MINTROCKET’s next project is a Godzilla game, which is exciting news for everyone except the people still waiting for Dave the Diver 2. Dave’s loop — dive for fish in the daytime, run a sushi restaurant by night, and slowly turn both jobs into a bigger version of themselves — was the cozy hybrid breakout of 2023 because the two halves actually fit together. There is no direct sequel on the calendar yet, and the studio’s bandwidth is going to Kaiju now. These are the seven Dave the Diver alternatives we keep running on PC and Mac while we wait.
Quick comparison
| Game | Best for | Mood | Starting price | Standout |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moonlighter | Run-the-shop loop | Crisp pixel-art roguelite | About $20 | Pricing items by reading customer faces |
| Spiritfarer | Cozy management with a heart | Side-scrolling cozy | About $30 | Letting characters say goodbye |
| Stardew Valley | The genre’s gold standard | Pastoral pixel-art | About $15 | Six in-game years of content |
| Coral Island | Modern Stardew with a reef | Polished 3D | About $30 | Diving and ocean cleanup are core systems |
| Dredge | Lovecraft-flavored fishing | Atmospheric horror-lite | About $25 | Catching things you should not |
| Diving Deep: Lost in Caves | Pure dive-craft-survive | Underwater | About $20 | Solo-survival underwater |
| Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale | Old-school shopkeeper loop | JRPG pixel-art | About $20 | Negotiating prices with picky customers |
Why people look past Dave the Diver
The game still holds up, but the loop has shape and a ceiling.
The dive loop gets repetitive in the late midgame. By the third zone, the dive cycle is “go down, fight known bosses, surface” with diminishing surprises.
The restaurant minigame is light. Once recipes are unlocked and staff are levelled, serving rounds become rhythmic rather than challenging. The decision-making peak is early.
The platforms are PC and consoles, not Linux native or Steam Deck Verified across the board. Steam Deck runs Dave well via Proton; native Linux is not supported.
No co-op. The single-player frame is the whole frame. Plenty of players asked for a friend-on-the-counter mode that never came.
MINTROCKET’s next game is Godzilla. The team is moving on. A direct sequel feels unlikely in the next eighteen months.
The alternatives
Moonlighter — Best for the run-the-shop loop
Moonlighter is Digital Sun’s pixel-art roguelite where the daytime is a shop and the night is a dungeon run. The two halves trade goods cleanly: you find loot in the dungeon, you set prices in the morning by reading customer expressions, and your earnings level up your gear for tomorrow’s run.
Where it falls short: Combat is solid but not deep. The dungeon variety taps out by the fourth biome.
Pricing:
- Free: occasional weekend
- Paid: about $20 base, often under $5 on sale
- vs Dave the Diver: tighter shop loop, looser daytime
Bottom line: Pick Moonlighter if running the restaurant half of Dave the Diver was your favorite part.
Spiritfarer — Best for cozy management with a heart
Spiritfarer is Thunder Lotus’s “cozy management about death”. You build a boat that grows into a floating village, take spirits aboard, learn what they want, and eventually take each of them through the Everdoor. The crafting loop is gentle; the writing is not.
Where it falls short: Backtracking late game can drag. Some quests time-gate around real hours of play.
Pricing:
- Free: occasional weekend
- Paid: about $30 base, regular sales
- vs Dave the Diver: similar build-up-and-care-for-this-place loop, much softer pacing
Bottom line: Pick Spiritfarer when the parts of Dave the Diver you remember are the slow afternoons, not the sharks.
Stardew Valley — Best for the genre’s gold standard
Stardew Valley is still the high-water mark for cozy management. ConcernedApe added a fishing minigame, an underwater cavern, and several years’ worth of free updates, including the recent 1.6 expansion. The fishing is closer to Dave’s diving than any other game on this list.
Where it falls short: It is a farming sim first. If diving and combat were the parts you wanted more of, Stardew dilutes them.
