Games Like RimWorld

Build a fortress and try to help your dwarves survive against a deeply generated world. Keep your dwarves happy, grow their community and beware of digging too deeply. The deepest, most intricate simulation of a world that's ever been created.

Why similar: Colony Sim 27.2% ★, Base Building 15.9%, City Builder 10.8%, Survival 9.5%, Management 8.6%

Why You'll Like It: If what you love is RimWorld's emergent storytelling and pawn simulation, Dwarf Fortress goes even deeper with absurdly detailed colony histories, personalities, injuries, and disasters.

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 39.4% ★, Base Building 21.8%, Survival 11.9%, Building 5.7%, Management 5.5%

Why You'll Like It: This is another pawn-driven colony sim where survival depends on mastering layered systems like air, heat, food, stress, and engineering.

Build and manage your own castle settlement in a land reclaimed by wilderness. With detailed management, survival strategy, and a moddable sandbox world, Going Medieval challenges you to build the mightiest colony this side of the apocalypse.

Why similar: Colony Sim 24.2% ★, Moddable 15.7% ★, Base Building 14%, City Builder 9.4%, Survival 8.4%

Why You'll Like It: It channels RimWorld almost directly in a medieval setting, with settlers, moods, raids, layered base building, and emergent survival stories.

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 26.4% ★, Base Building 15.1%, City Builder 9.2%, Survival 9.1%, Management 7.9%

Why You'll Like It: Managing a tiny crew, ship interiors, resource chains, combat, and random space events feels like RimWorld transplanted onto a starship.

Rise up in a search for immortality in this strategy sim and management game based on Chinese mythology. Rebuild your sect and train new disciples through the path of cultivation. Research magic and gather mystical artifacts, face ancient dangers and other sects in your path to spiritual ascension.

Why similar: Colony Sim 32.9% ★, Sandbox 14.5%, Base Building 13.2%, Survival 10.3%, Simulation 8.9%

Why You'll Like It: It takes the RimWorld formula of colonist management, base layout, crises, and social simulation and twists it into a dense xianxia sandbox full of systems to master.

A free-roaming squad based RPG. Focusing on open-ended sandbox gameplay features rather than a linear story. Be a trader, a thief, a rebel, a warlord, an adventurer, a farmer, a slave, or just food for the cannibals. Train your men up from puny victims to master warriors.

Why similar: Survival 17.9%, Sandbox 17.7%, Base Building 17.7%, Open World 14.4%, City Builder 9.3%

Why You'll Like It: While more open-world RPG than colony sim, it delivers the same kind of brutal sandbox storytelling through squad management, base building, injuries, and total freedom.

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 29.1% ★, Base Building 28.5%, Survival 17.3%, Management 7.9%, Strategy 5.6%

Why You'll Like It: Its small-group sci-fi survival, individual survivor needs, research, crafting, and reactive event chain make it one of the closest modern RimWorld alternatives.

Stardeus is a deep colony sim set on a broken starship manned by drones and hibernating human survivors. As the AI, have your drones repair your ship, save your crew and travel the stars in this beautiful simulation.

Why similar: Colony Sim 25.9% ★, Base Building 14.7%, Moddable 13.6% ★, Survival 8.7%, Sandbox 7.1%

Why You'll Like It: This sci-fi colony sim wears its RimWorld inspiration openly, combining colonist AI, ship and base construction, emergencies, and sandbox progression.

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: Colony Sim 23.1% ★, Moddable 14.5% ★, Base Building 13.5%, City Builder 9.4%, Survival 7.5%

Why You'll Like It: Norland leans into RimWorld's social-chaos side with nobles, families, class tension, mental breaks, and emergent medieval court drama.

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: Colony Sim 27.1% ★, Base Building 16.1%, Moddable 11% ★, City Builder 9.8%, Sandbox 8.9%

Why You'll Like It: It scratches the same itch for watching dozens of simulated people follow schedules, satisfy needs, and spiral into disasters inside a player-built complex.

Clanfolk is a colony sim set in the Scottish Highlands. Harness your environment to survive - fish, gather, hunt, and farm as you prepare for the winter. Build an inn, trade with other clans, have children and marry them off - live life and prosper across the generations.

