Vintage Story is a sandbox survival game developed and published by Anego Studios.[1] The game began development on April 5, 2016,[2] by the founders of Anego Studios, Tyron and Irena Madlener. The game became available for owners of a "game key" on September 4, 2016,[3] then became publicly available for sale on September 27, 2016.[4] An old version of the game is available for free download.[5] The game is in early access and can be played in singleplayer or multiplayer modes.
| Vintage Story | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer | Anego Studios |
| Programmer | Tyron Madlener |
| Artists | Irena Madlener Anna Baldur Redram |
| Writer | Luke Jeffrey |
| Composer | Hayden Davenport |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Release | September 27, 2016 |
| Genre | Survival |
| Modes | Single-player, multiplayer |
Gameplay
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In Vintage Story the player character (a tall humanoid referred to as a "seraph") inhabits a voxel-based open world landscape. Seraphs are controlled from a first- or third-person perspective. By default, worlds are procedurally generated and simulate a variety of biomes, rock strata, and landforms through 27-day meteorological seasons. The distribution and types of flora and fauna are affected by the local climate, which generally increases in temperature towards the world's equator.[6]
Gameplay in Vintage Story is partially customisable – world generation, survival difficulty, and story content can be adjusted for different play styles, such as for creative building.[7] In the standard survival mode, seraphs must maintain their health and "temporal stability" initially by hunting, foraging, crafting items, and establishing shelters. Other creatures include animals, travelling merchants, and hostile eldritch horror entities that spawn from temporal stability-draining "rifts".[8]
Progression through the Metal Ages involves reproducing real ancient techniques – examples include firing pottery in a pit kiln, prospecting for and collecting loose native copper for smelting, forging ingots into tools on an anvil, and refining iron into steel using a cementation furnace. Notably, the creation of some items must be done through interaction with the game world. For example, players must form tool molds by physically placing voxels of clay on the ground in the appropriate pattern.[6]
Building structures and sculptures is another element of Vintage Story: chisels can be used to subdivide and add to or remove material from blocks. Additional activities include animal husbandry, brewing, and harnessing mechanical power.
Development
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Vintage Story began as a standalone version of an earlier Minecraft mod called Vintagecraft that was created by Tyron Madlener. The game is written in C# using OpenTK and a fork of the ManicDigger game engine. Most of the game's programming was done by Tyron Madlener, with contributions from several others. A majority of the game's code is under a source-available license on the Anego Studios GitHub.[9] Development on updates with additional features and story elements for the game is ongoing, with the latest stable version, 1.22.0[10] being released to the public.
A notable feature of the game is its modding API, which has been praised for its flexibility and quality.[11][12][8]
In 2025, following the cancellation (but before the revival) of Hytale, an adventure mode inspired by the cancelled game was announced to be in development, to be created by former Hypixel Studios developers hired by Anego Studios (eventually announced as a standalone game codenamed Project Glint).[13][14]
Reception
editPower Up Gaming described Vintage Story as being "on a completely different level" than other block-based survival games due to its approach to crafting and inventory management, noting that the game fixes all the "nagging problems that everyone has" in other open-world survival block-based games by allowing the player to open multiple menus at the same time and interact with items more naturally.[15] A critic found the content of Vintage Story to be a more atmospheric survival experience compared to Minecraft which he considered "too tame".[8]
Rock Paper Shotgun praised the world generation, animations, and modding.[16] In another review Rock Paper Shotgun mostly focused on the much better performance of Vintage Story, compared to Minecraft.[17] A review by Sportskeeda praised the graphics, as well as the mineralogy.[12] Digital Trends heralded the unique gameplay and crafting system for their quality, as well as the flexibility of the game.[11]
See also
editReferences
edit- ↑ "Official site". Anego Studios. Retrieved 10 August 2025.
- ↑ "The beginnings". Vintage Story. 5 April 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
- ↑ "Distribution has begun (v.0.9.p5)". Vintage Story. 4 September 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
- ↑ "Release! Zomg! (v1.0.0)". Vintage Story. 27 September 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
- ↑ "VS Classic - Vintage Story". info.vintagestory.at. Retrieved 7 November 2023.
- 1 2 "This survival sandbox game is like steampunk Minecraft". PCGamesN. 4 July 2023. Retrieved 8 February 2026.
- ↑ Livingston, Christopher (26 November 2024). "My new survival game obsession looks like Minecraft but is way more complex—and you won't find it on Steam". PC Gamer. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
- 1 2 3 Huge, Devon. "VINTAGE STORY Review for PC". Gaming Cypher. Archived from the original on 8 November 2021. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
- ↑ "Anego Studios". GitHub. Retrieved 12 March 2024.
- ↑ "1.22.0 - Fishing, Mechanisms, Metalworking and More!". Vintage Story. 21 April 2026. Retrieved 23 April 2026.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - 1 2 Roach, Jacob. "The best games like Minecraft". Digital Trends. Archived from the original on 8 November 2021. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
- 1 2 Bachchan, Vasudha (19 October 2020). "4 best PC games like Minecraft but with better graphics". sportskeeda. Archived from the original on 8 November 2021. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
- ↑ Writer, Mark Warren Senior Staff; Warren, Mark (7 July 2025). "Vintage Story's devs are trying to save some of cancelled Hytale's soul by turning it into an adventure mode". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 16 January 2026.
- ↑ "Development update, September 2025". Vintage Story. 4 October 2025. Retrieved 16 January 2026.
- ↑ Sharp, Jamie (18 February 2020). "Vintage Story Is An Uncompromising Survival Sandbox Inspired By Lovecraft". Power Up Gaming. Archived from the original on 7 May 2021. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
- ↑ Toms, Ollie (26 March 2020). "Games like Minecraft - 16 best games like Minecraft from the past ten years". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
- ↑ Toms, Ollie (3 April 2020). "Have you played... Vintage Story?". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on 22 December 2020. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