Pricing:
- Free: occasional bundle
- Paid: about $15 base
- vs Dave the Diver: vastly more content, ocean is a side dish
Bottom line: Pick Stardew if you somehow have not played it. Otherwise, replay it on the Switch in handheld and pick another game on this list for PC.
Coral Island — Best for modern Stardew with a reef
Coral Island is Stairway Games’s 3D follow-up to the Stardew formula. The diving is closer to Dave’s than Stardew’s is — full reef exploration, ocean cleanup, real underwater fauna — and the farming half is polished too.
Where it falls short: Performance on low-end hardware is uneven. The romance and social system has rough edges in some patches.
Pricing:
- Free: occasional demo
- Paid: about $30 base
- vs Dave the Diver: similar diving feel, with full farming on top
Bottom line: Pick Coral Island if “Stardew but with the diving turned up” is the actual ask.
Dredge — Best for Lovecraft-flavored fishing
Dredge is Black Salt Games’s atmospheric fishing horror. You sail a single-mast trawler around a coastal archipelago, catching increasingly wrong-looking fish for an increasingly worrying market. The day-night cycle is a pressure system, not flavor.
Where it falls short: Combat is minimal. Some players bounce off the slow start; others say the slow start is the point.
Pricing:
- Free: occasional weekend
- Paid: about $25 base, regular DLC
- vs Dave the Diver: same “fishing as the heart of the game” loop, much darker
Bottom line: Pick Dredge when Dave’s bossy sharks were the part you wanted, plus a slow tide of dread.
Diving Deep: Lost in Caves — Best for solo underwater survival
Diving Deep: Lost in Caves is a smaller indie that strips Dave the Diver down to the dive and survive half. No restaurant; just oxygen, light, and a slowly improving rig. Procedural caves keep the loop from getting stale.
Where it falls short: Production value is below MINTROCKET’s. The story is thin and there is no town to come back to.
Pricing:
- Free: demo on Steam
- Paid: about $20 base
- vs Dave the Diver: pure dive loop, no shop layer
Bottom line: Pick Diving Deep when the night shift at the sushi bar was the part of Dave the Diver you skipped.
Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale — Best for old-school shopkeeper loop
Recettear is the 2010 cult classic that taught a generation of indie devs that “run a shop” could be a whole game. Negotiate with picky customers, mark up dungeon loot, dodge a deadline — the rhythm still works fifteen years later.
Where it falls short: Resolution and UI are dated. The dungeon-run side is the weakest part.
Pricing:
- Free: occasional weekend
- Paid: about $20 base, often under $5
- vs Dave the Diver: similar two-halves design, less polish, more personality
Bottom line: Pick Recettear when “the cash register part of Dave the Diver, in pixel art” is the real ask.
How to choose
Pick Moonlighter for the cleanest distillation of the day-and-night shop-and-dungeon split.
Pick Spiritfarer when you want a cozy management game with real emotional weight.
Pick Coral Island for the modern Stardew that takes its reef seriously.
Pick Dredge for a slow tide of dread instead of a dive boss.
Stay with Dave the Diver if a New Game Plus and the Ichi-Bar mode are still on the to-do list, since both add real content on top of the main story.
FAQ
Is Dave the Diver getting a sequel?
There is no confirmed sequel. MINTROCKET has announced a Godzilla project as its next major game.
Does Dave the Diver run on macOS?
Yes. Dave the Diver supports macOS and Windows natively, with Steam Deck Verified status via Proton.
What is the most direct Dave the Diver alternative?
Moonlighter is the closest fit if the shop-and-dungeon split is the heart of it. Coral Island is closer if the diving is the heart.
Are any Dave the Diver alternatives free?
Most have demos on Steam, but none of the seven listed are permanently free. Watch for Steam free weekends and the seasonal sales for Moonlighter, Recettear, and Dredge.
Which alternative has the best fishing minigame?
Dredge for atmosphere, Stardew Valley for sheer volume, and Coral Island for the closest match to Dave the Diver’s underwater pacing.
