- #1 Frostpunk 2
97% matchMostly Positive75% of 25,240 reviews2024
Dev: 11 bit studios
Windows · Mac
Median: 8.1 hrsMean: 19.4 hrs≥1hr: 87%
Develop, expand, and advance your city in a society survival game set 30 years after an apocalyptic blizzard ravaged Earth. In Frostpunk 2, you face not only the perils of never-ending winter, but also the powerful factions that watch your every step inside the Council Hall.
Why similar: City Builder 30.7%, Survival 13.6%, Resource Management 13.1%, Steampunk 11.7% ★, Post-apocalyptic 11.3%
Why You'll Like It: It directly expands Frostpunk’s formula with larger-scale city management, political factions, and the same brutal emphasis on survival through impossible trade-offs.
- #2 IXION
96% matchMostly Positive79% of 17,015 reviews2022
Dev: Bulwark StudiosPub: Kasedo Games
Windows
Median: 10.0 hrsMean: 31.1 hrs≥1hr: 90%
IXION is an unrelenting, city-building odyssey across the stars. As Administrator of the Tiqqun, DOLOS’ prototype space station, you are tasked with balancing preservation and exploration as you manage infrastructure, resources and crew. Can you keep the flame of humanity alight in the cold dark?
Why similar: City Builder 27.5%, Colony Sim 17.7% ★, Resource Management 12.5%, Survival 11.7%, Strategy 5.5%
Why You'll Like It: Like Frostpunk in space, it combines a collapsing society, strict resource balancing, workforce management, and constant crisis-driven decision-making.
- #3 Endzone - A World Apart
96% matchMostly Positive77% of 9,807 reviews2021
Dev: Gentlymad StudiosPub: Assemble Entertainment
Windows
Median: 3.9 hrsMean: 9.1 hrs≥1hr: 84%
Endzone is a post-apocalyptic survival city builder, where you start a new civilization with a group of people after an ecological disaster. Build them a new home and ensure their survival in a shattered world, threatened by constant radiation, toxic rain, sandstorms and droughts.
Why similar: City Builder 33.6%, Post-apocalyptic 15.4%, Survival 13.7%, Colony Sim 10.9% ★, Strategy 6.1%
Why You'll Like It: Its post-apocalyptic colony building revolves around scarce resources, environmental hazards, and keeping survivors alive under relentless pressure.
- #4 Against the Storm
95% matchVery Positive95% of 35,504 reviews2023
Dev: Eremite GamesPub: Hooded Horse
Windows
Median: 5.5 hrsMean: 28.3 hrs≥1hr: 84%
A dark fantasy city builder where you must rebuild civilization in the face of apocalyptic rains. As the Queen’s Viceroy, lead humans, beavers, lizards, foxes, and harpies to reclaim the wilderness and secure a future for civilization's last survivors.
Why similar: City Builder 24.2%, Colony Sim 20.4% ★, Resource Management 12.9%, Survival 11%, Building 7.3%
Why You'll Like It: It captures Frostpunk’s tension through punishing survival economics, weather pressure, and the challenge of sustaining multiple settlements with unhappy populations.
- #5 Surviving the Aftermath
94% matchMostly Positive71% of 4,513 reviews2021
Dev: Iceflake StudiosPub: Paradox Interactive
Windows
Median: 4.4 hrsMean: 17.8 hrs≥1hr: 74%
Survive and thrive in a post-apocalyptic future — resources are scarce, but opportunity calls! Build the ultimate disaster proof colony, protect your colonists, and restore civilization to a devastated world.
Why similar: City Builder 29.1%, Colony Sim 18.6% ★, Post-apocalyptic 16.7%, Survival 12.3%, Strategy 7.4%
Why You'll Like It: This is another disaster-stricken survival city-builder where expansion, specialist use, and citizen needs are all constrained by a hostile world.
- #6 New Cycle
94% matchMostly Positive79% of 2,783 reviews2024
Dev: Core EngagePub: Daedalic Entertainment
Windows
Median: 4.8 hrsMean: 7.9 hrs≥1hr: 86%
New Cycle is a city building game with focus on survival. After an apocalyptic series of solar flares, human society has been thrown into disarray. Establish a settlement and develop it all the way from humble beginnings to industrial metropolis.
Why similar: City Builder 21.9%, Colony Sim 17.2% ★, Post-apocalyptic 11%, Survival 10.3%, Resource Management 9.8%
Why You'll Like It: It delivers a similarly grim rebuilding fantasy centered on social management, production chains, and surviving in the aftermath of global catastrophe.
- #7 They Are Billions
93% matchVery Positive85% of 50,609 reviews2019
Dev: Numantian Games
Windows
Median: 14.1 hrsMean: 56.0 hrs≥1hr: 91%
They Are Billions is a Steampunk strategy game set on a post-apocalyptic planet. Build and defend colonies to survive against the billions of the infected that seek to annihilate the few remaining living humans. Can humanity survive after the zombie apocalypse?
