There are many reasons we love playing city building games: creativity with growing your own town, a sense of accomplishment when it flourishes, the ant farm aspect of it all. And good news for us, there’s a game for everything you can love about the genre.

But since we don’t have the time nor site space to list them all, let’s kick off with the 20 best of them!

 

20. New Cycle

New Cycle - Official Trailer

New Cycle is a (currently) early access city building game set to post-apocalyptic survival. Though it’s early access, it’s fully playable with promise of added features as the devs receive feedback from players. You can build freely or commit to a grid while taking your city from shanties of sticks to an industrial borough.

In the year 2073, the world really has gone downhill in this game. Natural disasters sit outside your city borders but unruly citizens, disease ridden rats, and uprisings are knocking at your door. While you can build outposts and systems to explore the desolate world, at this state why would you?

Morale management is a key factor to thriving. Once your city becomes more nuanced, you’ll be faced with tough decisions that either action will have dire consequences. Enacting certain laws will make people happier, but slow down economic progress. After a harsh snow storm, letting in new refugees would be  better morally than letting them die, but overpopulation could lead to starvation.

Thanks to the solar flares that caused all this, resources are already finite. As you build and develop, they become more scarce. Early players have cited the exploration feature of New Cycle gives it its own flavor while hoping the balance issues are fixed by full release.

 

A resource camp is a highly needed building in New Cycle.

19. Timborn

Timborn - Better Early Release Trailer

Another early access game, but unlike the previous game shrouded in misery, this setting is 10x more adorable with scientific beavers! Humans are all long gone and beavers have adapted, evolved, and taken it upon themselves to create a city worth something.

Complete with dealing with droughts, toxic waste spills, and general fumbling mishaps, you as the player take on the role of one of two beaver factions and contribute to the evolution of beaver society. Including terraforming the land to control river flow: irrigation for farming and learning water engineering with dams.

The whole point is to bring life back to this wasteland. Using beavers and robotic beavers. You can build mechanized beavers to be around the clock workers who don’t require hazard pay. Which gives more time to take proper care of your other beavers, gotta make sure they’re well fed and happy!

The little beavers hard away at building a new engineering feat.

18. Thronefall

Thronefall - Official Trailer

As developer intended, Thronefall is a minimalist kingdom building adventure both in graphics and mechanics. Players praise it for just this, reviewing that it gives the game a nostalgic feeling for tower defense games from the early 2000s.

You gather resources and build your kingdom in the daytime and defend it in the night. Currently, the game has 6 playable levels but you can go on endless hours of perfecting your strategies to get that next highscore.

For a simple wave defense game, the only complaint most players give is the shortness of the levels. But that does help play into their strength of replayability. Even if your first try works flawlessly, that doesn’t mean you can’t revisit later with a more nuanced strategy and see how it plays out.

 

Protect your rising kingdom from evaders at night.

 

17. Going Medieval

Going Medieval | Launch Trailer

Starting from scratch is a common theme in post-apocalyptic games. But Going Medieval isn’t set in fictional apocalypse times, rather than after the turn of the 15th century. A plague has wiped out most of the world and now you’re in charge of resetting a village.

Protect and defend is the main gameplay with researching weapons and gear to arm your villagers while you build up your defenses and stronghold. A stronghold that can span high into the clouds and stretch through numerous caverns in the ground.

What’s interesting in Going Medieval is true personification of your villagers. Each one has a history and agenda and you can play into their strengths when determining when and who to let into the town. They have specific behaviors and you can even observe their relationships with others.

 

Keeping track of your villagers moods with help keep them alive and the town thriving.

 

16. Northgard

Northgard Official Release Trailer

Fight for the throne in Norse mythology! Northgard is the newly discovered continent and your duty is to build a new settlement. Help your clan survive winters and lay conquest to opposing clans across this new land.

There’s three modes in Northgard: story, conquest, and multiplayer. Story follows the murder of the viking high king and his son takes it upon himself to retrieve the stolen horn. Conquest mode lets you choose your own clan and fight in generated situations and battles. This mode can also be co-op so multiplayer has that option as well as going against each other in challenges.

An RTS game with Civ vibes is what they were going for and most players agree. It’s slower paced when playing solo, which gives enough time to plan out your proper strategy, especially when it comes to the winter.

 

A beautiful landscape and atmosphere to match.

 

15. Foundation

Foundation 1.9.6 Update Trailer

While most city building games prey on an ongoing onslaught of dangers, the anxiety of any second can be the next great catastrophe that wipes out all of your progress, Foundation goes in the opposite direction. A laid back and organically built city in medieval times.

As the newly appointed owner of a patch of land, you can go at your own pace developing it. Rather than sticking to a grid system for zoning and placing buildings, Foundation has no such grid or limitations. Simply paint where you want paths, roads, farms, to your aesthetic and joy.

The building system is also freeform, so you can interlock buildings to your heart’s content and create something new and to your creative eye. The snap function is togglable, so even that isn’t restricted.

All this dangerfree: no impending doom, plague, conquests at your doorstep. You are building a town and having an easy time doing so.

