City-building games come in many shapes and sizes, from relaxing, practically therapeutic sims to anxiety-inducing micro-management titles, but which among them are the best city-building games? From SimCity to Caesar, from defending against hordes of enemies, to just sitting back and watching your metropolis grow, we’ve listed some of the best city-building games of all time and used insights from around the internet to back up and prove our point.
Here are the best city-building games that you can download to play right now.
Image Credit: Sierra
One of the oldest games on the list, but still one of the best, Caesar III is considered by some the peak of the Sierra city building game series that included Pharaoh, Zeus: Master of Olympus, and Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom. Dynamically build your Roman metropolis catering to the needs of your citizens, while fending off barbarian attacks, and obeying the whims of Caesar.
But don’t take it from us. Reddit user gaspergou summed up some of the reasons this game is so captivating:
“For anyone who enjoys city builders, I can’t recommend it enough. The challenges of resource distribution, trade, and defense require meticulous grid planning and careful micromanagement. Easily one of the best games of the genre.”
Image Credit: 3Division
While the title might put many prospective players off the game, this really is a unique city builder that tasks players with building the kind of city you’d only see in former Soviet cities. Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic is filled with tenements, concrete buildings, and industrial planning.
“Currently the best high-complexity city builder out there. It’s finicky, has some unexplained mechanics, but is refreshingly fascinating in its complexity. This is the one I keep coming back to as its vision of urban and industrial planning with a focus on the logistics of building and maintaining a society and its physical infrastructure are a gorgeous look at a slice of mundane reality around us.”
Image Credit: Gamatron AB
A fantasy world experience like no other, Songs of Syx is closer to a civilization builder than a city builder. Take control of one of a dozen unique races and factions who inhabit the world and then build them from a tiny village to a continent spanning empire. This is a city-state simulator that builds surprises with its depth an minutiae. With “Overwhelmingly Positive” reviews on Steam from over 5,000 satisfied players, this relatively unknown city builder game is definitely worth picking up. Just read the reviews:
Image Credit: Valve
Image Credit: Bay 12/Kitfox Games
With literal decades of development and a legacy of captivating ‘Let’s Play’ series behind it, Dwarf Fortress isn’t just a city building game, it’s a fantasy world simulator with the unofficial motto of “losing is fun!”
In the Reddit thread “Best City Building Games” on r/ShouldIbuythisgame, user stefanos_paschalis explained that “Best? Dwarf Fortress No Question.” User GoodOldSnek added the following :
“This is the best game I ever played I bought the steam version last Monday. I haven’t had this much fun in years. To be honest not since I was 15 and got a RuneScape membership. I now understand why people kept playing even when it looked like the computers from the Matrix movie. The game is full of intricacies and it doesn’t give to you in a platter like other games which are so preoccupied about the player leaving that they spoil everything.”
I’ve played this game myself for almost 10 years, and can tell you it’s one of the most unique titles ever committed to code, and an experience everyone should have.
Image Credit: Ludeon Studios
Inspired, spiritually and conceptually, by Dwarf Fortress, RimWorld is a more accessible and a manageable version of the above, with a sci-fi twist. Prefer a more nuanced and balanced story-telling style, where the game doesn’t put you in no-win scenarios? RimWorld is probably for you.
User xoexohoexox
“Rimworld is like a simplified, stripped down dwarf fortress. Dwarf Fortress basically born the management simulation genre and a lot of rimworlds mechanics are outright stolen from dwarf fortress (as they should be when you birth a genre). The re’s a lot you’ll recognize (the Royalty system for example) and a lot you won’t (the byzantine military/training/burrows system), but it is all an order of magnitude more complicated.”
Image Credit: Ubisoft
Anno’s more organic development style may put some people off, but there’s no finer simulator of 19th century trade and progress than this. Anno 1800 takes the lessons learned from many of the other games in the series, and gives players one of the deepest simulations of historical city life there is. What’s more, the cities you create are genuinely beautiful, in a way that’s hard to find in other builders.
Sitting at “Very Positive” on Steam, with over 23,000 positive reviews, this is one of the most played and most enjoyed city builders on the platform.
Image Credit: Valve
Image Credit: EA/Maxis
SimCity is commonly considered the game that started it all for city builders, and SimCity 4 is the pinnacle of the series. Stylish isometric graphics, all the systems and intricacies you’d expect from a masterful city builder. Despite being a now-aging title, we’d fully recommend trying this classic.
On Reddit, a thread entitled “Why Simcity 4 is a masterpiece despite its flaws and there will be nothing like it” went into more detail :
“I’ve been a fan of SimCity ever since the Windows 95 computer my dad bought me had included classic games such as Pitfall and SimCity 2000 Deluxe Edition(where you can go in and create custom buildings).
I was always a careful planner and when I was 10 years old the first city took 3 months to fill less than quarter of the map. I still have those stored in a floppy disk somewhere. Took pride in 0% employment.”
A classic game that has to be experienced.
Image Credit: 11 bit studios
Adding a rogue-like element to the city builder genre, Frostpunk combined survival aspects into your metropolis building, and doing so created a compelling game that tasked you not just with constructing the city, but helping humanity survive. Making hard decisions is just part of the game with Frostpunk, and you’ll have to weather famines, plagues, and deaths while making morally questionable choices.
Here’s what one Steam reviewer had to stay:
Image Credit: Valve
Image Credit: Slavic Magic
Bursting into the scene in 2024, and promptly being nominated for a Game Award , Manor Lords is a single developer creation that simulates creating and surviving in the 14th century. With a medieval backdrop, in-depth city building, large-scale battles, and a complex economic system behind it, there’s nothing quite like Manor Lords on the market.
With a “Very Positive” review score from the almost 60k reviewers on Steam, this is one of the most beloved titles on the platform, and before its release was its most-wishlisted title. It’s still in early access, so its hard (and perhaps unfair) to give it a full review, but gamers and reviewers alike adore this city builder.
Image Credit: Colossal Order Ltd.
The benchmark by which all other modern city building games are held, Cities Skylines usurped SimCity’s throne and improved it in almost every conceivable way. Setting the gold standard for city builders, Skylines makes managing industry, traffic flow, and city planning a joy, all with a simple, modern, and intuitive control system. While the sequel leveled up the graphics, we’d recommend sticking with the original, because of the huge quantity of content and more polished systems.
A subreddit of almost 600,000 players adores the original, and many haven’t made the switch. Here’s what EmployerLast2184 said about it :
“I just don’t see enough from CS2 that makes it worth playing over the 1st. I’m huge on biking infrastructure and that being missing is a huge loss.
Missing animations, small things like fences, all just add up to make the experience lacking for me. It’s not bad and I like some the new additions it’s just not enough to make me launch the CS2 over CS1.”
Looking for something specific? We’ve put together a table to help you find the ideal city builder for you:
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