Why similar: Colony Sim 24.2% ★, City Builder 13.2%, Steampunk 11.9% ★, Survival 11.6%, Base Building 10.4%
Why You'll Like It: It matches Frostpunk’s feeling of being one bad decision from collapse, but shifts the pressure toward defense-heavy survival city-building against overwhelming hordes.
- #8 Endzone 2
92% matchMixed69% of 1,004 reviews2025
Dev: Gentlymad StudiosPub: Assemble Entertainment
Windows
Median: 2.3 hrsMean: 8.5 hrs≥1hr: 70%
Endzone 2 is a post-apocalyptic survival colony builder, where you embark to secure humanity's survival after a cataclysmic disaster. Discover and repopulate the last habitable grounds, while the survival of your people hinges on your wits, foresight, and resilience in a harsh and unforgiving world.
Why similar: City Builder 22.3%, Colony Sim 20.1% ★, Post-apocalyptic 12.9%, Survival 10.6%, Resource Management 9%
Why You'll Like It: It doubles down on Endzone’s survival-settlement formula with dangerous expeditions, harsh environments, and constant pressure on your colony’s logistics.
- #9 Floodland
91% matchMixed56% of 1,062 reviews2022
Dev: Vile MonarchPub: Ravenscourt
Windows
Median: 3.6 hrsMean: 22.0 hrs≥1hr: 79%
A society survival game set in a world destroyed by climate change. Explore, scavenge and build a city to unite the clans. Conflicting cultures and limited resources mean you need to make tough choices; have you got what it takes to lead your people into a new era of humanity?
Why similar: City Builder 23.8%, Colony Sim 22.8% ★, Post-apocalyptic 15.7%, Resource Management 12.9%, Survival 12.6%
Why You'll Like It: Its strongest Frostpunk-like quality is forcing you to rebuild society through scarcity, faction tensions, and painful civic decisions after apocalypse.
- #10 Banished
91% matchVery Positive90% of 42,988 reviews2014
Dev: Shining Rock Software LLC
Windows
Median: 7.8 hrsMean: 26.9 hrs≥1hr: 78%
In this city-building strategy game, you control a group of exiled travelers who decide to restart their lives in a new land. They have only the clothes on their backs and a cart filled with supplies from their homeland. The townspeople of Banished are your primary resource.
Why similar: City Builder 38%, Colony Sim 30.6% ★, Survival 11.1%, Strategy 6.2%, Resource Management 5.4%
Why You'll Like It: Banished shares Frostpunk’s core appeal of tightly balanced settlement survival where food, labor, heating, and expansion can spiral into disaster.
- #11 This War of Mine
90% matchVery Positive94% of 96,656 reviews2014
Dev: 11 bit studios
Windows · Mac · Linux
Median: 4.3 hrsMean: 16.6 hrs≥1hr: 83%
In This War Of Mine you do not play as an elite soldier, rather a group of civilians trying to survive in a besieged city; struggling with lack of food, medicine and constant danger from snipers and hostile scavengers. The game provides an experience of war seen from an entirely new angle.
Why similar: Survival 40%, Resource Management 15.1%, Post-apocalyptic 13.6%, Base Building 8.3%, Strategy 7.9%
Why You'll Like It: From the same developers, it trades city-building for intimate survival but preserves Frostpunk’s bleak moral choices and desperate resource triage.
- #12 Oxygen Not Included
89% matchOverwhelmingly Positive97% of 138,890 reviews2019
Dev: Klei Entertainment
Windows · Mac · Linux
Median: 8.9 hrsMean: 67.7 hrs≥1hr: 86%
Oxygen Not Included is a space-colony simulation game. Deep inside an alien space rock your industrious crew will need to master science, overcome strange new lifeforms, and harness incredible space tech to survive, and possibly, thrive.
Why similar: Colony Sim 36.7% ★, Survival 17.5%, Resource Management 16.6%, Base Building 11.4%, Building 7.4%
Why You'll Like It: Its appeal lies in solving complex survival bottlenecks under constant environmental threat, much like Frostpunk’s escalating infrastructure crises.
- #13 Farthest Frontier
87% matchVery Positive87% of 23,648 reviews2025
Dev: Crate Entertainment
Windows
Median: 9.6 hrsMean: 26.7 hrs≥1hr: 85%
Protect and guide your people as you forge a town from untamed wilderness at the edge of the known world. Harvest raw materials, hunt, fish and farm to survive. Produce crafted items to trade, consume, equip and fight with as you battle for your survival against the elements and outside threats.