 

The different buildings can be clipped through to create a unique town.

 

14. Stronghold: Definitive Edition

Stronghold: Definitive Edition - Launch Trailer (4K)

Another RTS with a civ feel is the newly rejuvenated version of the classic Stronghold. The original castle building game has been modernized and updated, but still kept to the vibe that made it special.

Set in medieval England following war, Stronghold features two campaigns packed with missions as you march across the country while building your own kingdom to keep out foes. Afterwards, there’s new scenarios to keep you busy and defending.

Also added is the multiplayer! In a ‘king of the hill’ style, up to 8 players can fight to keep hold of the center of the map for a set time to be declared winner. Though diehard fans mourn for the absence of AI opponents in multiplayer.

 

At any point, raiders will come to invade your kingdom, be prepared to defend.

 

13. Frostpunk

Frostpunk | Official Launch Trailer

If playing it safe and having a calm, collective fun experience is too Tame for you, Frostpunk can be the next great challenge. A society survival game where every life loss can be detrimental to the city’s wellbeing. And not just the city’s, but humanity as a whole.

Set in a post-apocalyptic frozen landscape, you’ve been tasked with building humanity’s last final stand as a civilization. Empathy plays as huge a role as basic survival. Rash decisions can be fatal as you have your own species’s survival riding on your shoulders.

As your city grows, keeping it running smoothly while not risking the safety of your citizens becomes more and more difficult. Especially when it comes to a standstill and your only option to advance and grow is to venture out into the deathly landscape.

 

Propaganda plays a part in Frostpunk in keeping civilization peaceful.

 

12. Pioneers of Pagonia

Pioneers of Pagonia: Early Access Release Trailer (English)

With so many city building games that focus on an “us vs them” mindset, Pioneers of Pagonia takes the page of exploration and making peace with others a priority. While there are still enemies to encounter, bringing together those who are lost and creating more island towns is key.

An economy that can flourish to thousands of inhabitants, the nation of Pagnia is the setting where you start your town and continue to build and claim land. Typical mechanics of city building games with populating and protecting.

It hits the classic building vibes with some funky controls that come with the early access status. Overall, the general consensus is the beautiful graphics and a lovely homage to the Settlers.

Villagers can have their own shops to contribute to the economy.

 

11. Kingdoms Reborn

Kingdoms Reborn - Trailer | City-builder with Multiplayer and Open World

Rather than sticking to one way of life to start your city, Kingdoms Reborn gives you the option to start across multiple types of regions and cultures. A tlatoa forest? Sure! Desert norsemen? Why not!

Similar to Civ, you take your city through the ages as new challenges present themselves to you. The biomes themselves have their own difficulties and each culture has a unique gameplay. So every combination gives you a new experience.

Multiplayer gives the option of either challenging your friends in advancement or collaborating up to 18 players! So you can gather the friends you already have AND invite new ones who also love the game.

 

Buildings from every age can coexist with the right mindset and gameplay.

 

10. The Universim

The Universim 1.0 Full Release Gameplay Trailer

Widely known as “god simulator”, Universim gives you the power to do just that. You have the whole scope of power: from multiple planets handpicked by you, all the way down to the smallest civilizations on each ball of rock.

Each planet of nuggets you help advance through the ages until they’re ready for space exploration. Trading and utilizing each planet’s ecosystem is a balancing game and your nuggets will be the guiding force. The galaxy is all your own to live as you see fit.

You don’t even have to advance them! It’s your universe, you can send every single last nugget deep into the Dark Ages and cause an ecological disaster to take them all out. The edges of the Milky Way are your limits.

 

Natural disasters exist on every planet.

 

9. Against the Storm

Against the Storm - 1.0 Launch Trailer

Another post-apocalyptic navigation sim where mutated creatures and hostile environments are worse than the apocalypse.

Navigate through a desolate landscape while emphasizing resource management and decision making to keep your team alive. You have to scavenge for supplies and make choices that heavily impact your survival, whether it’s obvious or not.

 

Uniquely designed creatures will attack at any vantage point.

 

8. Farthest Frontier

Farthest Frontier - Gameplay Trailer

“I became a bee tycoon in this survival city builder, then lost my fortune to a perfect heist.” This reviewer summed it up best, this game certainly can throw you for a loop.

Farthest Frontier takes place in the untamed wild during ye olde cowboy days. The settlers you manage are starting from scratch on everything: food, supplies, weapons, hunting. What this game focuses on though, is the farming and crafting aspects. Even farming is strategic in every detail: what you plant when and where, what’s next to each other, monitor soil levels, and prevent damage.

Environmental interaction is important not just with farming, but in tree coverage for the water supplies, fencing to prevent food tampering. All of this to help the town thrive while protecting them from them old-timey diseases like dysentery and cholera.

 

Resources are a plenty at 1pm then scarce at 2pm.

 

7. Anno 1800

Anno 1800: Season 4 Pass Trailer | Ubisoft [NA]

Anno 1800 is all about the industrial revolution: the turn of the new age and the real start of invention innovation! You build an empire in the 18th century while making a name for yourself that history will remember you for.

