Dorfromantik ranks 1st on the list of the best city-building games. Dorfromantik is a city-building puzzle video game developed and published by Toukana Interactive. This game is a mix of a city-builder and a puzzle game with a relaxed vibe. It's one of the finest relaxing games since you get a stack of hexagonal tiles with civilization elements on them. The game was published in early access for Windows in March 2021, followed by a full release on April 28, 2022. On September 29, 2022, a version of Nintendo Switch was released.

Houses, forests, farms, canals, and train tracks are your starting points, but as you go, you'll unlock deer, ruins, and other tiles to add visual interest to your constructions. There's a matching puzzle element to how you create, with assignments appearing that ask you to connect particular amounts of any feature together, such as 300+ trees in a single forest or exactly 25 fields, so there's a fantastic blend of challenging and sheer aesthetics. It's never hard, but it's easy to become lost in its gorgeously serene universe and squander an hour or two attempting to beat your previous best score.

Steam Rating: 10/10 (20.363 reviews)
Developer(s): Toukana Interactive

Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows
Price: Free
Age rating: 8+
Website: https://toukana.com/dorfromantik/

Townscaper ranks 2nd on the list of the best city-building games. Townscaper is a beautifully colorful city builder from developer Oskar Stlberg that truly allows your creativity to thrive. You have the ability to develop your own mini villages, cities, hamlets, and more in this genre's sandbox-style game. In fact, if you like, you can even build your own city high in the sky. It's really satisfying to witness the blocks form into structures and evolve into your very own little city or construction, which is built block by block with many colors to select from.

Townscaper has low poly graphics and a straightforward, minimalist user interface. It's all about the building in Townscaper, so if you're seeking to scratch that itch, you can't go wrong with this fantastic indie title. You can wonder at your own creations and fall into the soothing flow of bringing your thoughts to life with plenty of tools to create gigantic structures or quaint tiny towns with colorful dwellings, bridges, ports, and more.

Steam Rating: 10/10 (16.969 reviews)

Developer(s): Oskar Stålberg
Platform(s): Microsoft Windows, macOS, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Web

Price: Free

Age rating: 6+

Website: https://www.townscapergame.com/

You're about to construct a city that will either prosper or fail as technology develops and changes at the start of a crucial new period. Will you change along with it? Or will you crumble under the pressure? The game Anno 1800 places you at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution at the turn of the 19th century and requires you to create and manage a metropolis based on the inventiveness of your research and technical development.

Your freshly founded metropolis will flourish as a result of the establishment of trade channels and the undertaking of excursions to advance your studies and discover important resources. But, as your city expands, you'll face greater challenges, including, but not limited to, conflicting rulers, civic unrest, and political warfare. While you pursue fame and money in the inventive age, regardless of whether you're diplomatic or a little bit tyrannical, you can experiment with numerous playstyles.

Steam Rating: 9/10 (6.180 reviews)
Developer(s): Ubisoft Blue Byte, Ubisoft Mainz

Platform(s): PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows
Price: $59.99
Age rating: 12+
Website: https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/anno/1800

Farthest Frontier does an excellent job of recreating what it could have been like to be a pioneer. It's a Medieval city builder that could take you by surprise. It's really rooted in history, which is fascinating and lends an air of authenticity to everything you do. Food, for example, spoils, so you must select what to harvest and, more crucially, when to gather it. Its farming techniques are also extremely detailed, so ready to think like a Medieval person very quickly. It's a lot to handle, but the overall effect is really cool, especially when it starts to affect the look and feel of your city.

Farthest Frontier drops you into one of four pleasant-looking biomes with a dozen tired inhabitants looking to start a new life. The principles of creating and operating a community are straightforward and should be recognizable to anyone who has played prior survival city-builders: gather wood, build houses, obtain food, and defend yourself against wolves and bears. The truly fascinating twist here is that all food eventually degrades. Even the initial stash won't survive much longer than the first winter, so you can't just harvest everything in sight and not have to think about it for a long time. At least not initially.

Steam Rating: 9/10 (11.041 reviews)
Developer(s): Crate Entertainment

Platform(s): Microsoft Windows
Price: Free
Age rating: 9+
Website: https://www.farthestfrontier.com/

Frostpunk ranks 5th on the list of the best city-building games. In Frostpunk, you are the ruler of the final city on Earth in a post-apocalyptic world trapped in perpetual winter. No worries. As you can imagine this role is no walk in the park. Frostpunk adds a survival element to the genre, testing your management skills to the maximum. With the threat of extinction at your doorstep, every decision you make could spell the difference between life and death for the residents of your city. The icy landscapes bring many problems, but it also means that warmth will be your top priority.

Maintaining and regulating the temperature is critical, but it's only one of several things you'll need to keep everyone alive. Starting with modest shelters, you'll work your way up to an amazing steam-powered city, with technological trees to advance and development to invest in to better your colony and its survival chances. At the heart of 11-bit studios' relentless survival city-builder is a campaign brimming with options. You can choose how to manage your people by taking numerous pathways, enacting laws, and controlling their daily routines. It's entirely up to you.