Why similar: City Builder 25.9%, Colony Sim 18.6% ★, Resource Management 12.4%, Building 9.8%, Survival 9.7%
Why You'll Like It: It offers a slower but very comparable survival city-builder loop focused on food, disease, weather, and keeping a vulnerable frontier town functioning.
- #14 RimWorld
88% matchOverwhelmingly Positive98% of 236,346 reviews2018
Dev: Ludeon Studios
Windows · Mac · Linux
Median: 59.1 hrsMean: 259.4 hrs≥1hr: 92%
A sci-fi colony sim driven by an intelligent AI storyteller. Generates stories by simulating psychology, ecology, gunplay, melee combat, climate, biomes, diplomacy, interpersonal relationships, art, medicine, trade, and more.
Why similar: Colony Sim 33.4% ★, City Builder 19.3%, Survival 15.9%, Base Building 10.5%, Building 6%
Why You'll Like It: Its colony management, emergent disasters, and frequent human-cost decisions make it a strong match if you want survival systems with even more storytelling.
- #15 Stranded: Alien Dawn
86% matchVery Positive85% of 10,890 reviews2023
Dev: Haemimont GamesPub: Paradox Interactive
Windows
Median: 7.0 hrsMean: 24.2 hrs≥1hr: 87%
Brave a new world in Stranded: Alien Dawn, a planet survival sim placing the fate of a small marooned group in your hands. Forge your story through compelling and immersive strategic gameplay as you make vital decisions to protect your survivors.
Why similar: Colony Sim 26.2% ★, Survival 24.6%, Base Building 14.4%, Resource Management 11.9%, Strategy 8.9%
Why You'll Like It: This is a survival colony sim built around keeping vulnerable people alive through shortages, harsh conditions, and cascading emergencies.
- #16 The Wandering Village
85% matchVery Positive92% of 8,074 reviews2025
Dev: Stray Fawn StudioPub: Stray Fawn Publishing
Windows · Mac · Linux
Median: 3.8 hrsMean: 10.4 hrs≥1hr: 81%
The Wandering Village is a city-building simulation game on the back of a giant, wandering creature. Build your settlement and form a symbiotic relationship with the colossus. Will you survive together in this hostile, yet beautiful post-apocalyptic world, contaminated by poisonous plants?
Why similar: City Builder 26.3%, Colony Sim 20.9% ★, Post-apocalyptic 15%, Resource Management 13.1%, Survival 8.6%
Why You'll Like It: Its mobile settlement, toxic world, and constant struggle to balance survival against long-term stability echo Frostpunk’s fragile-society tension.
- #17 Infection Free Zone
86% matchVery Positive80% of 17,172 reviews2024
Dev: Jutsu GamesPub: Games Operators
Windows
Median: 6.8 hrsMean: 17.3 hrs≥1hr: 86%
Choose any real region from the world. Choose your base of operations, then rebuild and readapt the buildings around you to create a self-sustaining settlement. Take charge of a group of survivors from your city. And when the night falls - Defend the zone from the infected!
Why similar: City Builder 28.3%, Post-apocalyptic 17.8%, Colony Sim 16.3% ★, Survival 9.9%, Base Building 9.6%
Why You'll Like It: It turns scavenging, defense, and rebuilding civilization into a grim urban survival-management challenge with strong Frostpunk-style desperation.
- #18 Timberborn
82% matchOverwhelmingly Positive96% of 38,007 reviews2026
Dev: Mechanistry
Windows · Mac
Median: 9.8 hrsMean: 40.3 hrs≥1hr: 84%
Humans are long gone. In a world struck by droughts and toxic waste, will your lumberpunk beavers do any better? A sandbox city-building game featuring ingenious animals, vertical architecture, water physics, and terraforming. Contains high amounts of wood.
Why similar: City Builder 31.6%, Colony Sim 22.3% ★, Post-apocalyptic 11.1%, Survival 10.6%, Building 7.2%
Why You'll Like It: While less grim, it scratches a similar itch through survival-focused city-building where environmental planning and resource resilience are the whole game.
- #19 Norland
83% matchVery Positive82% of 9,662 reviews2024
Dev: Long JauntPub: Hooded Horse
Windows
Median: 6.4 hrsMean: 17.2 hrs≥1hr: 84%
Lead your noble family in this medieval colony sim, facing off against class conflict, religious struggle, and political treachery. Tend to your people’s needs, uncover the lost knowledge of a fallen empire, and engage in nefarious plots against your enemies.
Why similar: City Builder 24.3%, Colony Sim 21% ★, Resource Management 12.5%, Survival 10.7%, Building 7.1%
Why You'll Like It: It emphasizes ruling a struggling settlement through class conflict, personal drama, and hard social choices rather than simple city-building efficiency.
- #20 Space Haven
84% matchVery Positive86% of 9,719 reviews2020
Dev: Bugbyte Ltd.
