandbox, players can exploit the power of gravity, climate, and collision to see how our planets (and others) would fare in a cataclysmic scenario.

If you’ve ever been curious about how different planetary materials react to each other or what it looks like to see a star explode in real-time, Universe Sandbox has all the answers.