Crowfall vs Dwarf Fortress
Crowfall
Crowfall boasts as being the world's first throne war simulator where it mixes the best elements from the popular "Game of Thrones" TV show with MMOs like EVE Online. The game features an open world PvP, a player-driven economy, action-based combat and destructible environments which you can then use to your advantage when fortifying your own castle or attacking your enemy's castle. Crowfall's campaigns are pretty unique due to its varying campaign rulesets as well. Each different ruleset will give you an entirely different experience of the game. The game difficulty will even gradually increase over time, making teamwork paramount to survival.Crowfall also has a sandbox element to it in the form of its Eternal Kingdom. In this game, you'll be given a piece of land in an instanced zone to build your empire. Much like a Tetris or a jigsaw puzzle game, you can then buy extra parcels of land that comes in different shapes and sizes and add them to your Eternal kingdom to expand it. You could even grant your land to appointed vassals to rule as they please as long as they pay their dues to you, the King or Queen, and interact with your "subjects" turning your Eternal Kingdom into some sort of a social hub for you and your friends or guildmates to hang out.
Let's not forget about Crowfall's ridiculous (in a good way) amount of character class customization and advancement, allowing you to build your character literally whichever way you like.
Sounds like just the game you've been looking for? Well, if you would like to experience a Game of Thrones-like political intrigue coupled with some epic warfare that plays out on a massive scale, Crowfall's the game you'd want to keep a close eye on.
Dwarf Fortress
Dwarf Fortress is one of the most unique and massive fantasy game ever made using only ASCII characters and colors. The game is completely open world in the sense that you are given the freedom to play as an adventurer and set off alone or with other adventurers on an exciting journey above or below ground (or both) to seek glory, fame and riches, or to settle down and help develop your very own dwarven outpost where you can then build a fortress, establish a barony, and in general, order your dwarven subjects around. Aside from the obviously different "art style" used, the freedom of choice, and the amazing amount of details in its gameplay, the game is also unique in its world building. The virtual world created is not only randomly generated with distinct civilizations with detailed histories, hundred of points of interests like towns and caves, as well as a flourishing nature, which includes both flora and fauna.With so many amazing features packaged into a simple-looking game, it is no wonder why Dwarf Fortress is a game that has inspired a wide variety of other modern games, both indie and big triple-A ones, until today. Due to its size, you might feel daunted to dive into a game like this, but once you've learned the basics, you will find yourself fully immersed in this completely open world of symbols and colors.