Thinking about getting onto wife’s Steam account, but right now I’m pretty stuck on sandbox games. What are you enjoying right now?
Project zomboid
Stalker has sandbox elements. Dwarf Fortress probably, but it’s highly addictive at least for me. Darkwood is pretty good. Core Keeper, Minecraft, Raft? Outward… Terraria…
Terraria
The Long Dark is brutally cold and brutally challenging
No Man’s Sky (Proton).
Days Gone is a great open world game, with motorcycles and zombies.
If you’ve never played Kerbal Space Program (the first one), it’s got a Linux native version and a mod manager specifically for Linux. It’s probably the best sandbox I’ve ever played (2000+ hours).
BeamNG Drive. I have way too much time in that game and I have barely touched making mods.
Icarus if you want an FPS Terraria for side scroller OpenTTD for retro top-down Cities Skylines (sequel out next month) for city sim
If you want a no-combat platformer/puzzler, Sable is a good time with beautiful art.
If you want a hardcore RPG sandbox, try Kenshi.