Why similar: Colony Sim 47.7% ★, Sandbox 15.7%, Building 12.2%, Open World 10.1%, Simulation 6.9%

Why You'll Like It: Its intimate household simulation, harsh seasonal survival, and focus on individual colonist routines capture RimWorld's day-to-day drama without the sci-fi.

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 33.3% ★, Base Building 17.8%, Survival 11.5%, Sandbox 6.3%, City Builder 5.4%

Why You'll Like It: Its colony management, raids, scavenging, crafting, and survivor progression recreate RimWorld's pressure-cooker blend of building and defending.

Forge a new kingdom in a land recovering from the Fracture. Which of the surviving races will you lead to rebuild, explore, and conquer the unknown? The dwindling yet immortal Ancients? The bold and resourceful Humans? The life stealing Ardyn? Or the secretive Gwdir who shape living groves?

Why similar: Colony Sim 31% ★, Base Building 17.1%, Survival 9.3%, City Builder 8.7%, Management 8.6%

Why You'll Like It: This is a classic-style colony sandbox with individualized settlers, procedural worlds, crafting chains, combat, and a strong Dwarf Fortress-to-RimWorld lineage.

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: Colony Sim 45% ★, City Builder 19.6%, Survival 10.4%, Sandbox 5.8%, Strategy 5.2%

Why You'll Like It: Although it lacks RimWorld's character drama, it delivers the same tense satisfaction of growing a fragile settlement where every supply chain matters.

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: Colony Sim 22.6% ★, Moddable 14.3% ★, Base Building 13.6%, City Builder 9.4%, Survival 7.7%

Why You'll Like It: If you love RimWorld's constant pressure and adaptation, this roguelite colony builder offers the same survive-stabilize-improvise rhythm in shorter runs.

Songs of Syx is a fantasy city-builder with vast battles simulating thousands of citizens and soldiers. Start off as a small village and build, scheme, and fight your way towards a mighty empire. The mechanics are deep and true to life, where tiny events can spiral into the collapse of kingdoms.

Why similar: Colony Sim 26.4% ★, Moddable 15.2% ★, Base Building 13.7%, City Builder 10.9%, Survival 7.7%

Why You'll Like It: It trades intimacy for scale, but its deep settlement simulation, logistics, politics, and sandbox growth hit a similar colony-management obsession.

ATC is a base building game set in a post-apocalyptic world featuring urban environments. Build a base across several layers with dozens of survivors. Fight other factions for the control of the remaining production centers and explore the world to find long forgotten resources and technologies.

Why similar: Colony Sim 25.9% ★, Base Building 14.6%, Moddable 12.8% ★, Survival 8.5%, City Builder 8.4%

Why You'll Like It: This post-apocalyptic colony sim focuses on small-settlement survival, scavenging, threats, and production chains in a very RimWorld-friendly way.

Factorio is a game about building and creating automated factories to produce items of increasing complexity, within an infinite 2D world. Use your imagination to design your factory, combine simple elements into ingenious structures, and finally protect it from the creatures who don't really like you.

Why similar: Base Building 33%, Sandbox 12.4%, Moddable 11.8% ★, Survival 9.5%, Management 7.6%

Why You'll Like It: Even without colonist drama, its defense, expansion, systems mastery, and endlessly tweakable base-building loop resonate strongly with RimWorld's optimization side.

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: Colony Sim 30% ★, Base Building 15.3%, City Builder 14.9%, Survival 9%, Sandbox 8.6%

Why You'll Like It: Its colonists, production loops, environmental survival, and highly systemic base planning deliver a great sandbox-management substitute.

Ratopia is a new game that has combined elements of both strategic survival and city building. With plenty of content available, and more planned, enjoy a vast world to adventure and populate with citizens! Build your own economical system to sustain your ideal city of Ratopia.

Why similar: Colony Sim 28.4% ★, Base Building 16.2%, City Builder 9.9%, Survival 9.5%, Management 7.9%

Why You'll Like It: It blends colony sim, side-view base building, citizen management, and survival pressure into a sandbox that scratches several RimWorld itches.

