10 city-building games to play on PC, mobile and console

Despite being quite old, Sim City 4 remains one of the most fun games in terms of city creation. Just like previous games, you need to plan your city well to keep the happiness of its inhabitants as high as possible and avoid chaos.

But of course it won’t be that simple since there are natural disasters and also unnatural to end the peace of your entire city, be it a hurricane or a alien invasion. Sim City 4 is available for PC and IOS.

Cities: Skyline It is perhaps the most popular city-building game today. He takes most of the ideas from Sim City and make them a little more accessible and bringing even more variety to those looking to build a fully functional city.

Unlike most of the games on this list, Cities: Skyline brings the simple premise of city building, with its complexities. You need to keep everything running, which means you’ll even need to organize the car traffic so that the city is not full of traffic jams, reducing the happiness of its residents.

Cities: Skyline is available for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X and Nintendo Switch.

If you are looking for something far from realism, but that offers a great challenge, Frostpunk is one of the best of its kind. The game takes place in a completely frozen world and as the ruler of this city it is your duty to keep your people warm, fed and happy until your campaign ends.

Despite being a game about building cities, its main focus is on managementthe position in which each establishment is placed matters, but so does issuing decrees and laws to increase productivity, since your city needs resources. Sometimes it is necessary to make people who have lost an arm continue working without stopping, or else to place children to perform less dangerous tasks.

For those who like to make difficult choices, it is one of the best of its kind and is available for PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and PC.

For those who just want to see the city being created, without making much effort or having to deal with the extremely complicated objectives of some games of the genre, there is also an alternative. Townscaperan independent city-building game inspired by minimalism of houses in Sweden.

The game is extremely simple, and it is almost a creation tool. When starting out, you can stack little houses for a city to be formed. Its great highlight is the relaxing way of creating an entire city and its art with eye-catching colors giving a more than special touch to its small houses.

Townscaper is available for PC, Android, IOS, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X and Nintendo Switch.

The franchise Steamworld is one of the only ones, especially when it comes to independent games. With each game released, a new genre is explored, whether Roguelikescard games and now with Buildbuild cities.

In Steamworld Build You are on a planet that is close to its death, and with that, you need some way to escape. So you start to build a small city and also explore its underground, to gather resources to build a rocket. You have to do two things during your journey: act like a mayor and also explore underground for resources, bringing the joy of building a new city, but also the excitement of exploring an unknown location.

Steamworld Build is available for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X and Nintendo Switch.

In most city-building games, the player will dedicate himself to a single city-building game for the entirety of his time playing it, or for many hours before starting again. Against the Storm brings the opposite idea, bringing elements of Roguelike so you can build countless cities, each with their own specialties.

In Against the Storm You are in command of the last bastion of humanity in the world that has been taken over by Plaguestorm. Now it’s up to you to keep yourself and all your inhabitants alive, collecting resources and protecting your location. As the game features Roguelike elements, at each start the player will encounter different features and will be able to build certain establishments first, making him have a different strategy than in his previous attempt.

Against the Storm is available for PRAÇA.

If creating a city on Earth seems like a very simple job, perhaps traveling to another planet is the ideal challenge. In Surviving Mars you need to keep a city running in Marsso instead of building a highway for cars to pass through, you need to provide oxygen, supplies and everything to keep your colony running and surviving the sandstorms of the red planet.

By expanding your bell jars you can still explore the planet’s secrets, which can provide even more resources for its inhabitants, or else attract even more chaos to the difficult life on this new planet. Surviving Mars is available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

The franchise Year brings a mix of city building games with real-time strategy to give it a unique touch. The latest game is Year 1800 which puts the player in the difficult task of managing a city during Industrial Era.

While you manage your city during this great period, discovering new technologies, you will also be able to explore the South America, which can generate valuable rewards, but also offer new dangers. As your city progresses, you will need to form alliances and deal with different enemiesto remain victorious.

Year 1800 is available for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X.

In Ave Colonythe player travels to the planet Aven Prime and has the difficult mission of building a new home for humans in the midst of deserts, tundras and forests. In this new scenario you will need to deal with a variety of problems such as electrical storms, lethal toxic gases and various other adversities.

In addition to supervising the settlers and keeping everything in proper order, you will have contact with the alien life of the location. Some may not pose much risk to you and your city, while others may be primarily responsible for the end of the entire human race on the planet.

Ave Colony is available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

If managing a city seems like a complicated job, imagine an entire island. This is the proposal for Tropicbringing a great management game with a lot of humor. In Tropico 6 you are in control of the island dictator who gives the game its name and needs to make your country prosper, so you can follow different political paths to achieve your goals.

In addition to building your city, you can send your spies attack other countries and even steal your famous monuments to add to your collection. Finally, to keep your people happy, you can still give some political speeches to promise an even brighter future.

Tropic 6 is available for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X and Nintendo Switch.