I'll echo how good V Rising is. I don't even like this entire genre (base building grindy survival), but I had a blast in this game. I eventually gave up when managing my castle became too much of an annoying chore (omg I have to tear everything down and rebuild it all AGAIN because now I don't have enough space in the required room to place this new crafting bench or whatever ... OMG PLEASE NO) but the world exploration and combat and bosses was always super fun. I also loved how they allowed the player to scale the difficulty however they wanted. I wound up turning my game into "baby" mode by cranking the boss difficulty down just because I didn't want to keep replaying the bosses in my limited time. Had a blast!

Yeah, I play with my friend and we had good luck with the castle placement. First castle was of course in the first zone, and when we proceeded into the second, we settled in basically the very center of the map, a bit toward the top. That turned out to be a fine location, as on horseback, nothing was too far. Castle size as well, initially I built is to just fit the existing infra, but when I sensed that there are going to be additions, I built it a bit larger than it needed to be, and now we can fit everything, especially with the little in-house teleports.

I totally feel your way of beating the game on normal, and the bosses on easy. I did that with Persona 5 at points, and Unicorn Overlord as well. I really appreciate that games provide this option.

Well crud, two recommendations? This is starting to feel compelling. Onto my wishlist it goes.

I solo'd my way through all the available Sunkenland content a few months ago so base building grindy survival is probably kind of my jam.