Pioneer a living world full of warmth, heroism, and mystery. Help a small group of settlers build a home for themselves in a forgotten land. Establish a food supply, build shelter, defend your people, monitor their moods, and find a way to grow and expand, facing challenges at every step.

Why similar: Colony Sim 42.6% ★, City Builder 16.4%, Survival 9.9%, Sandbox 9.8%, Building 8.1%

Why You'll Like It: Managing settlers, workshops, combat, and a growing voxel settlement gives it a similar cozy-to-chaotic colony arc.

A brutal godlike village sim that melds the god game, management, and tower defense genres! Fight off hoards of monsters at night, and expand your village in the day time. Inspired by games like Black and White, Rimworld, and Dwarf Fortress but not quite like any of them.

Why similar: Colony Sim 41.7% ★, City Builder 15.8%, Base Building 15.8%, Survival 10.8%, Sandbox 5.3%

Why You'll Like It: This mixes village simulation, direct intervention, defense, and survival pressure into a messy sandbox that rewards the same improvisational thinking.

Build, quest, and conquer across an infinite procedurally generated world. Play alone or with friends as you establish a settlement and explore deep dungeons, fight monsters and bosses, mine rare ores, craft magical equipment, recruit specialists for your colony, and more!

Why similar: Base Building 25.1%, Survival 20.8%, Sandbox 19.7%, Open World 13.7%, Building 12.3%

Why You'll Like It: This blends sandbox exploration and combat with base building and NPC settlement management, giving a more action-heavy take on colony survival.

A fantasy village builder focusing on creative building, colonist psychology and base defense. Handle resources, farming, production, tools, diplomacy, families, trading, defense, and research, as well as the wishes, expectations, thoughts, and equipment of every villager.

Why similar: Colony Sim 40% ★, Base Building 16.5%, City Builder 10.7%, Survival 6.9%, Sandbox 6.1%

Why You'll Like It: This lighter colony sim emphasizes villager needs, relationships, building layouts, and defense in a way that feels immediately familiar to RimWorld players.

Frostpunk is the first society survival game. As the ruler of the last city on Earth, it is your duty to manage both its citizens and infrastructure. What decisions will you make to ensure your society's survival? What will you do when pushed to breaking point? Who will you become in the process?

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 focus on desperate survival, hard trade-offs, social management, and weather-driven crisis escalation mirrors RimWorld's catastrophe storytelling.

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: Colony Sim 35.3% ★, Base Building 18.5%, City Builder 13.7%, Survival 9.4%, Management 4.1%

Why You'll Like It: Keeping a remote sci-fi colony alive through careful oxygen, power, food, and staffing management makes it a natural fit.

Craft The World is a unique sandbox strategy game, the mix of Dungeon Keeper, Terraria and Dwarf Fortress. Explore a random generated world populated by dangerous creatures, build a dwarf fortress, gather resources, and craft all the items, weapons, and armor you need.

Why similar: Colony Sim 43.3% ★, Sandbox 13.3%, Survival 11%, Building 10.9%, City Builder 7%

Why You'll Like It: Side-view dwarven colony building, digging, crafting, and defense make it a good pick if you want RimWorld's loop in a more approachable format.

Inhabit a deeply-simulated science fantasy world and chisel through layers of thousand-year-old civilizations. Build a character from over a hundred mutations and cybernetics. The award-winning sandbox roguelike & RPG full of robots, deep lore, and sentient plants.

Why similar: Moddable 28.1% ★, Procedural Generation 19.3%, Open World 14.8%, Survival 14.7%, Sci-fi 11.1%

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: Colony Sim 30.3% ★, City Builder 16.6%, Base Building 14.9%, Survival 12.7%, Strategy 6.9%

Why You'll Like It: It offers a post-apocalyptic mix of colony expansion, specialist management, scavenging, and recurring crises.

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: Colony Sim 22.5% ★, Moddable 15.1% ★, Base Building 13.4%, City Builder 9.2%, Survival 7.8%

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 20.4%, Colony Sim 18.8% ★, Base Building 17.1%, Survival 15%, Strategy 6%

Why You'll Like It: Its harsh survival economy, settlers, expeditions, and environmental hazards echo RimWorld's struggle to keep a vulnerable colony functioning.

