5 Best Games For Fans Of Building In Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom

Published Sep 19, 2026, 3:00 PM EDT Carrie is a Senior Writer at ScreenRant who previously managed Geek to Geek Media and wrote for SwitchRPG. She is particularly knowledgeable when it comes to WoW, Diablo, and cozy games. She has a passion for supporting the indies and always enjoys sharing her passions with others through her writing. One of the most impressive and entertaining features in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was the way players could utilize Link's fancy new Ultrahand to build pretty much anything they could imagine. The open-world game stands out from its predecessor, Breath of the Wild, in part thanks to this unique ability that ended up being much more than just a little gimmick. In Tears of the Kingdom, players could use the Ultrahand ability to grab onto objects and move them around, rotate them, and attach things together in creative ways. This allowed players to build their own vehicles to get around the massive world, or things like bridges, boats, and more. Of course, this freedom also led to many players wreaking havoc through experimental builds that served no purpose other than to cause chaos, and that's absolutely wonderful too. Although using this game mechanic to build objects wasn't always the main point of the game, it gave players a whole new level of freedom and unlocked their creativity. Thankfully, even if you're getting tired of playing Zelda: TOTK, or you don't have a Nintendo Switch, there are many other games with similar building mechanics to enjoy. Satisfactory Available On PC, PS5, And Xbox Series X/S In Tears of the Kingdom, players solve many of the problems they face by using the Ultrahand to put things together, like using logs, wheels, and Zonai fans to make a car. Satisfactory may not have a glowing ancient Ultrahand, but the entire premise of the game is to snap things together to build foundations, power grids, conveyor belts, and more to create large interconnected networks in this alien world. Like TOTK, Satisfactory uses a lot of physics-driven engineering and creativity to successfully create what you are envisioning. This is a first-person open-world factory game where building is the main focus, although there's also some exploration and combat involved. You can play it by yourself or bring some friends along to help you explore the alien world and create the biggest multi-story factories you can imagine. Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts Available On Xbox One, Xbox 360, And Xbox Series X/S Despite Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts having been released back in 2008, the game has many similarities to Tears of the Kingdom as far as using modular construction capabilities to create vehicles and things to solve problems you're faced with. Nuts & Bolts doesn't offer the same freedom of building in an open world, instead making its building mechanics more structured with instanced challenges, but in a way this adds to the charm. If your favorite part is the building, that's where this game excels. Nuts & Bolts encourages players to get creative and build wild contraptions to solve the issues presented to them. The physics-based approach means that how you assemble things really matters and can still provide plenty of hilarious failures. Dragon Quest Builders 2 Available On PC, PS4, Xbox One, And Nintendo Switch Both of the Dragon Quest Builders games are a spin-off from the popular fantasy RPG series, Dragon Quest, and their sole purpose is, as the title highlights, to build. In Dragon Quest Builders 2, players gather together scattered villagers and rebuild entire towns from the ground up. There's quite a bit of open-world exploration and an overarching narrative where you get to defeat an ancient evil boss, but if you would rather just build houses, that's absolutely fine too. In fact, some fans of both franchises even rebuilt some of the towns from Breath of the Wild in Dragon Quest Builders 2. As an added bonus, Dragon Quest Builders 2 also includes a paraglider-type device, so you can really pretend you're Link as you jump off things. Besiege Available On PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, And Mobile Devices Besiege may not be the most similar in style, but it is available nearly everywhere, including on mobile devices. It is a physics-based building and simulation game where players get to stretch their creativity by constructing medieval siege engines. Then, you get to use those siege engines to cause mass destruction of castles, armies, and villages. Similar to Link's Ultrahand ability, Besiege allows you to attach parts such as wheels, wings, and weapons piece by piece to make your creations. Physics comes into play here, as the weight and structural integrity of your build matter, defining what kind of momentum it will have or how majestically it might break apart. Trailmakers Available On PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S Essentially, the whole focus of the 3D physics-based game Trailmakers is on using your imagination. A lot of the mechanics of the game is similar to Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, with snapping together parts like blocks and wheels to create a hopefully functional machine. Each piece has its own mechanics that dictate the finished machine's speed, buoyancy, and more. You can play Trailmakers through a story-driven adventure campaign, a survival mode, or simply hop into a sandbox to build whatever you want. There are no specific answers to completing objectives in the game, which is where you are free to stretch your engineering skills. The game originally came out in 2019, but is still receiving regular updates, including a massive new map that was just revealed last month. Systems Released January 30, 2018 ESRB e Developer(s) Flashbulb Games Publisher(s) Flashbulb Games Engine Unity Multiplayer Online Multiplayer