The 15 Best City-Building Games to Play Right Now

Explore the best city-building games available today, from delightful indie titles that offer relaxed building experiences to some of the genre’s longest-running series. This selection also highlights newer games that stand out by bringing fresh ideas to the genre.

City-building games often combine construction with rewarding management systems and elements borrowed from the best strategy games. Their challenges range from keeping citizens happy and healthy to raising armies, defeating adversaries, and expanding powerful empires.

Whether you want a less demanding experience focused on creativity, the challenge of leading your own empire, or features commonly found in simulation games, this list includes a variety of choices across multiple platforms.

Banished

• Developer: Shining Rock Software LLC
• Platform: PC

Banished may be one of the oldest entries on this list, but it still holds up within the genre. You control a group of exiled travelers seeking a new beginning with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the resources in their carts.

With no skill trees and the freedom to build whenever you have sufficient resources, Banished centers on managing townspeople as your primary resource while working to create a prosperous settlement filled with happy residents.

Things can quickly go wrong when you least expect them, ensuring that there is rarely a dull moment. The constant threat of disaster keeps the experience engaging, making it easy to spend hours playing. Banished also has an excellent modding community for players who want extensive customization. Combined with its modest hardware requirements, this makes it one of the genre’s more approachable city builders.

Civilization 7

• Developer: Firaxis Games
• Platforms: PC, PS5, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox Series X

Although it is not a city-building game in the traditional sense, Civilization 7, the latest installment in Sid Meier’s long-running strategy series, places greater emphasis on city-building features. You can develop cities and construct architectural marvels as your civilization grows and expands.

From achieving technological breakthroughs to raising armies and building an empire, the game unfolds across a procedurally generated world rooted in an alternate interpretation of history. As you develop your cities through the ages, the core campaign repeatedly puts your tactical abilities to the test. For more information, read our Civilization 7 review.

Foundation

• Developer: Polymorph Games
• Platform: PC

If you are looking for a city builder that turns back the clock to medieval times, Foundation is worth exploring. After spending five years in Early Access, its 1.0 release arrived in 2025 with numerous new features, updates, and additional polish. More DLC and updates have since been introduced, making this an excellent time to start playing.

This medieval city builder provides accessible modular tools that allow you to place structures piece by piece and create the city you envision. You can manage villagers, assign jobs, trade with neighboring settlements, and watch your small world come to life. A creative mode and multiple difficulty settings also allow you to tailor the experience to your preferences.

Tropico 6

• Developer: Limbic Entertainment
• Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

Have you ever wanted to build and govern your own island paradise? El Presidente returns, and you must assume the role of either a tyrannical dictator or the peaceful ruler you were born to become. With a stronger focus on politics, Tropico 6 introduces a new research tree that enhances your political strategies and helps you become the tropical world’s most effective dictator.

Constructing transportation systems and bridges to connect your islands is essential for developing your growing empire. Leadership also involves delivering grand speeches and making empty promises to keep citizens under your influence. You may not be a good leader, but an effective election speech must count for something. You can also customize your own palace, one of the position’s many privileges.

Manor Lords

• Developer: Slavic Magic
• Platform: PC

Currently available in Early Access, Manor Lords brings medieval design to this list through a satisfying and detailed city-building experience. As a lord, you create and govern your own territory, transforming a small village into a collection of cities while managing resources, fighting battles, and conquering additional land to expand your empire.

Its intuitive tools make it easy to bring your territory to life and develop supply chains as you progress. Manor Lords already offers substantial depth, and frequent patches and new additions have continued to improve the game since its 2024 release. For more information, read our Manor Lords review.

Townscaper

• Developer: Oskar Stålberg
• Platforms: PC, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

Townscaper is a delightfully vibrant city builder that allows creativity to flourish. As a sandbox-style game, it gives you the freedom to construct towns, cities, hamlets, and even settlements high in the sky. Buildings are created block by block using a selection of colors, and watching those blocks form structures and expand into miniature cities is immensely satisfying.

Townscaper focuses entirely on building, making it an excellent choice for players seeking a purely creative experience. With tools for constructing vast structures or quaint towns featuring colorful houses, bridges, harbors, and more, you can admire your creations and settle into the relaxing rhythm of bringing your designs to life.

The Wandering Village

• Developer: Stray Fawn
• Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series X

After initially launching in Early Access, The Wandering Village reached its 1.0 release in 2025. It puts a distinctive spin on the genre by asking you to build a settlement on the back of Onbu, a massive six-legged creature. Despite this unusual premise, it remains a relaxing management game above all else.

As Onbu travels, you must feed and guide the creature while recognizing when it needs to rest, all while developing your settlement on its back. The city-building mechanics do not reinvent the genre, but their integration with Onbu is where the game truly excels.

Dorfromantik

• Developer: Toukana Interactive
• Platforms: PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series X

Dorfromantik is part city builder, part puzzle game, and entirely relaxing. You receive a stack of hexagonal tiles, each containing elements of civilization. Homes, forests, fields, waterways, and railway tracks form the initial selection, while deer, ruins, and other tiles can later be unlocked to add visual variety to your creations.