Windows · Mac · Linux
Median: 4.3 hrsMean: 20.2 hrs≥1hr: 72%
Embark on a space voyage with your ragtag crew of civilians in search of a new home. Build spaceships tile by tile, create optimal gas conditions, manage the needs and moods of their crew, encounter other space-faring groups, and explore the universe in this spaceship colony simulation.
Why similar: Colony Sim 20.9% ★, City Builder 20.8%, Survival 11.3%, Resource Management 11.2%, Post-apocalyptic 10.6%
Why You'll Like It: Managing a fragile crew, limited resources, and a failing ship gives it the same desperate colony-survival feel that defines Frostpunk.
- #21 Planetbase
84% matchMostly Positive80% of 10,262 reviews2015
Dev: Madruga Works
Windows · Mac
Median: 8.2 hrsMean: 26.2 hrs≥1hr: 90%
Guide a group of space settlers trying to establish a base on a remote planet. Grow food, collect energy, mine resources, survive disasters and build a self-sufficient colony in a harsh and unforgiving environment.
Why similar: City Builder 30.7%, Colony Sim 27.8% ★, Survival 11.7%, Base Building 8.2%, Resource Management 7.6%
Why You'll Like It: This is another hostile-environment colony builder where life support, workforce assignment, and careful expansion matter more than rapid growth.
- #22 Cataclismo
81% matchVery Positive89% of 4,077 reviews2025
Dev: Digital SunPub: Hooded Horse
Windows
Median: 4.1 hrsMean: 8.6 hrs≥1hr: 77%
Design and build fortresses brick by brick to stand against endless hordes of Horrors in this real-time strategy game with resource management, siege defense, and exploration. Lead from the ramparts, push back the darkness, and hold fast against the creatures of the Mist.
Why similar: Steampunk 16.9% ★, City Builder 15.9%, Colony Sim 14.5% ★, Post-apocalyptic 9%, Resource Management 8.6%
Why You'll Like It: It blends settlement building and defense under existential threat, creating the same sense of building a last refuge against annihilation.
- #23 Dawn of Man
82% matchVery Positive87% of 17,635 reviews2019
Dev: Madruga Works
Windows · Mac
Median: 10.9 hrsMean: 29.7 hrs≥1hr: 86%
Command a settlement of ancient humans, guide them through the ages in their struggle for survival. Hunt, gather, craft tools, fight, research new techs and face the challenges the environment will throw at you.
Why similar: City Builder 42.5%, Colony Sim 29.7% ★, Survival 13.1%, Strategy 5.8%, Resource Management 2.3%
Why You'll Like It: It channels the same settlement-survival tension through harsh seasons, limited supplies, and carefully managed population growth.
- #24 Surviving the Abyss
79% matchMixed65% of 1,047 reviews2024
Dev: Rocket Flair StudiosPub: Paradox Arc
Windows
Median: 2.7 hrsMean: 7.7 hrs≥1hr: 70%
Earth, 1976. You have been tasked with managing a deep-sea science facility working to perfect cloning. Explore the darkness and keep your crew alive in this hardcore survival colony builder. And beware. The darkness hides untold horrors.
Why similar: City Builder 23.6%, Colony Sim 20.3% ★, Post-apocalyptic 10.1%, Survival 10%, Building 6.8%
Why You'll Like It: Its isolated colony, hostile setting, and emphasis on keeping infrastructure and morale intact make it feel like an underwater cousin to Frostpunk.
- #25 Judgment: Apocalypse Survival Simulation
81% matchVery Positive81% of 2,242 reviews2018
Dev: Suncrash
Windows
Median: 4.7 hrsMean: 25.2 hrs≥1hr: 87%
Build, scavenge, craft, and perform occult rituals to survive in a demon-infested, post-apocalyptic colony simulation. Will you survive Judgment day?
Why similar: Colony Sim 25.5% ★, Post-apocalyptic 14.2%, Survival 13.8%, City Builder 11.7%, Resource Management 7.8%
Why You'll Like It: Its focus on shelter management, scarce resources, and keeping a doomed community alive under supernatural pressure fits the same survival-management niche.
- #26 Last Train Home
78% matchVery Positive87% of 5,205 reviews2023
Dev: Ashborne GamesPub: THQ Nordic
Windows
Median: 5.0 hrsMean: 13.3 hrs≥1hr: 83%
The Great War is over - the fight continues. Command a legion of soldiers, desperately trying to make their way home amidst the chaos of civil war. Lead them through the unforgiving wilderness onboard an armored train. Manage your crew and resources and try to survive.
Why similar: Strategy 25.4%, Survival 24.7%, RTS 16%, Base Building 12.3%, Management 8.5%
Why You'll Like It: Though more tactical than city-building-focused, its blend of survival logistics, crew management, and grim journey-through-collapse atmosphere is strongly adjacent to Frostpunk.
