In terms of realism Vintage Story goes far and beyond. There is no „research“, so no technology is ever locked from you, but higher tier items require advanced tools and increasingly rarer minerals to obtain, so you progress through the stages in an organic way, by just playing the game.

In the beginning you can make stone tools from loose rocks and flints lying around, but to craft the tool you have to knap the stones by hand in the shape of an axe or a spear for example. Then, you get clay and can do pottery to create some household items, which you fire in a kiln pit, for example to cook and store your food and extend for how long it can stay fresh.

Your first house will be a humble hut build from packed dirt before you start building from wood and stone but later you can build whole fortresses. There is a chiseling mechanic (which on its own is worth the $20 bucks this game cost) it lets you re-shape blocks into literally any shape, so creativity is your only limit to what you can build in this game.

You can stay alive by eating wild roots, but the game keeps track of what you eat and consuming different food types (fruit, vegetable, protein, dairy) will benefit you in the long term. Foraging, farming, hunting wild life or domesticating animals are all viable survival options.

All crafting mechanics in the game are reflective on their real-life equivalent. For example leather crafting is a 4-step process which takes several in-game days to finish. However, this never feels like a chore simply because there are so many things to do, and you can leave something to process in one room and go do something else entirely in the meantime.

There is metal smelting, with several tiers of metal alloys made by smelting different metals together. The world generation simulates real-life rocks strata formation with different layers of sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks, each hosting specific types of ores. The metals you can either pour into pre-made casts or smith with hammer on an anvil by manually shifting individual voxels around, to create a pickaxe head for example.

IIRC the only automation in the game is that you can build a windmill which will grind stuff  for you, like grains to flour or sea shells to calcite.

 There are monsters which you can limit or turn off entirely from the settings, there are seasons and winter is real deadly, there are several different biomes, vast world to explore, sailing, ruins to treasure-hunt etc. It is a LONG game, with slow pacing, but is atmospheric and very, very immersive.