The construction system includes matching puzzles and objectives that ask you to connect specific quantities of certain elements, such as more than 300 trees in a single forest or exactly 25 fields. This creates a satisfying blend of puzzle-solving and visual design. It is never overly demanding, but its beautifully peaceful world can easily absorb an hour or two as you attempt to improve your highest score.

Fabledom

• Developer: Grenaa Games
• Platforms: PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series X

If you want a relaxed city builder set in a fairy-tale world filled with magical creatures, Fabledom is an excellent choice. Approachable and easy to begin, the game starts you with a village that can gradually be transformed into a thriving kingdom.

You can follow the lives of your citizens while managing and exchanging resources to develop your settlement. You can also undertake quests and pursue romance with one of the land’s six rulers.

Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition

• Developers: World’s Edge, Forgotten Empires, Capture Age, Tantalus Media, Wicked Witch, Feral Interactive
• Platform: PC

Age of Empires 2 celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2019 with the release of its Definitive Edition, which remains the best way to experience this classic city-building strategy game. Combining the original campaign with all its expansions, the game allows you to choose from 45 civilizations and develop an empire across multiple ages, from the humble Dark Age to the Imperial Age.

Advancing to each age requires meeting specific conditions and unlocks new construction options. Along the way, you may encounter rival civilizations and need to defend your territory while expanding across the land. With several modes and online play, Age of Empires 2 remains one of the best historical city builders and continues to hold up decades after its original release.

Timberborn

• Developer: Mechanistry
• Platform: PC

What if a city builder allowed you to play as beavers? If that idea sounds appealing, Timberborn is worth exploring. With humanity long gone, beavers have the opportunity to create a better existence for themselves. Persistent droughts make water conservation a constant challenge, requiring careful planning to support the population during periods of scarcity.

You must farm, construct vertical cities, and advance your technology. The entire experience is thematically charming and includes two playable factions: the nature-friendly Folktails and the industrious Iron Teeth. Each faction has its own style, buildings, and gameplay adjustments, providing plenty of content even while the game remains in Early Access.

Frostpunk 2

• Developer: 11 Bit Studios
• Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X

Set 30 years after the original game, Frostpunk 2 is one of the boldest city-building sequels. As in the first game, you govern a city on a post-apocalyptic Earth trapped in an endless winter. You must keep citizens alive and warm during storms while preparing for the Whiteout.

Unlike the relatively intimate scale of the original, Frostpunk 2 allows players to build vast colonies and construct entire districts. You must also keep the factions within the political system satisfied or risk a collapse in stability.

In addition to surviving the severe weather, you must navigate political pressures. Aligning with different philosophies, each with its own branch of benefits, creates multiple ways to play. With more maps, playstyles, and challenges to manage, Frostpunk 2 is unquestionably one of the best city builders of 2024. Read our Frostpunk 2 review for more details.

Farthest Frontier

• Developer: Crate Entertainment
• Platform: PC

Farthest Frontier effectively captures what life as a pioneer might have been like, even while remaining in Early Access. This medieval city builder has the potential to surprise, with systems closely tied to history that give its mechanics a strong sense of authenticity.

Food, for example, can spoil, so you must decide what to harvest and, more importantly, when to harvest it. The farming systems are exceptionally detailed, requiring you to quickly adopt a medieval perspective. There is a great deal to manage, but the overall result is highly rewarding, particularly when your decisions begin to affect the appearance and atmosphere of the settlement.

Anno 1800

• Developer: Blue Byte
• Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X

A pivotal new era is beginning, and you must build a city that will either thrive or fall as technology advances. Anno 1800 places you at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, around the turn of the 19th century, and challenges you to create and maintain a city shaped by research, innovation, and technological development.

Establishing trade routes and launching expeditions to expand your research and uncover useful resources will help your growing metropolis prosper. As the city expands, however, you must contend with rival rulers, civil unrest, political conflict, and other challenges. Whether you favor diplomacy or tyranny, you can experiment with different playstyles while pursuing fame and fortune in the industrial age.

Cities: Skylines

• Developer: Colossal Order
• Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

Calling all aspiring mayors: Cities: Skylines challenges you to build the next great city. As the new mayor, you construct a city from the ground up while managing every aspect of its realistic economy, road network, healthcare system, and more.

As enjoyable as it is challenging, Cities: Skylines offers considerable depth and detail. Mastering every system can feel like a demanding balancing act, but success creates a genuine sense of management expertise.

Few experiences compare with transforming empty green fields into a flourishing metropolis that every virtual citizen wants to call home. Natural disasters, pollution, traffic accidents, and many other problems will test your abilities in different ways. An extensive range of DLC can take your city-building experience further by introducing additional transportation systems, alternative designs, new visual styles, changing weather conditions, and much more.

For additional recommendations, explore our selections of the best crafting games and the best classic PC games.