- #27 Patron
80% matchMostly Positive72% of 3,136 reviews2021
Dev: Overseer Games
Windows
Median: 3.5 hrsMean: 6.7 hrs≥1hr: 81%
Patron is a survival city builder with a unique social dynamics system. Gather and produce resources, build your fledgling village into a prosperous city and navigate the intricate social tensions before they reach boiling point.
Why similar: City Builder 29.2%, Colony Sim 24.2% ★, Survival 13.1%, Resource Management 9.3%, Strategy 6.1%
Why You'll Like It: Beyond basic city-building, it stands out for social policy, citizen happiness, and difficult governance choices that will appeal to Frostpunk fans.
- #28 Age of Darkness: Final Stand
78% matchMostly Positive75% of 10,403 reviews2025
Dev: PlaySide
Windows
Median: 5.5 hrsMean: 13.6 hrs≥1hr: 83%
Age of Darkness: Final Stand is a dark fantasy survival RTS where you must illuminate, build and defend humanity’s last bastion against hordes of Nightmares. Set in the remnants of a kingdom consumed by a deadly fog, you decide. Will you hide in the light? Or take back your world.
Why similar: Survival 21.9%, Resource Management 21%, Base Building 14.6%, Building 14.2%, Strategy 11.4%
Why You'll Like It: If your favorite part of Frostpunk is holding a fragile settlement together under nonstop existential pressure, this leans hard into that feeling.
- #29 Foundation
76% matchVery Positive86% of 23,481 reviews2025
Dev: Polymorph Games
Windows
Median: 11.0 hrsMean: 26.3 hrs≥1hr: 89%
Foundation is a grid-less, laidback medieval city-building game with a focus on organic development, monument construction and resource management.
Why similar: City Builder 43.5%, Colony Sim 10.8% ★, Resource Management 10.6%, Strategy 6%, Building 5.6%
- #30 Manor Lords
75% matchVery Positive85% of 85,453 reviews2024
Dev: Slavic MagicPub: Hooded Horse
Windows
Median: 9.3 hrsMean: 21.5 hrs≥1hr: 89%
Manor Lords is a medieval strategy game featuring in-depth city building, large-scale tactical battles, and complex economic and social simulations. Rule your lands as a medieval lord – the seasons pass, the weather changes, and cities rise and fall.
Why similar: City Builder 23.9%, Colony Sim 20.5% ★, Resource Management 12.9%, Survival 11.2%, Building 7.2%
- #31 Sphere - Flying Cities
79% matchMixed50% of 237 reviews2022
Dev: mañana studiosPub: Assemble Entertainment
Windows
Sphere – Flying Cities is a sci-fi citybuilder which combines strategy, simulation, and survival elements in an extraordinary and immersive scenario. Rebuild and protect a society in a unique and hostile environment. Pay the price for your decisions and be prepared to lose everything.
Why similar: City Builder 28.7%, Colony Sim 24.6% ★, Survival 14.3%, Resource Management 13.5%, Building 7.3%
Why You'll Like It: A disaster-driven city-builder with constant resource stress and a sheltering-the-last-survivors premise makes it one of the more direct thematic matches.
- #32 Anno 1800
77% matchVery Positive81% of 30,897 reviews2019
Dev: Ubisoft MainzPub: Ubisoft
Windows
Median: 9.7 hrsMean: 39.6 hrs≥1hr: 88%
Anno 1800™ – Lead the Industrial Revolution! Welcome to the dawn of the Industrial Age. The path you choose will define your world. Are you an innovator or an exploiter? A conqueror or a liberator? How the world remembers your name is up to you.
Why similar: City Builder 57.1%, Resource Management 12.4%, Strategy 10.6%, Economy 7%, Building 3.3%
- #33 Cities: Skylines
77% matchVery Positive93% of 286,936 reviews2015
Dev: Colossal OrderPub: Paradox Interactive
Windows · Mac · Linux
Median: 10.0 hrsMean: 65.0 hrs≥1hr: 87%
Cities: Skylines is a modern take on the classic city simulation. The game introduces new game play elements to realize the thrill and hardships of creating and maintaining a real city whilst expanding on some well-established tropes of the city building experience.
Why similar: City Builder 56.9%, Building 10.8%, Resource Management 8.9%, Strategy 5.9%, Management 5.6%
- #34 Laysara: Summit Kingdom
74% matchVery Positive83% of 1,314 reviews2026
Dev: Quite OK GamesPub: Future Friends Games
Windows
Median: 2.1 hrsMean: 4.5 hrs≥1hr: 67%
Build and expand your very own settlements in high mountains! Carefully plan production chains and satisfy various needs of your three-caste society while dealing with mountain hazards such as weather breakdowns and avalanches. Are you skilled enough to make your town thrive?
