Rock Paper Shotgun praised the world generation, animations, and modding. A critic found the content of Vintage Story to be a more atmospheric survival experience compared to Minecraft which 'is far too tame to be believable.' After the release of the Seasons Update in 2020, Gaming On Linux praised the game mechanics as 'rewarding' and having a 'surprising amount of depth', despite having to play through a 'slow and difficult' start. Power Up Gaming was impressed with the way it handles crafting and inventory management, noting that the game fixes all the 'nagging problems that everyone has' in other open-world survival block-based games by allowing the player to open multiple menus at the same time and interact with items more naturally. Vintage Story has been praised by critics as having impressive depth and being on a completely different level to other block-based survival games. One of the most popular features of the game is its modding API, which is praised for its flexibility and quality.

A majority of the game’s code is under a readable source code license on the Anego Studios GitHub. Most of the game’s programming was done by Tyron Madlener, with contributions from several open source contributors. The game is written in C# using OpenTK and a fork of the ManicDigger game engine. Infinite worlds with realistic biomes and randomly generated structures provide an engaging player experience. Another focus of gameplay is exploration.

Other aspects of gameplay include prospecting for minerals and ores, animal husbandry and farming, and building. For example, in order to create a clay bowl, players place small voxels into the shape of a bowl. Creating many items revolves around interacting with the in-game world instead of a GUI. Gameplay is generally focused on creating a realistic and immersive experience. The player character is a tall blue humanoid, referred to as a seraph by the game and developers. The game is in early access and can be played in singleplayer or multiplayer modes. An old version of the game is available for free download. The founders of Anego Studios, Tyron and Irena Madlener, began development on a standalone version of an earlier mod for Minecraft called Vintagecraft. Vintage Story is a sandbox survival game developed and published by Anego Studios.

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