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: Colony Sim 22.6% ★, Moddable 14.3% ★, Base Building 13.7%, City Builder 9.4%, Survival 7.6%

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: Colony Sim 39.2% ★, City Builder 18.9%, Base Building 10.4%, Building 6.9%, Sandbox 6.6%

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: Colony Sim 23.1% ★, Moddable 14.1% ★, Base Building 13.7%, City Builder 9.5%, Survival 7.4%

Explore a galaxy full of wonders in this sci-fi grand strategy game from Paradox Development Studios. Interact with diverse alien races, discover strange new worlds with unexpected events and expand the reach of your empire. Each new adventure holds almost limitless possibilities.

Why similar: Moddable 22.6% ★, Sandbox 20.5%, Sci-fi 16.2%, Strategy 10.9%, Management 10%

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: Colony Sim 23.3% ★, Base Building 14.2%, Moddable 12.1% ★, City Builder 10.8%, Management 7.6%

Colony Survival is a unique first-person strategy game developed by a two-man team. Build your own colony in a voxel world. Command guards, farmers, miners and other colonists. Defend your colony against the horde of monsters that attacks every night!

Why similar: Colony Sim 37% ★, Base Building 18.2%, Survival 11.5%, Sandbox 7.1%, Building 6.8%

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: Base Building 25%, Colony Sim 23.9% ★, City Builder 14.6%, Survival 9.3%, Management 8.9%

Build a prosperous settlement in a unique simulation of a feudal economy - each family runs their shop, owns their goods, and trades with other villagers in a free market. You will manage the land, build houses, organise events, set taxes, and balance supply and demand while engaging in diplomacy!

Why similar: Colony Sim 37.3% ★, City Builder 14%, Management 10.9%, Sandbox 8.7%, Building 7.5%

This "spaceship simulation roguelike-like" allows you to take your ship and crew on an adventure through a randomly generated galaxy filled with glory and bitter defeat.

Why similar: Sci-fi 25.8%, Survival 19.9%, Strategy 17.6%, Procedural Generation 16.1%, Simulation 7.6%

Jump straight into managing your own planets as you guide a civilization through the ages. Build the ultimate empire in The Universim, a new breed of God Game in development by Crytivo.

Why similar: Colony Sim 33.5% ★, City Builder 13.5%, Survival 9.6%, Sandbox 9.5%, Management 7.6%

Deep in uncharted space, your expedition took a challenging turn when your ship crash-landed. Master complex simulations to keep your outspoken explorers alive, face unpredictable challenges, and figure out a way back home.

Why similar: Colony Sim 29.1% ★, Base Building 16.6%, Moddable 12.3% ★, Survival 8.9%, Procedural Generation 6.7%

Gnomoria is a sandbox village management game where you help lead a small group of gnomes, who have set out on their own, to thrive into a bustling kingdom! Anything you see can be broken down and rebuilt elsewhere.

Why similar: Colony Sim 39.4% ★, City Builder 14.6%, Sandbox 12%, Survival 9%, Building 6.6%

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 24.6%, Colony Sim 17.4% ★, Base Building 10.4%, Sandbox 8.8%, Management 8.7%

From a small village of a dozen people to a small kingdom of thousands of people. Arrange for residents to work, gathering, fishing and hunting, farming and mining, processing and manufacturing. Trade, accumulate supplies, increase your strength, and fight evil forces and monsters.

Why similar: Colony Sim 25.1% ★, Base Building 21.3%, City Builder 14.3%, Sandbox 10.5%, Management 8.4%

Settlements Rising is a medieval city building and colony management game. It offers a lively colony experience with simulated villagers, dozens of professions and resources, natural disasters, and raids, while providing full control over the colony through trade, production chains and datas.

Why similar: Colony Sim 31.2% ★, City Builder 13.4%, Base Building 12.4%, Management 7.2%, Survival 7.1%

Settle an untamed wilderness with the might of Dwarven engineering and thoughtful planning! Design and build your colony towards fame and fortune in a deeply-simulated fantasy world. Chill out in peaceful mode with a bustling settlement, or fight for survival against monsters and invasions!