Steam Rating: 9/10 (72.872 reviews)
Developer(s): 11 Bit Studios
Platform(s): PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, xCloud
Price: Free
Age rating: 16+
Website: https://www.frostpunkgame.com/

What if there was a city-building game in which you could play as beavers? If it sounds wonderful, you should check out Timberborn. Timberborn is a city-building game developed by Mechanistry that will be released on September 15th, 2021 through Steam Early Access and GOG Games in Development. Timberborn is powered by the Unity engine. With the humans long gone, it's up to the beavers to shine and see if they can carve out a better life for themselves.

Water conservation is a perennial concern in the valley, so you must plan ahead to guarantee that you can continue to provide for your community in times of scarcity. There is farming to be done, vertical cities to be developed, and technology to advance. It's all really cute, and there are two factions to choose from: the environmentally friendly Folktails and the hardworking Iron Teeth. Each one has its own aesthetic, buildings, and even gameplay adjustments, so there's a lot to love here - even if it's currently in Early Access.

Steam Rating: 9/10 (16.200 reviews)
Developer(s): Mechanistry, Mechanistry Sp. z o.o.
Platform(s): Microsoft Windows, Mac OS
Price: Free
Age rating: 7+
Website: https://mechanistry.com/

The final frontier is space. Mars has always been the go-to location when it comes to imaging where the next homeworld would be when, god forbid, Earth meets with its untimely demise. But the dangerous world isn't exactly welcoming to humans. With no oxygen, freezing temperatures, and bleak landscapes, settling down and making it your home brings obstacles. And it is exactly what you must strive for in Surviving Mars. Taking up residence on the dusty red planet, you work to set up a sustainable colony, and - in case the name wasn’t a dead giveaway - work to ensure it survives.

You can enhance your chances of survival by using drones to explore the unexplored terrains of the alien world and investing in research & development. Every colonist has their own personality with their own set of skills and weaknesses, which can either exacerbate or alleviate your difficulties. The retro-futuristic vibes of the domes you build make Mars look more stylish than it has ever been. With some careful planning, you can develop a flourishing colony that will expand throughout the alien continent.

Steam Rating: 9/10 (14.116 reviews)
Developer(s): Haemimont Games, Abstraction
Platform(s): PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS, Mac OS
Price: Free
Age rating: 8+
Website: https://www.survivingmars.com/

If you enjoy city-building, resource management, and huge fauna-themed animals, Stray Fawn Studios has just published The Wandering Village, which will be exactly up your alley. A group of humans seeking safety have established themselves on the back of a large, traveling creature on a planet where deadly plants are growing at an uncontrollable rate. They must now form a symbiotic bond in order to survive in the suddenly post-apocalyptic world that surrounds them.

At its core, The Wandering Village can best be described as a city-building and resource management game with survival elements (when it comes to the management of the actual villagers you control), which all revolve around the incredibly unique theme and set atop the back of a massive beast known as 'Onbu'. You'll be put in charge of a small tribe of humans from the start of the game, and you'll need to farm crops for them to keep a food source, send them on foraging missions to collect valuable materials, and scout out the living environment you inhabit to ensure the safety and survival of your village.

Steam Rating: 9/10 (2.927 reviews)
Developer(s): Stray Fawn Studio
Platform(s): Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS, Xbox Series X và Series S, Mac OS
Price: $24.99
Age rating: 9+
Website: https://thewanderingvillage.com/

Calling all aspiring mayors - Cities: Skylines wants you to build the next best city. Absolutely, as the new mayor, you build the city from the ground up, overseeing every element of its functional infrastructure and the real economy. Skylines has so much depth and intricacy that learning it might be a bit of a juggling act, but once you do, you'll feel like a management expert. Skylines are as entertaining as it is difficult.

There’s nothing quite like transforming empty green fields of land into a flourishing megalopolis that every virtual citizen wants to call home. You'll be put to the test in a variety of ways as you contend with natural disasters, pollution, day and night cycles, traffic accidents, and pretty much everything else you can think of. A slew of DLCs are now available to take your city-building adventures to new heights by introducing different transit systems, alternate styles and looks, new weather conditions, and much more. The city's buzz and bustle will undoubtedly keep you occupied.

Steam Rating: 9/10 (165.996 reviews)
Developer(s): Colossal Order

Platform(s): Microsoft Windows, Linux, OS X
Price: Free
Age rating: 10+
Website: https://www.citiesskylines.com/

Before We Leave is a nonviolent city-building game featuring 4X themes. Before We Go is similar to Anno 1800 light. It's all about building colonies on islands and then expanding your empire to new places and, eventually, new planets. Because each island has its own distinct characteristics like as weather and soil quality, your first priority should always be to develop good trade routes between them all so that every Peep in your empire has access to the goods they need to be happy and healthy. It's also non-violent, so all you have to do is enjoy watching your planet flourish.

Players control a group of civilians known as Peeps as they flee a bunker. Players guide the Peeps as they rebuild on the ruins of a fallen civilization after investigating the area. Sustaining satisfaction levels by meeting the requirements of the Peeps boosts their efficiency, reducing the amount of time required for activities to be completed. The ultimate goal of the game is for the Peeps to build up their society to the point when they can launch themselves into space and conquer other planets. The Peeps must deal with space whales in order to accomplish this.

Steam Rating: 7/10 (966 reviews)
Developer(s): Balancing Monkey Games
Platform(s): Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
Price: $15.99
Age rating: 13+
Website: https://www.balancingmonkeygames.com/games/before-we-leave