Crafting "survival" quickly became one of my least favourite genres. It's 99% the same boring bullshit and the word "survival" is doing some heavy lifting when it is really just a crafting action game or something.

There are a few exceptions to the rule like The Long Dark and Don't Starve though.

I presume they all buy the same animation package and then barely bother to modify it.

crafting survival base building pvp extraction shooter with zombies and microtransactions, available as a service with >$60 upfront price tag

Given your distaste for the genre, whichever one you might feel is "luxurious", you probably haven't played. Minecraft also has the benefit of working in precise squares/cubes.

Systems-driven games tend to have more bugs than ones where all of the solutions are finite and predetermined.

Have you tried Vintage Story? I consider it the best game in the genre

It's just every other one built in Unity or Unreal

I think this has a lot to do with it. A lot of these platforms have defaukts or even jusy tendencies baked into the development process. It takes an experienced developer to dive in the "feel".

For making the first Spyro game, Insomniac hired a NASA engineer who had experiencing making flight control systems in order to dial in the feel of controlling Spyro. That's the kind of thing that costs a lot of money, but made the game one of the most successful 3D platformers of all time.

Another thing to look at is assets. Models, textures, fonts, UI design, sound design. It's easy to go cheap here: free asset libraries or cheap ones available for purchase. Some of these assets might be fine on their own, but when combined together they're just...slightly.... Off. Because they weren't designed to be cohesive in a space together. Making one model that looks good takes talent and time. Making thousands of models that look good together takes planning, coordination, and direction.

And these are a lot of things that are easy for a small team to overlook, or at least de-prioritize. Smaller teams are usually driven by game designers who have specific designs in mind. They want to tweak numbers or implement systems. They design the game first, and then slap on whatever art assets they can to make it appealing enough to their audience.

I think this might be a bias towards the sample taken, given how easy it is to make a game these days, you can probably say the same abot any genre given the right sample.

If you want examples of survivalcraft that might not fit that (subjective) model, there's stuff like sons of the forest or Terraria.

You might feel tempted to say these are exceptions, but I'd argue that anything that is more common would by definition fall into same-y-ness

I also want to add that the ui problem goes beyond genres.

I’d argue that when a game feels "cheap," it’s usually a failure of game feel and feedback rather than a lack of features.

A standard crafting loop can feel incredibly deliberate and grounded when the movement, animation timing, sound design, inventory friction, and failure states all cohesively point toward the same player goal. Conversely, when those systems work in isolation without reinforcing one another, the game just feels like a disconnected kit of familiar mechanics.

Instead of looking at a whole game, it might be better to zoom in on one specific micro-interaction: harvesting, building, or escaping. What’s a game that made one of those actions feel truly considered, and what specific tricks did it use to pull it off?

Can't say this is the case in shmups, action games, or fighting games, TBH. That's all I play though, I don't know nothing else.

I fucking know exactly what you mean. Its gotta be the way they develop them. The software controllers must have gone through some form of standardization for them to all feel so similar, maybe they use the built in Unity and Unreal shit for controller mapping. But you are so right with this entire explanation, AND WHY, WHY DO MY FRIENDS LIKE IT GOD IT FUCKEN SUCKS. Yet they won't play on my self hosted Minecraft server. And honestly it sucks, this genre could be unique and interesting with each entry but it just doesnt. Everything from Icarus to Mines of Moria feels exactly the same.

i like fallout 4's crafting and survival but i would not call it a crafting survival game or even a good example of one. i just think its fun. even if i lose hours of progress because i couldnt find a bed and a car randomly exploded

Imo for most game developers even Indie ones it’s about getting a return on a game developed. To them copying the current hottest thing for quick sales. Much of the time either making a pc version of a mobile or switch only game. Or worse yet making it look very similar so the uninformed buy the wrong game ..

Steam could use some more curation. But maybe that’s just me ..

because most try to be clones of already existing games than doing anything creative since that's less risky