Best City Builder Games

Based on critic scores and popularity, the top city builders right now are Cities: Skylines, Anno 1800, and Frostpunk 2. The list updates every day, so new releases show up as soon as they come out.

Before We Leave is a peaceful city builder without fail states, so you can take your time and learn at your own pace. SteamWorld Build is charming and easy to get into, and Two Point Campus is a funny management game where you build your own university. Once you are comfortable, the bigger and more complex builders in this list are waiting.

Banished is a classic where your villagers can freeze or starve if you plan badly, They Are Billions makes you defend your colony against massive zombie hordes (more undead in our Zombie Games list), and Songs of Syx lets you grow a city to thousands of citizens - and manage all of them. Surviving Mars adds the extra challenge of keeping your colonists alive on another planet.

Plenty. Infection Free Zone lets you build a survivor colony in your own real hometown using real map data, Airborne Empire is all about building a city that floats in the sky, and Foundation is a medieval builder without a grid, where villages grow naturally along the paths your villagers use. Tropico 7 puts you in charge of an island nation as its not-quite-democratic leader.

Many do - popular city builders often get years of expansions with new maps, buildings and mechanics, plus creator packs and cosmetics. Complete or deluxe editions bundle a lot of them, and on sale they can be the best value. Open the game page to compare every edition side by side.