Developers took the best received elements and mechanics from past Anno games and implemented them into this installment. Returned players most notably remarking the trade shipping, randomly generated maps, and the ability to establish multiple production lines.

There’s a campaign storyline, a sandbox for you to create the largest worldwide empire, and a multiplayer mode where you can either join the same faction and rise the ranks together or fight to the virtual death in your opposing empires.

Peaceful protesters can be a handful, be sure to decide if you're friend or foe to them.

 

6. Kingdoms & Castles

Kingdoms and Castles | Official Trailer | Coming to Xbox December 1

A cute and simple kingdom simulator, Kingdoms & Castles has the balance of making your subjects happy and safe while reasonably keeping the place running.

Typical of a city build game of its type: build and fortify the walls to keep out raiders. Strategically place buildings to make things efficient, but in a way the peasants will be happy with. If they hate it, just throw a festival and raise that meter!

What’s unique is the living world mechanic. Sending out cutters to gather wood and supplies is necessary. And out beyond the kingdom walls is a realistic forest, complete with growing in time to the seasonal cycle. So be sure to be conservative and mindful with your resource gathering.

 

Polygons as people and treat them the same way.

 

5. Prison Architect

Prison Architect Official Gameplay

Not the first game you think of when you read “city building”, but all the same elements are still present. Prison Architect gives you the role of designing and managing a prison that can be as forgiving or lethal as you want.

The game praises itself on having customized confinement (everyone is in solitary until the end of their days or free roam in the yard 24/7), investing and innovation (use your government-allowed money responsibly and help rehabilitate), and a loose definition of ethical when it comes to management.

End goal is whatever you want it to be. Either rehabilitate a revolving door of inmates or throw a never ending supply of inmates into one cell and have the world’s most efficient execution death row.

There’s also a multiplayer mode that supports up to 8 players to maximize your efforts to build your maximum security prison.

 

Flip the script from The Escapists!

 

4. Planet Zoo

Planet Zoo | Launch Trailer

Live out your childhood dream of building a zoo and add every animal possible! Or have several enclosures with only penguins, whatever you want, it’s your zoo!

You can either choose to follow a campaign or let your imagination run wild in sandbox mode. Either way, you get all the responsibilities and goals of real life zoos: create and maintain unique habitats for all kinds of animals, manage finances, nurture and care for all the species you have, and deal with daily protesters.

Planet Zoo has two additional modes to give you an end goal: franchise and challenge. Franchise adds in player trading, making the market a key focus with supply and demand. Also gives you a good reason to make breeding a priority.

Meanwhile, challenge mode is for those achievements chasers who just don’t dig dealing with other players in franchise mode. Since Planet Zoo currently has no multiplayer feature, franchise is the only way to play alongside friends.

 

If the protesters won't accept your bribe, just delete the fence!

 

3. Cities: Skylines I

Cities: Skylines - Release Trailer

Cities Skylines is 9 years old this year and has been renowned as a staple of the city building genre. Building a city of your own design from the ground up and keeping it afloat while resource managing, it takes concentration aplenty to succeed.

Choosing from a variety of maps that each have their own strengths and weaknesses, you can then use an abundance of tools to build the city of your dreams. Conflict in Cities Skylines comes from financial troubles, balancing population with work opportunities, and natural disasters.

Everything a mayor can dictate, you as the player are in charge of. Taxes? Raise ‘em or ban ‘em! Policies? Free healthcare or cars banned. Even the day and night cycle plays a part in how citizens live.

Prove to your Civics teacher that you were paying attention in class.

 

2. Tropico 6

Tropico 6 - Gameplay Trailer (US)

“El presidente is back!”

Have you ever watched current politics and think “I should try that out on an isolated island and try my Best”? No? Yes? Either way, Tropico 6 puts you in the perfect position to do just that. You take it upon yourself to be a fearless leader in your chosen island state. A position where you can either be a ruthless dictator or a beloved statesman.

Your objective is to make the island thrive with the resources it naturally has, even if you have gone to dictator heaven. There’s no campaign or official story mode

Added to this 6th edition in the series is the global recognition and election speeches. While you’re sending out spies and agents out into the world to steal artifacts and the literal Statue of Liberty, you can give public speeches to your subjects about how lucky they are to have you as a leader.

 

Dictator or loving overlord? You decide!

 

1. RimWorld

RimWorld Launch Trailer

Not many games will have the fans pleading with newcomers to not read a single thing on the game beforehand; just download and go. No tips, tricks, or guides. They want you to experience it organically and for good reason.

Rimworld is a sci-fi colony sim, giving you the chance to take a select three characters with you to your new colony then try to survive. Give the villagers tasks and roles, round up animals, and handle the dead. Villagers will follow their roles and zones to keep the colony going.

What’s fun is the parts where you can go completely off the rails! Harvest prisoners’ organs and use them for food. Set fellow colonies on fire. Start a cannibal cult, even. Galaxy’s the limit.

Those villagers may end up bloodthirsty creatures, but hey! They're your bloodthirsty creatures.