Metal detecting games?

The state of metal-detecting games

Metal-detecting in games has come a long way from novelty minigames to a bona fide sub-genre with its own vibes: slow, thoughtful, and oddly meditative. If you fancy some beeps with your beach walks — without the mud on your boots — here’s where to start.

Let’s begin at home. Morgan: Metal Detective is the newest and the most British of the bunch: a cosy first-person wander across a fictional Cornish island, helping locals find lost items while untangling a gentle, personal mystery. It launched on 30 July 2025 and, as an indie debut, it’s picking up Mostly Positive user reviews on Steam — early days, but the mood is warm. Think postcards, tape decks, and that very specific West Country light at golden hour. If you want “detectorist as community helper” rather than “grindy loot treadmill,” this is the one to watch. Steam Store

If you’d prefer a self-contained story, The Magnificent Trufflepigs serves up metal-detecting as a narrative device rather than a career. Designed to be finished in an evening, it’s set on an English farm and trades in quiet chats, rural fields, and the small dramas that stick to people like burrs to a jumper. Critics were split but broadly cordial (Metacritic sits in the mid-60s), with praise for the atmosphere and voice acting alongside mutters about a thin ending. If your idea of a good night is a thermos, a field, and feelings, you’ll vibe with it. MetacriticGodisaGeek.comGamecritics.com

On the “sim” side, Treasure Hunter Simulator is the most visible, originally released on PC in 2018 and ported to Switch in 2025. It walks a line between arcade and simulation: you upgrade detectors, tour photogenic maps, and pull up everything from bottle caps to curios. Reception is firmly mixed — many players enjoy the scenery and the chilled loops, others bounce off the repetition and progression gating. The Switch re-release suggests there’s life in it yet, especially for couch-mode pottering. Steam StoreNintendo of Europe SE

Then there are the scrappier indies. Awesome Metal Detecting (2017) has that “two mates and a dream” energy. Reviews are also mixed, but if you’re curious about the early days of Steam’s detecting experiments, it’s a tiny time capsule worth an evening. Metal Detecting Simulator (2022) is a 2D overhead oddity with shops, plots of land, and a shoestring charm — very niche, very cheap, very experimental. Treasure Hunter VR (2023) does exactly what it says for PCVR owners: headset on, coil to soil, beep-dig-repeat. None of these reinvent the loop, but between them you’ll find comfy, cheap thrills. Steam Store+2Steam Store+2

Outside the pure detecting titles, several big hitters borrow the mechanic nicely. Red Dead Online adds a Metal Detector to the Collector role; it changes the pace of the frontier into something almost contemplative as you sweep for coins and fossils between gunfights — proof that even an outlaw appreciates a measured grid-search. Red Dead Wiki

In survival land, Raft’s Metal Detector lets you tease treasure from sandy islands — titanium, tiki trinkets, and more. It’s a neat moment of grounded, tactile searching in a game otherwise obsessed with oceanic improvisation. If you bounced off open-water stress, island mooching with a detector might be the tonic. raft.fandom.com

Rust goes harder: its Metal Detector is a meta-shifter in early wipes, a risky way to turn a beach stroll into a jackpot — or an ambush. It’s less “cosy afternoon” and more “keep your head on a swivel.” RustHelp.com

So what’s the overall lay of the land? Detecting games lean towards relaxation—scenery, gentle loops, and the dopamine of a good signal. The trade-off is repetition: sims that mimic real detecting inherit the hobby’s ratios of junk to joy. That’s why the standouts either embed the mechanic inside a human story (Trufflepigs), a place with personality (Morgan’s Cornish island), or a broader survival sandbox (Raft). The weakest entries tend to mistake “authentic” for “grindy” without adding texture or surprise.

For a UK audience, the appeal is obvious. We’ve got the right fields, the right skies, the right folklore about what’s under the turf. Games that respect that rhythm — the hush before a dig, the tiny thrill of a good TID, the ethics of what you do with a find — feel closer to the real romance of detecting than spreadsheets about XP or rarity colour-coding ever could.

If you want a quick recommendation path: story first? Trufflepigs. Cosy British islander? Morgan. Simmy sightseeing? Treasure Hunter Simulator. Survival spice? Raft. PvP chaos gremlin? Rust. And if you’re just detector-curious, those scrappy indies are a cheap way to get your ear in.

One final nudge: don’t judge these games by raw percentages alone. Read a couple of reviews, decide whether you want a reflective evening or a long-haul loop, and pick the one that matches your headspace this week. That’s true to the hobby, too — detecting’s best reward is the walk.