The 20 Best City Building Games

With its deep scope and levels of customization, Cities: Skylines is an excellent entry in the city simulation genre. The game's powerful creation tools let you sculpt meticulously detailed cities from the ground up and advanced traffic systems, district policies, and extensive mod support give you unmatched control over your growing metropolis. Even years after its release, Cities: Skylines remains the premier city builder thanks to its active community and continued developer support. With a sequel officially announced, Cities: Skylines II is set to build on everything that made the original great while bringing improved graphics and simulation, giving fans of the franchise much to look forward to.

Though over 15 years old (as of 2023), SimCity 4 remains a defining city builder thanks to its charming tilt-shift visuals, robust creation tools that empower intricate region sculpting, and advanced simulation mechanics that capture the complex balancing act of urban planning and infrastructure growth. Recent successors owe an undeniable debt to the strong foundation laid by SimCity 4, and the game still has an active modding community that helps to further your enhance creative freedom. Nearly two decades later, this classic still serves as a quintessential entry point into virtual city-building, making it a landmark worth revisiting for any aspiring virtual city planner.

Tropico 6 stands out as the pinnacle of tongue-in-cheek dictatorship simulators, with vibrant archipelagos overflowing with humor and personality realized through gorgeous visuals. You'll need to perform a delicate balancing act weighing citizen needs against global diplomacy and morally ambiguous policies. While most city builders lean serious, Tropico 6's satirical take provides a delightfully refreshing change of pace, with extensive customization options that let you craft an island utopia catered to your play style. Improved mechanics build on Tropico 5's successes to deliver the most polished gameplay yet, with extensive post-launch DLC providing engaging new challenges. For veterans and newcomers alike, Tropico 6 is undoubtedly the finest way to experience a few hours of light-hearted totalitarian escapism in a charming Caribbean setting.

Anno 1800 masterfully blends economic strategy, real-time combat, and supply chain management, challenging you to efficiently construct an industrial empire. In this city building game, you must optimize production chains and trade routes between urban centers and rural farming villages spread across procedurally generated maps. Anno 1800 excels at interweaving city planning, economic growth, and naval combat into one smooth, addictive gameplay loop that rewards efficiently expanding your industrial might. Thanks to diverse biomes and the franchise’s most polished mechanics yet, Anno 1800 stands out as the most well-rounded title in the enduring Anno franchise.

Though simple in presentation, Banished is a meaty city builder that focuses on resource management and population growth. Slow, careful expansion is critical to balancing food, housing, jobs, and citizen happiness. Years of patches have smoothed early roughness, providing a relaxed yet still challenging experience and its soothing background audio and mellow gameplay pace make it easy to lose hours to optimization. While lacking some of the more comprehensive features of other city building games, Banished excels at making village growth feel personal. This is an intimate, rewarding option for those seeking a thoughtful town-building experience.

Frostpunk adeptly marries city management with survival in its grim, frozen post-apocalyptic setting. Scavenging resources while huddled around massive heat generators is key to surviving the icy wastes and the game's branching research trees and ethical dilemmas deepen your engagement as you try to maintain hope among your people. Coupled with a strong art direction and worldbuilding, this city building game creates an immersive, harrowing atmosphere, although its gameplay loop can become a bit repetitive. Even so, Frostpunk excels at making survival feel impactful rather than mechanical. While bleak, it stands out as a compelling, more serious city builder. With Frostpunk 2 on the horizon, fans can look forward to returning to this chilling city survival experience with new features and improved graphics.

In contrast to some other entries in the city building genre, Townscaper provides a meditative, relaxing town-painting experience. With simple controls and tools, you can quickly construct picturesque island villages. The game's charming low-poly aesthetic rewards the creativity of design over optimization and its seamless transitions between build modes enable you to experiment fluidly without interruption. While lacking complex simulation or progression, Townscaper excels at fostering a relaxing, creative experience, taking this unconventional town builder away from the stressful management mechanics of other city building games. 

