Best city builder games ever

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Wolf Like Me Matt Fowler Developer: Colossal Order Ltd. Publisher: Paradox Interactive. In , EA released a long awaited, and much hyped, reboot of the SimCity series and fans were excited. I was excited. For me, SimCity was possibly the most disappointing title of all time. Limited build space mixed with save game corruption and downed servers made it a chore to play. SimCity fans expected more. A spin off from the transport title Cities in Motion, Cities: Skylines was the SimCity sequel we all wanted all along.

Skylines took what SimCity started and ran with it, using their expertise of transport systems on Cities in Motion to their advantage.

Skylines had an in depth and and detailed traffic system, with citizens travelling from their homes in residential areas, to the shops, schools, parks and, of course, commuting to work each day.

It sounds dull, actually no, it is dull, but it is also very satisfying indeed. Skylines was a critical and commercial success when it was released on PC back in and has since been ported to the Xbox One, PS4 and Switch. In March , it was revealed that Cities: Skylines had sold 6 million copies across all formats.

Not bad for a man development team. So, building a modern city not to your tastes? How about a trip to ancient Egypt with Impressions Games? Impressions Games was a studio that developed a ton of fantastic management and tycoon games in the 90s — I actually preferred their Ultimate Soccer Manager series to Championship Manager.

Players are scored on various points, including population, prosperity and culture. There are also various gods that players need to appease, and doing so gives you gifts, but angering them has the opposite effect, and your city could suffer from disasters if you do so. Pharaoh was very well received , and remains popular to this day.

Tropico, much like SimCity, is another city building series that is lucky enough not to have a bad entry in its series. While the series does evolve and change, the core concept of building your own banana republic never changes. While the first game in the series has the highest Metacritic score , I feel that Tropico 4, with full 3D graphics and control system, is the most accessible of the series. The main goal of Tropico is to build your republic and stay in power.

In city building games, there is usually only one way to lose: go bankrupt. But in Tropico, staying in power is also a huge part of the game. To steer the country in the correct way, there are a number of edicts that you can choose, however some require certain conditions or buildings to activate. The Tropico series has had six entries since , and has sold over 1. Anno is a long running series of city building titles with a focus on trade and diplomacy.

While the series has been alive since , there seems to only be a pocket of dedicated fans that truly know the wonders of the series, and celebrate it. There are currently seven games in the Anno series, with many of them actually having a historical setting, but it was the futuristic Anno that really got my attention.

Anno is set during a time when the polar ice caps have melted due to global warming, turning the world into a series of islands. The Anno games are all about trading and resource management, but as the world is now flooded, that issue becomes a bigger one.

Taking advantage of any resource you can lay your hands on, as well as setting up important trade routes, is vital in Anno There are two factions, the Ecos and the Tycoons. You will begin your journey on Mars, which is currently a barren wasteland.

Luckily, the game provides all the tools required to make it habitable. This title is not for the faint of heart, however. You will be battling the deadly atmosphere, lack of oxygen, and infertile land, making your job all the more difficult.

After you've established a livable settlement, you will start attracting humans to your colony. It is now your job to ensure their survival and trust us, it's not easy. Get ready to micro-manage!

In Aven Colony, players will face a barrage of alien abnormalities as they try to establish their otherworldly civilizations. Alien plagues, extreme weather, and hostile species await you as you attempt to carve out your own little corner of space. Your job as overseer is to ensure the survival of your citizens. This involves mining minerals for resources, building hospitals, and maintaining order. Once your city is stable, the game then introduces bigger goals to entice you further.

This may include large-scale military operations or exploration missions. The Settlers have always been one of the longest-running hybrid video games in modern history and it oddly combines city-building with real-time strategy RTS and many other elements from other genres. This depends on which Settler game we're talking about but The Settlers: Paths to a Kingdom is one of the rare gems in the franchise.

It takes place in a medieval world, making it a unique title in this list as well for its ingenuity alone. It borrows mechanics from Civilization games where you get to pick a leader or faction and build your mere plot of land into your own empire through military actions, development, and many more aspects not present in other city builders.

Banished is one of the most unique takes on the city-building formula for this list since it delves into a setting that's practically unexplored in its genre: medieval era. In that regard, you control a group of exiled travelers in Banished whereupon you're forced to build your village and eventually city from scratch after being banished by a feudal lord.

This also makes Banished a survival title on top of a city-builder-- something you don't usually experience in city-builder games. The game even makes it so that your primary resource is townspeople who get old, get sick, and even die, making managing them an important element of this game.

It's worth playing alone for its unique take. Continuing with our space theme, we have Madruga Works' Planet Base. All the usual suspects are here: base building, resource management, and citizen satisfaction. Where Planet Base sets itself apart is its varying types of planets.

The game allows you to choose between four different planets , each with increasing difficulty and different environmental hazards to contend with. For instance, the frozen planet will pit you against sub-zero temperatures, while the Storm Planet will hit you with a deluge of storm effects. It is up to you to keep your pioneers alive long enough to create a stable and liveable colony.

Frostpunk , as the title suggests, focuses on the importance of warmth and surviving the harsh cold. In an alternate version of history, humanity has been defeated by climate change and been forced to contend with extreme cold that has decimated most of the planet. The tale is a grim one, to be sure. As the leader of humanity's last hope , you must use what little resources are left to try and construct a haven to keep the dwindling population alive.

Frostpunk is not for the weak-willed and will challenge you both technically and morally. As the story unfolds you will be faced with difficult choices that will ultimately change the world around you. The level of depth and storytelling in Frostpunk is rarely seen in this genre.

Few games are as addictive in nature as Anno