24 Games Like SimCity
Our collection of games like SimCity features realistic city building games with elements of sandbox and management that are similar to the SimCity franchise.
In the SimCity titles players are tasked with the building and management of a city in an open ended gameplay setting as you chase important milestones. The underlying goal of the various games and their respective game modes is the development of a successful city by ensuring the city has adequate facilities and services to keep residents happy while also being financially stable.
Players are given an abundance of tools to achieve their city building goals with building locations and city services such as health, education, utilities and leisure. In more recent SimCity releases players also have significant control over terrain, allowing them to modify the game world to create even more interesting, exciting and unique cities. This ever increasing depth in tools with each new game has made SimCity the standout choice for sandbox city building fans who want complete freedom.
The city building games like SimCity here offer similar gameplay and features to the SimCity franchise for fans of the city building genre which includes construction, management, open ended objectives and customisable game worlds.
Prison Architect
Maximum security prisons aren’t a common theme for a video game but one that Prison Architect explores in detail with its takes on the management simulation genre as players control a private construction business. With a campaign of several levels that also serve as your tutorial players the majority of gameplay takes place in sandbox setting of prison management. Prison Architect takes place in a top-down 2D environment and clearly draws from a number of classics in the tycoon genre with...[Read Review]
Train Fever
Train Fever explores the business of running a train empire with a simulation adventure that challenges you to build a large scale transport empire across several towns with their own train needs. Using trains and buses you’ll get to craft the service lines and build around the terrain and social requirements within your financial constraints to deliver an appropriate level of services to turn a profit. Born from a crowdfunding campaign Train Fever was released in late 2014 and has since r...[Read Review]
Tropico 4
Tropico 4 stays true to the popular Tropico series formula with an experience that combines city management mechanics alongside political considerations and humour along the way as players attempt to stay in power over the long term. Resulting in an exciting mixture of simulation, construction and management this addition to the franchise developed by Haemimont Games will keep you engaged for hours as you make all manner of decisions and watch the impacts play out. Tropico 4 was originally relea...[Read Review]
Dwarf Fortress
Dwarf Fortress is a unique city building experience that has players control their own group of dwarves in a challenge of survival and strategy that incorporates rogue-like elements. Utilising a unique ASCII art style you’ll be tasked with guiding your dwarven settlement throughout a randomly generated world where the unknown awaits you. Available for free across Windows, Mac and Linux Dwarf Fortress combines simulation, strategy, management and adventure into a single title that has grown...[Read Review]
Tropico 3
Continuing the franchises dictator focused gameplay Tropico 3 offers an entire island nation to players to run with ample opportunity to create your own banana republic with unique laws, economy and general design. As the third variation of the Tropico franchise you’ll find familiar construction and management gameplay with a number of enhancements to give you greater control of your nation than past titles and is more in line with the original Tropico rather than the pirate themed Tropico...[Read Review]
Cities: Skylines
Cities: Skylines brings the city building and simulation genre into modern times with an impressive 2015 release offering that brings new challenges and opportunities to keen city planners everywhere. Since this original game release on computer platforms the game has also expanded to various console experiences which are often a rare place for titles within this genre. Alongside this expansion of platforms Cities: Skylines has advanced its available content and challenges with a growing list of...[Read Review]
Dawn of Discovery (Anno 1404)
Dawn of Discovery (Anno 1404 outside of North America) offers city building with an economic focus that is similar to the other titles in the vast Anno franchise. For this addition to the series players will explore an age of medieval and renaissance as you build up a thriving civilisation. Originally launched in 2009 a 2010 Anno 1404: Venice expansion pack expanded content, buildings, quests and introduced multiplayer functionality. The Dawn of Discovery campaign centres around both the west an...[Read Review]
Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom
Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom is a city building game that focuses on Ancient China and is a great change of pace from the popular modern and historical city builders (which mostly focus on Rome). The game was released back in 2002 with development being fronted by BreakAway Games. The amount of control that you have over your Asian civilisation is extremely high and one of the best experiences of the game. Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom will have you controlling every aspect includin...[Read Review]
The Settlers Online
The Settlers Online (The Settlers Online: Castle Empire) is a free to play browser based strategy game that utilises familiar mechanics from the core Settlers franchise. The result is a mixture of popular modern strategy games and the MMO strategy genre. The Settlers Online offers an accessible challenge which features a familiar gameplay loop of building a sprawling city, raiding bandits, achieving objectives and in time gaining levels that unlock additional content to expand your strategy opti...[Read Review]
From Dust
From Dust combines a number of genres incorporating strategy, building and god games into one with players helping their own tribe of humans through the challenges that they face. From Dust was published by Ubisoft in July 2011 for the Xbox 360 and was followed by Windows and PlayStation 3 a few months later, along with Xbox One backwards compatibility. From Dust was briefly made available on the Google Chrome store in 2012 although this version has since been discontinued. Set in a world where ...[Read Review]
Banished
Banished joins the ranks of the city build genre with a 2014 release that takes it into a unique medieval setting where you’ll build from humble beginnings into a thriving economic powerhouse. Banished opts not to throw abundance of resources at players either and instead looks to force players into resource scarcity so that every decision is one of balance as you try to survive and with some luck, thrive. Banished starts you off with your own community of outcasts who have come together a...[Read Review]