Medieval Dynasty provides a uniquely tranquil take on city building by dropping you into medieval Europe to construct your settlement from the ground up. Starting as a lone peasant, you must gather resources and recruit followers to slowly transform ragtag shacks into a prospering village and balance survival tasks like feeding villagers and expanding family legacies. You advance through the game by building important skills like hunting, farming, and diplomacy to ensure growth while managing relations with neighboring fiefdoms. While serene in ambiance, the looming threat of conflict and survival makes the game's progression engaging. With full mod support and continued improvements, Medieval Dynasty stands out as a city builder focused on growing your medieval hamlet through the generations.

Surviving Mars delivers a refreshing take on city building by challenging you to establish functional colonies on the surface of the red planet. Unique dome structures provide enclosed, controlled environments amid the lifeless Martian landscape for your cities to take root. Keeping your colonists alive by balancing oxygen, water, food production, and living space presents plenty of challenges. While repetitive at times, mysteries to uncover and branching research trees provide engrossing depth. Despite some roughness around the edges, Surviving Mars succeeds at making the colonization of Mars a true frontier survival experience, with mod support further expanding possibilities for this extraterrestrial city builder.

Anno 2070 brought the acclaimed Anno city building series into a climate change-ravaged futuristic setting. As the leader of an eco-progressive faction, you must construct sustainable underwater or arctic settlements while balancing production chains, resources, and real-time strategy naval combat. Anno 2070 provides a noteworthy change from previous entries with its near-future setting, though expansions are required to add deeper late-game content. While representing a solid step forward for the franchise at the time, Anno 1800 has since perfected the series’ formula, making it the definitive Anno experience. Yet Anno 2070 remains an intriguing entry in the renowned city builder franchise for fans craving a departure from historic settings and looking to explore different types of city building mechanics.

Dawn of Man provides a uniquely prehistoric take on the city builder genre by challenging you to guide a Stone Age tribe through the ages. Starting with nomadic hunter-gatherers, you must strategically scout the wilderness, gather resources, research primitive technologies, and construct permanent settlements. Managing population needs, food sources, resource gathering, and tribe morale is key to surviving harsh winters, animal attacks, and rival clans, with the primitive setting providing an original spin on the city builder. Despite simplicity of graphics and systems, Dawn of Man aptly captures the struggle of building the foundation of civilization in a harsh but beautiful Stone Age world worth exploring for those seeking alternate takes on urban development origins.

With its frigid Norse setting and survival-focused city building, Frozenheim stands out as a chillingly addictive settlement simulator. As clan chief, you’ll need to carefully manage resources, building layouts, job assignments, and raid preparedness to ensure your Vikings can thrive. "Permadeath" for clan members makes each decision carry weight, the rich environments are enriched & amplified by atmospheric music, and the excellent sound design makes inhabiting this harsh tundra realm a memorable experience. Streamlined mechanics reduce micromanagement frustration while still providing plenty of challenges. Frozenheim’s creative take on Norse colony survival gives aspiring chieftains exactly what they're seeking in this fresh Nordic city builder.

Against the Storm provides a unique take on the city building genre by blending village construction with roguelite elements. Each attempt challenges you to carefully expand your settlement across randomly generated maps while managing resources, technology research, and survival during the titular Storm season. Permadeath of villagers raises the stakes and balancing expansion with fortifying defenses provides a satisfying risk-reward dilemma. The stylized art and ambiance create an inviting world to continually rebuild in. While accessibility options reduce the difficulty, Against the Storm rewards those seeking a more punishing city builder. Its smart fusion of city development and roguelite survival makes Against the Storm a standout for those craving innovation in growing and safeguarding their cities.

The definitive entry in the City Building series, Caesar 3 challenges players to grow Roman settlements from military encampments into sprawling urban centers. You must balance needs like housing, food, amenities, and employment to keep your citizens content and expand imperial power. Caesar 3 excels at rewarding efficient city layouts to meet population demands and its charming voxel graphics have aged well, bringing historic Roman life to vivid detail. While complex, the strategic satisfaction of balancing urban needs is addictive. Caesar 3 remains the quintessential ancient Roman city builder over two decades later for its depth, attention to historic detail, and engrossing progression that allows you to transform Rome from a remote frontier camp to a grand imperial capital.