Why similar: City Builder 24.2%, Colony Sim 18.9% ★, Resource Management 12.4%, Real-Time with Pause 7.4% ★, Survival 7%
- #35 Cliff Empire
76% matchVery Positive87% of 4,340 reviews2019
Dev: Lion's Shade
Windows · Mac
Median: 4.0 hrsMean: 15.2 hrs≥1hr: 79%
After a nuclear war life on the surface became impossible. A 300m thick radioactive fog covered the Earth. We are looking for bold active people to manage the process of restoring life on Earth. Join!
Why similar: City Builder 27.7%, Colony Sim 19.5% ★, Resource Management 12.4%, Post-apocalyptic 8.8%, Building 6.3%
- #36 Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic
73% matchVery Positive91% of 25,183 reviews2024
Dev: 3DivisionPub: Hooded Horse
Windows
Median: 6.6 hrsMean: 73.0 hrs≥1hr: 77%
Build a soviet republic from an impoverished country into a rich industrial superpower in a city builder with intricate production chains and a fully simulated global economy. Manage the lives of your citizens from education to work and party loyalty to criminal activity.
Why similar: City Builder 27.3%, Colony Sim 20.6% ★, Resource Management 10.3%, Survival 8.8%, Building 7.5%
- #37 Northgard: Definitive Edition
75% matchVery Positive85% of 68,002 reviews2018
Dev: Shiro Games
Windows · Mac · Linux
Median: 5.9 hrsMean: 28.7 hrs≥1hr: 88%
Northgard: Definitive Edition is a critically acclaimed real-time strategy game based on Norse mythology. Lead your clan, uncover the secrets of a mysterious newfound continent and defeat your enemies to conquer the Throne!
Why similar: City Builder 36.5%, Colony Sim 16.6% ★, Resource Management 9.4%, Strategy 8.4%, RTS 6.6%
- #38 Flotsam
72% matchVery Positive80% of 4,240 reviews2025
Dev: Pajama Llama GamesPub: Stray Fawn Publishing
Windows
Median: 4.5 hrsMean: 10.9 hrs≥1hr: 82%
Sail, scavenge, and rescue survivors in a vibrant floating city-builder. Captain your drifters across the endless garbage sea to uncover soaked ruins, rusting factories, and stories from the old world.
Why similar: City Builder 21.5%, Colony Sim 19.1% ★, Resource Management 11.9%, Post-apocalyptic 10.8%, Survival 10%
- #39 The Long Dark
73% matchVery Positive90% of 117,376 reviews2017
Dev: Hinterland Studio Inc.
Windows · Mac · Linux
Median: 6.3 hrsMean: 46.9 hrs≥1hr: 84%
THE LONG DARK is a thoughtful, exploration-survival experience that challenges solo players to think for themselves as they explore an expansive frozen wilderness in the aftermath of a geomagnetic disaster. There are no zombies -- only you, the cold, and all the threats Mother Nature can muster.
Why similar: Survival 65.7%, Post-apocalyptic 18.9%, Atmospheric 4.6%, Strategy 3.9%, Simulation 2.8%
- #40 Whiskerwood
70% matchVery Positive93% of 2,769 reviews2025
Dev: Minakata DynamicsPub: Hooded Horse
Windows
Median: 9.0 hrsMean: 15.3 hrs≥1hr: 87%
Establish a home for your industrious mice under the oppressive paw of your cat overlords in this city builder featuring complex simulations, intricate production chains, and the age-old rivalry between cat and mouse.
Why similar: City Builder 24.6%, Colony Sim 20.9% ★, Resource Management 12.3%, Survival 10.5%, Building 7.2%
- #41 Industries of Titan
73% matchMixed63% of 1,604 reviews2023
Dev: Brace Yourself Games
Windows
Median: 5.4 hrsMean: 14.0 hrs≥1hr: 84%
Create a sprawling industrial city. Compete with other rival corporations on Titan for resources, territory, and power. Seek victory via technology, influence, warfare, or the wealth extracted from your citizens. Stake your claim to the Industries of Titan in this innovative sim/strategy game!
Why similar: City Builder 24.8%, Colony Sim 19.5% ★, Resource Management 13.7%, Post-apocalyptic 12.6%, Real-Time with Pause 7.4% ★
- #42 Anno 2070™
74% matchMixed60% of 12,622 reviews2011
Dev: Blue BytePub: Ubisoft
Windows
Median: 10.5 hrsMean: 30.9 hrs≥1hr: 90%
Build your society of the future, colonize islands, and create sprawling megacities with multitudes of buildings, vehicles, and resources to manage.
Why similar: City Builder 55.2%, Strategy 13.3%, Resource Management 12%, Economy 4.4%, RTS 4.4%
- #43 Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI
71% matchVery Positive86% of 371,365 reviews2016
Dev: Firaxis GamesPub: 2K
Windows · Mac · Linux
Median: 18.0 hrsMean: 98.6 hrs≥1hr: 90%
Expand your empire, advance your culture and go head-to-head against history’s greatest leaders. Will your civilization stand the test of time?