Tropico 2: Pirate Cove
Tropico 2: Pirate Cove takes a different direction to other games in the Tropico series but still features all of the core mechanics that make the city building experience so enjoyable and popular. Unlike the original Tropico game players will be running their own pirate island and take on the role of the pirate king. This role means you’ll have to carefully manage your reckless pirates and construction on your island while capturing the thing pirates love above all else, treasure. Tropico 2 let...[Read Review]
The Settlers: Rise of an Empire
The Settlers: Rise of an Empire is a real time strategy game that features a 4X style of gameplay with additional elements of city building that combine to create a diverse economic challenge. Released in 2007 Rise of an Empire is the sixth in the long running and popular series of The Settlers and seeks to bring together many of the different elements that the series has explored into a pinnacle adventure. Most notably this comes across in a reduction of overall combat and simplifying the core ...[Read Review]
Startopia
Startopia is the brain child of several former Bullfrog employees which has players taking control of several space stations as you attempt to create a thriving space hub for the galaxy to visit. Released in 2001 the game features similar humour filled gameplay of games previously developed by Bullfrog such as Dungeon Keeper and Theme Hospital. Startopia takes place in a universe that has recently been devastated by war on an intergalactic scale which has left the galaxy mostly barren and in des...[Read Review]
Anno 2070
Anno 2070 released in 2011 and is the fifth game in this growing franchise of economic management titles that tests your strategic decision making in a futuristic game setting. Like the other Anno games you’ll find a blended mixture of gameplay that borderlines the popular real time strategy genre and the planning of city building titles. Taking place in the near future of 2070 global warming has taken hold and as a result melted ice caps that have unleashed a torrent of floods on coastal ...[Read Review]
Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile
Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile is one of the older city building games in the strategy management genre and was released in 2004. Serving as part of the city building series of games that includes Caesar, Pharaoh, Zeus and and Emperor the game has a similar focus on a historical location with ancient Egypt at your fingertips. Children of the Nile was developed by Tilted Mill Entertainment with an expansion pack (Children of the Nile: Alexandria) and online free to play spin-off (Nile Onli...[Read Review]
Tropico 5
Tropico 5 continues the legacy of the series with a management and construction simulation game centred on city building and management with a humorous twist layered on top. While this addition to the well known franchise doesn’t step out of the Tropico formula too much it does find that balance of offering just enough new content to get old fans excited without moving away from the gameplay and style you’ve come to love to date. One of the greatest additions to the Tropico franchise with the re...[Read Review]
Caesar IV
Caesar IV is a pure city building experience that takes place in an ancient Roman setting. The game was developed by Titled Mill Entertainment and released in 2006. As the name suggests it is actually fourth addition to the Caesar series and is very similar to other releases by Tilted Mill in the city building genre including Children of the Nile and SimCity Societies. In Caesar IV players are in charge of administration matters and building the historical city of Rome. The game uses a realistic...[Read Review]
Cities XL 2012
Cities XL 2012 is definitely one of the best games like SimCity available and offers plenty of features that SimCity fans will recognise and love. Cities XL 2012 (and the previous games in the series) are published by Focus Home Interactive. The game has an expansion pack available (Cities XL Platinum) which adds additional content and tweaks. Cities XL 2012 focuses on a single player experience and is very similar to the SimCity games. Players take on the role of mayor and build the ultimate ci...[Read Review]
Anno 1701 (1701 A.D.)
Anno 1701 (1701 A.D.) mixes strategy and city building together to create an economical focused experience like the Anno titles before it. Part of the popular Anno franchise Anno 1701 offers a blend of familiar and new challenges for players to overcome on PC with a related spin-off title for the Nintendo DS known as Anno 1701: Dawn of Discovery. Focused on the real world timeframe of the 18th century players are challenged to explore the recently discovered new world and colonise it by using al...[Read Review]
Tropico
In Tropico players get to take control of El Presidente as he rules his own island nation in a Cold War era. The game is a light hearted city building, management and simulation game that injects humour into a number of its game mechanics. Tropico offers two different game modes for players to control their island nation, scenarios and custom games. In scenarios players are presented with a selection of goals that must be met given the current game conditions. Alternatively players can take to t...[Read Review]
Project Highrise
Could you build a functional and stylish skyscraper? The opportunity is now yours with Project Highrise a game all about combining the likes of design and architecture into a single game. Offering the usual range of tutorials, scenarios and sandbox modes for management fans you’ll have multiple ways to approach Project Highrise gameplay while also ensuring good long term play time. Regardless of mode though you’ll find the core mechanics unchanged which sees you starting with a fairl...[Read Review]
Cities In Motion 2
Cities in Motion 2 offers similar gameplay to the original but with plenty of improvements that enhance gameplay. The game released in early 2013 for both Windows and Mac. New features in the sequel include new multiplayer game modes, a larger variety of transport options, day and night cycles, timetabling and cities that dynamically react to the transport you put in place (businesses and residential areas will build up around transport routes) which gives you some control over how the city deve...[Read Review]
Grand Ages: Rome
Grand Ages: Rome is a single player and multi-player game that offers a mixture of city building and real time strategy to create an overall fun and strategic focused game experience. Grand Ages: Rome was released in 2009 and is published by Kalypso Media. The game is the sequel to Imperium Romanum and was originally named Imperium Romanum 2. An expansion pack for the game (The Reign of Augustus) was released approximately a year later to add additional gameplay. In the single player campaign of...[Read Review]