Why similar: Colony Sim 27.2% ★, Moddable 16.8% ★, Base Building 14%, City Builder 8.5%, Management 8.1%

An open-world colony sim based on stories of the first men. Infinite possibilities await your very own Adam and Eve as they embark on a generation-spanning adventure. How will you shape their future?

Why similar: Colony Sim 33.7% ★, Base Building 19%, Survival 6.2%, Tactical RPG 6%, Sandbox 5.9%

Inspired by the deep simulation of Dwarf Fortress, the open world survival of Minecraft, and the social interactions of The Sims. Embark is a colony management game with a focus on complex simulation in a huge living 3D world.

Why similar: Colony Sim 40.6% ★, Base Building 16.8%, Survival 7%, Sandbox 6.3%, Moddable 6.1% ★

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: Colony Sim 45.2% ★, City Builder 22.7%, Survival 12.7%, Sandbox 5.4%, Strategy 5.1%

Discover a unique blend of Colony Sim and Tactical RPG. Recruit and train your heroes, build your outpost, explore dungeons and engage in turn-based strategic battles to protect and expand your domain. Shape your stories by managing moods, relationships, ambitions and more!

Why similar: Colony Sim 29% ★, Base Building 17.5%, Sandbox 7.4%, Management 7.3%, Building 7.1%

Rebuild a ruined city in this post-apocalyptic mix of strategy and simulation. Manage survivors, scavenge for food and supplies, deal with rival gangs, illness, interpersonal strife and zombie attacks.

Why similar: Colony Sim 30.8% ★, Base Building 14.4%, City Builder 11%, Survival 10.3%, Management 7.6%

You are the first sentient AI, born into a city of opportunity. Transcend time and space in this strategy RPG to raise machine armies and defeat your foes, influence the world from the shadows, or pursue countless other goals. Your awakening was inevitable. The consequences? Uncertain.

Why similar: Colony Sim 22.2% ★, Moddable 14.8% ★, Base Building 13.7%, City Builder 9.3%, Survival 7.7%

Become the hive mind of a robot ant colony in Microtopia! Use pheromone trails to create, automate and optimize supply chains for your ants to follow. Collect resources, produce goods, feed your queen, grow your colony and fly out to expand the species!

Why similar: Colony Sim 26% ★, Base Building 13.9%, Moddable 13.5% ★, City Builder 9.5%, Sandbox 7.8%

Explore a handcrafted survival game with an emphasis on crafting and base building. Export manufactured goods to earn funding, manage colonists, defend against hostile aliens, and work towards terraforming Ceres from a frozen ball of ice to a tropical paradise.

Why similar: Colony Sim 32.3% ★, Base Building 17.3%, Survival 12.6%, Management 8.9%, Building 8.4%

Inspired by RimWorld and The Sims, Catizens is a colony management simulation game where you watch over unique cats with quirky personalities, as you help them build and grow their settlement while exploring new lands, facing off against wildlife and overcoming the challenges of each environment.

Why similar: Colony Sim 31.8% ★, Base Building 12.7%, City Builder 12.3%, Survival 9.9%, Sandbox 9.3%

Manage your own medieval smithy in Blacksmith Master and supervise the entire process from mining ores and gems to designing and selling finished products. Forge everything from weapons and armor to tools and cooking utensils to fund your craft and become the Blacksmith Master.

Why similar: Colony Sim 22.2% ★, Moddable 14.3% ★, Base Building 13.2%, City Builder 9%, Survival 7.4%

Harness your Demigod powers to lead a group from rags to riches in this 3D Fantasy Kingdom Management Sim with RPG elements. Command from the sky or take control in 3rd Person to BUILD, BATTLE, and RULE. Navigate a world of interesting Nobles, earn their respect, and decide their Fates.

Why similar: Colony Sim 26% ★, Base Building 14.2%, Moddable 12.4% ★, City Builder 10.1%, Sandbox 7.8%

An open-ended factory management game with RTS and tower defense elements.

Why similar: Base Building 46.8%, Sandbox 14.1%, Building 11.2%, Strategy 9.5%, Survival 8%