A remake of the classic Pharaoh, Pharaoh: A New Era brings the definitive ancient Egyptian city builder into the modern age. As the spiritual successor to Caesar 3, you must once again transform humble villages into glorious cities, balancing housing, amenities, jobs, resources, and more for your growing population. Intricate hieroglyphic UI and improved visuals help to immerse you in the authentic Egyptian setting while some new quality-of-life features streamline gameplay while retaining engaging depth and challenge. Pharaoh: A New Era indulges the fantasy of ascending from settler to architect of awe-inspiring monuments even more seamlessly than the original. With the same addictive progression along with a fresh coat of paint, Pharaoh: A New Era is the optimal way to leave an imperial mark on the sands of ancient Egypt for both nostalgic fans and newcomers to this iconic city builder.

Rimworld puts a gritty sci-fi spin on city building and management. Stranded on an alien world, you must build up a settlement, grow food, research technology, and survive threats like pirates, hostile wildlife, and natural disasters. Unique characters with dynamic histories join your colony and influence development. Rimworld shines through emergent storytelling, with random events often combined into memorable narratives that bring your colony to life. With full mod support to enhance longevity, Rimworld tells a different memorable sci-fi tale each time as you expand your settlement into whatever helps it survive and thrive on an untamed alien frontier. Rimworld offers the best of both worlds, which is why it gets its kudos here for being another one of the best city building games.

Aven Colony transports the city building genre to the alien world of "Aven Prime." As expedition leader, you must construct colonies to house humanity's settlers as they seek to inhabit this new extraterrestrial home. You'll need to build infrastructure and habitation domes, manage resources and food production, and research technologies to overcome Aven Prime's inhospitable conditions, varied biomes, and dangerous fauna. Aven Colony's campaign provides structured goals while sandbox mode enables freeform creativity. With quality sci-fi worldbuilding and a refreshing exoplanetary take on city planning mechanics, Aven Colony lets you leave your mark on humanity's first settlements among the stars. Would-be space explorers will adore this one and quickly recognize it as one of the best city building games out there.

Flotsam offers a colorful post-apocalyptic twist on aquatic city building. After the world becomes flooded, you must construct floating towns from scrap and debris to ensure the survival of seafaring survivors. You'll have to do so while managing resources, food supplies, clean water, and pollution while expanding housing across interlinked floating structures. Research unlocks new tech to produce electricity, farming, and transport and unique mechanics like water flow and town drifting require pointed and strategic thinking. The game's vibrant art and animation help to breathe character into the apocalyptic setting. Despite arriving in Early Access, Flotsam already provides an original take on building and maintaining towns, this time on the open seas rather than dry land.

Prison Architect takes city building in a unique direction by putting you in charge of designing and operating a private prison. Starting with an empty plot of land, you must construct cell blocks, facilities, utilities, and infrastructure to house your inmates humanely while also keeping them secure. Balancing prisoner needs and containment makes for engaging challenges and the game provides extensive options enabling you to tailor everything from security level to execution methods. Despite its dark subject matter, Prison Architect provides a memorable take on building and maintaining a prison "city" under extraordinarily tough constraints. Those elements present it as another viable selection for everyone on the lookout for the very best city building games.

Aquatico uniquely focuses on city building under the sea. To succeed, you must thoughtfully increase oxygen, power, and algae farms to expand your underwater habitats. Soothing music and gently undulating backdrops cultivate a meditative ambiance, making this a relaxing and stress-free city builder. Even though it has some repetitive resource micromanaging, Aquatico succeeds as a low-stakes underwater sandbox perfect for relaxed city design. For a pacifying change from chaotic urban city builders, Aquatico lets you find zen while constructing sustainable undersea sanctuaries.