Why similar: City Builder 45.7%, Strategy 32%, Building 8.1%, Management 5.2%, Simulation 3.7%
- #44 The Crust
69% matchMostly Positive77% of 3,397 reviews2024
Dev: VEOM StudioPub: Crytivo
Windows
Median: 7.0 hrsMean: 22.5 hrs≥1hr: 83%
Automate a lunar base as you become the savior of humanity exploring the future on the moon. Mine, craft, research, and trade resources with Earth in this gripping narrative basebuilder.
Why similar: Colony Sim 22% ★, City Builder 20.6%, Resource Management 13.7%, Post-apocalyptic 8.4%, Survival 8.1%
- #45 Oxygen
71% matchMostly Positive73% of 865 reviews2023
Dev: Turquoise Revival GamesPub: GrabTheGames
Windows
Median: 3.5 hrsMean: 9.8 hrs≥1hr: 78%
Oxygen is a survival city builder. Build your city around the Oxygen Center and ensure your people's survival in a post-apocalyptic future, threatened by crack explosions, deadly winds, droughts and frosts. Lead your people and more importantly keep the Oxygen Center running!
Why similar: City Builder 23.7%, Colony Sim 18.8% ★, Resource Management 12.1%, Survival 11%, Post-apocalyptic 7.5%
- #46 Life is Feudal: Forest Village
72% matchMixed66% of 5,984 reviews2017
Dev: MindillusionPub: Bitbox Ltd.
Windows
Median: 2.5 hrsMean: 30.8 hrs≥1hr: 63%
LiF:Forest Village is a city builder with survival aspects in a realistic harsh medieval world. Shape, build and expand your settlement, grow various food to prevent your villagers from avitaminosis and starvation. Possess them for additional micromanagement or simply to wander around.
Why similar: City Builder 36.8%, Colony Sim 29.9% ★, Resource Management 12%, Survival 8.6%, Strategy 5.2%
- #47 Beholder
70% matchVery Positive92% of 30,197 reviews2016
Dev: Alawar Stargaze (Warm Lamp Games)Pub: Alawar
Windows · Mac · Linux
Median: 4.2 hrsMean: 13.5 hrs≥1hr: 82%
You’re a state-installed landlord in a totalitarian country. Place listening devices, steal and sneak into your tenants’ apartments. Use what you uncovered to report anyone capable of plotting against the state. You MUST! But WILL you?
Why similar: Strategy 28.7%, Choices Matter 19.1%, Great Soundtrack 17.2%, Dark 12.5%, Simulation 10.2%
- #48 Iron Harvest
70% matchMostly Positive73% of 15,723 reviews2020
Dev: KING ArtPub: Prime Matter
Windows
Median: 3.2 hrsMean: 12.0 hrs≥1hr: 75%
A classic real-time strategy game with an epic single player campaign, multiplayer & coop, set in the alternate reality of 1920+
Why similar: Steampunk 45.2% ★, Base Building 19.1%, Strategy 17.9%, RTS 16.7%, Singleplayer 1%
- #49 Sheltered 2
71% matchMixed46% of 2,183 reviews2021
Dev: UnicubePub: Team17
Windows
Median: 2.8 hrsMean: 14.1 hrs≥1hr: 68%
A brutal survival management simulator set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Keep your faction of survivors alive, maintain your shelter and scavenge the ravaged world for resources. Befriend and trade with the factions you meet or conquer them by force.
Why similar: Colony Sim 24.5% ★, Post-apocalyptic 17.6%, Resource Management 17.4%, Survival 15.4%, Base Building 7.5%
- #50 Kingdoms and Castles
69% matchVery Positive93% of 30,837 reviews2017
Dev: Lion Shield, LLC
Windows · Mac · Linux
Median: 6.1 hrsMean: 16.0 hrs≥1hr: 88%
Kingdoms and Castles is a city-building simulation game about growing a kingdom from a tiny hamlet to a sprawling city and imposing castle. Make trade agreements, alliance, and war with neighboring AI controlled kingdoms. Each villager and resource is individually simulated.
Why similar: City Builder 36.9%, Colony Sim 26.9% ★, Resource Management 7.8%, Building 6.6%, Strategy 6%
- #51 Cities: Skylines II
69% matchMixed54% of 86,513 reviews2023
Dev: Iceflake StudiosPub: Paradox Interactive
Windows
Median: 23.8 hrsMean: 72.6 hrs≥1hr: 94%
Raise a city from the ground up and transform it into a thriving metropolis with the most realistic city builder ever. Push your creativity and problem-solving to build on a scale you've never experienced. With deep simulation and a living economy, this is world-building without limits.
