Over the years, the genre has seen some new blood with innovative concepts. We list the five best city-building games in the market today
Ever since the first SimCity, developers have been trying to capture the magic of building a city in a game. Over the years, the genre has seen some new blood with innovative concepts. We list the five best city-building games in the market today.
They Are Billions
This city-building game happens in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. The game's premise is that you are trying to build a colony for survivors. You can also pillage zombie towns for resources like gold, stone, wood etc. The bigger your town, the more manpower you can get and the bigger armies you can build.
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The zombie infection though is crazy — even if one zombie gets in, the infection quickly spreads and your township can be ruined fairly quick. They Are Billions is all about survival and that is the goal. While the game is still in a beta, it is playable and the developers are building it up daily, adding new abilities and necessary tweaks to make it better.
Video Link: https://youtu.be/QX1rPWPN4DI
Surviving Mars
Ever wondered what it would take to live on Mars? With a lot of buzz around the planet lately, this game puts things into perspective by making you the head of a colonisation attempt there. Surviving Mars actually puts you in to the hot-seat, where your decisions could have an impact on the survival of your colony. The game has a steep learning curve, mostly because of the lack of a decent tutorial.
But it feels like the developers want you to fail the first couple of times to learn how to build a sustainable outpost. Most of your tasks involve fire-fighting the lack of resources and waiting for stimulus packages from Earth. It's crazy difficult, but satisfying, when you build a thriving colony. If you don't want to go through the trial and error learning curve, just look for tutorials online.
Video Link: https://youtu.be/MnIIJX8cV2M
Anno 2205
Anno 2205 takes city building to the future and to the moon. You play the head of a city building corporation and the game requires you to build your futuristic paradise, while competing against other companies. The game requires you to progress your cities enough to setup a base on the moon, where resources can be mined for use on earth.
You can micromanage both the colonies on Earth and the moon simultaneously, to dominate the game. Graphically, the game looks amazing, but it is less complex than Cities: Skylines, which makes it easier to learn and get into. There are also a lot of little touches that make this game fun, including combat, which is a nice twist to the genre. Anno will also see a new version of the game this year that will focus on the industrial revolution in the 19th century and is aptly called Anno 1800.
Video Link: https://youtu.be/95kadd42GKU
Cities: Skylines
This game is what SimCity should have become, instead of the vehicle for The Sims it is today. This is by far the oldest game on our list, but the developers keep updating the game with downloadable content. There is also a vibrant community of loyalists that contributes to the game. The game has it all and it can be as simple as you want it to be or as complex. Players start with a 2x2 kilometre stretch of land that they have to build in the city.
Resources unlock as your city gets bigger — you have to manage water, electricity, waste, tax and a whole lot of other things that go into a city. Various DLCs let you add public transports, make your city sustainable or even add parks to give your city some open spaces. The game has a lot of replayability and has already sold over 5 million copies.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVhYSyVbGBs
Frostpunk
Frostpunk puts you in the seat of the last ruler of Earth. The world has changed due to global warming and has become a frozen tundra due to which human population has been decimated. You are the only person that stands in the way of extinction. The key resource here is heat, without which your people will not survive. The game also requires you to keep the hopes of the people up, while establishing guidelines to how humanity will move forward to survive.
It also gives you choices of being a benevolent leader or a dictator — either way you must remember that the people need to survive. Through the course of the game, you need to keep the people together, while gathering resources and building better technologies. The game has a steep learning curve, but successful surviving is a deeply satisfying experience.
Video Link: https://youtu.be/YPCgltNJoHI
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