Why similar: City Builder 53.2%, Building 12%, Resource Management 9.8%, Management 6.3%, Strategy 6%
- #52 Empires of the Undergrowth
66% matchVery Positive94% of 17,329 reviews2024
Dev: Slug DiscoPub: Hooded Horse
Windows · Mac
Median: 6.0 hrsMean: 18.8 hrs≥1hr: 81%
Command swarms of warriors at an unprecedented scale of warfare in this blend of RTS and base-building. Lead ant colonies against the many fearsome threats of the insect world, while building intricate nests, developing pheromone-based tactics, and evolving to meet growing dangers.
Why similar: City Builder 24.3%, Colony Sim 20.5% ★, Resource Management 12.6%, Survival 10.8%, Building 7.3%
- #53 Prison Architect
68% matchVery Positive89% of 73,112 reviews2015
Dev: Introversion SoftwarePub: Paradox Interactive
Windows · Mac · Linux
Median: 6.0 hrsMean: 30.1 hrs≥1hr: 87%
Only the world’s most ruthless Warden can contain the world’s most ruthless inmates. Design and develop your personalized penitentiary in Prison Architect.
Why similar: City Builder 26.4%, Colony Sim 25.7% ★, Resource Management 10.2%, Building 9.9%, Base Building 8.6%
- #54 Jurassic World Evolution
68% matchVery Positive87% of 54,890 reviews2018
Dev: Frontier Developments
Windows
Median: 7.3 hrsMean: 28.0 hrs≥1hr: 89%
Place yourself at the heart of the Jurassic franchise and build your own Jurassic World. Bioengineer dinosaurs that think, feel and react intelligently to the world around them and face threats posed by espionage, breakouts and devastating tropical storms in an uncertain world where life always finds a way.
Why similar: City Builder 27.3%, Building 21.1%, Resource Management 11.8%, Strategy 11.1%, Management 10.9%
- #55 The Last Haven
68% matchMixed61% of 1,526 reviews2023
Dev: Thunder Devs.
Windows
Median: 4.4 hrsMean: 14.1 hrs≥1hr: 75%
The world after a nuclear war. Manage the settlement, learn technology, make decisions, produce weapons, ammunition, organize defense, raid for supplies on other areas, do not let residents die, survive the nuclear winter.
Why similar: City Builder 18.2%, Post-apocalyptic 17.8%, Survival 11.9%, Strategy 10.9%, Base Building 10.3%
- #56 Oxygen: First Breath
66% matchVery Positive89% of 1,643 reviews2022
Dev: Turquoise Revival GamesPub: GrabTheGames
Windows
Median: 48 minMean: 6.1 hrs≥1hr: 40%
This is a free version of Oxygen, featuring the first 50 game-days. Build your city around the Oxygen Center and ensure your people's survival in a post-apocalyptic future, threatened by crack explosions, deadly winds, droughts and frosts. Lead your people and keep the Oxygen Center running!
Why similar: City Builder 24.3%, Colony Sim 18.4% ★, Resource Management 12%, Survival 10.9%, Base Building 7.1%
- #57 Airborne Kingdom
67% matchVery Positive87% of 2,333 reviews2022
Dev: The Wandering Band LLC
Windows
Median: 3.5 hrsMean: 6.9 hrs≥1hr: 81%
The sky city builder awaits. Create your own flying kingdom and lead it on a quest across an expansive world. Explore the varied landscape, build up a floating metropolis, aid struggling people below, uncover lost secrets and, ultimately, bring back the Airborne Kingdom legend.
Why similar: City Builder 30.7%, Steampunk 22.4% ★, Resource Management 13.3%, Base Building 8.3%, Building 8.2%
- #58 Frozenheim
67% matchMixed70% of 3,855 reviews2022
Dev: Paranoid InteractivePub: Untold Tales
Windows
Median: 2.1 hrsMean: 6.6 hrs≥1hr: 68%
Lead your Viking clan onto unknown shores and carve out a future for your people in the fjords of Frozenheim. Gather resources, expand, and watch your settlement grow to a bustling town that will withstand the harshness of winter and wrath of other clans.
Why similar: Colony Sim 32.4% ★, Resource Management 26.9%, Base Building 11.2%, Economy 10.4%, Strategy 8%
- #59 Final Outpost: Definitive Edition
65% matchMostly Positive77% of 193 reviews2025
Dev: Exabyte Games
Windows · Mac · Linux
Final Outpost is a survival strategy base-builder. You lead the last survivors of the apocalypse. Assign roles, craft tools, and manage resources carefully. Construct buildings, level up your citizens, and fortify your town against hordes of zombies. How many days can you survive?
Why similar: City Builder 19.7%, Colony Sim 17.8% ★, Resource Management 12.7%, Survival 12.2%, Post-apocalyptic 7.8%