As someone who’s spent an excessive amount of time micromanaging entire civilizations, the industrious little rodents of Whiskerwood have to be the cutest critters I’ve ever lorded over. The adorable cat-and-mouse city builder puts you in charge of a fledgling mouse colony filled with hardworking, skilled laborers who don’t seem to know they’re the only […]
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It’s been a rough ride for Cities: Skylines 2 over the last two years, with the sequel’s premature launch in 2023 leading to severe technical issues and lengthy delays to planned future updates. But the troubled city-builder has received some significant TLC lately. November’s bike patch brought bicycles, scooters and associated infrastructure to player-created metropolises, […]
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Colossal Order will soon part ways with its difficult second child, Cities: Skylines 2, but at least the developer got to teach the sequel to ride a bike before sending it to live with adoptive parent Iceflake Studios. The newly released bike patch actually adds bicycles and electric scooters into Skylines 2, along with all […]
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The latest game in the long-running Anno strategy city builder series has had a great launch week—depending on where you’re standing, at least. Anno 117: Pax Romana, which released on November 12, has been met with “Mixed” reviews on Steam and has been the target of complaints about the use of AI to create in-game […]
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Cities: Skylines developer Colossal Order has parted ways with publisher Paradox Interactive, with ongoing development of the series moving to a different studio. In a statement posted to the Paradox Forums, Paradox announced that the pair had “mutually decided to pursue independent paths”, claiming the choice had been made to ensure “the strongest possible future […]
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Ubisoft has been caught with its hand in the generative AI jar again, continuing a multi-year streak of formal insistence by the publishing giant that AI and game development are destined to be together. Anno 117: Pax Romana is the first Ubisoft game to appear on Steam with an AI content disclosure, though the statement […]
Read MoreThe latest in the series of era-obsessed city builders, Anno 117: Pax Romana, launches today on PC and consoles. There’s plenty of toga cosplay to go around as you slip into the sandals of a Roman governor at the peak of the empire, managing the needs of your people against the demands of the emperor. […]
Read MoreIt wasn’t built in a day, famously. But this latest Anno in a long-running series of accessible and endearingly twee city builders doesn’t take that old adage overly to heart. There’s complexity to its supply chains and economy, but it takes a ruthless writers’ pen (quill?) to the systems-bloat and perplexing menu rabbit holes found […]
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Generation Exile, a city builder which just released on Steam in early access, has a killer plot: Earth is dead or dying, ruined first by ecological collapse and finished off by the gruesome genetically engineered things we thought would fix it. A colony ship is set to undertake the multi-hundred-years journey to a new world […]
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Generation Exile | Steam Early Access Launch Date Trailer – YouTube Watch On Back in September, more than a few indie developers pushed back their release dates by a few weeks or months to get out of the way of the arrival of Hollow Knight: Silksong, which they feared would suck up all of gamingdom’s […]
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Need to know What is it? A medieval survival city builder from the creators of Grim DawnRelease date: Oct 23, 2025Expect to pay: $35/£30Developer: Crate EntertainmentPublisher: Crate EntertainmentReviewed on: Intel i7 9700K, RTX 4070 Ti, 16GB RAMSteam Deck: PlayableLink: Official site Priorities. That’s what managing a medieval city is all about. Farms are important for […]
Read MoreOh, a new city builder? I know exactly how to get started. I’ll drag a bunch of long roads across the map, slam in a ton of residential and commercial zones, slap down a fire house, a cop shop, and a few schools, then sit back and watch the virtual bucks roll in. That approach […]
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September sure was chock full o’ city builders, but wait, there’s more! October has a treat in store for all you aspiring mayors, too: survival city builder Farthest Frontier is busting out of early access and going full version 1.0 later this month. This is excellent news for two reasons. First, even from its earliest […]
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Cities: Skylines 2 just got a free content update in the form of the Netherlands Region Pack. This will provide Netherland-loving players the opportunity to build up a Dutch-inspired city with a bunch of new service buildings and an eerily realistic cemetery. “The interest and size of the Dutch Cities community is not a secret; […]
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Attention all mayors! There’s a heck of a lot of city builders headed our way, and as luck would have it, a whopping eight of them are coming in September alone. In fact, there are two you can play right now (one is just a demo, but it’s a demo you’re gonna want to check […]
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Tropico 7 | Announcement Trailer | US – YouTube Watch On I was going to start this article by writing about how I feel like there’s a new Tropico entry every time I return my attention to the series. I was going to write about how it wasn’t that long ago I was pouring many […]
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I don’t know exactly why, but the idea of setting up trade routes is like catnip to me. Little horse-drawn wagons? Shipments of lumber or wool or vegetables? Resources trundling between cities? Yeah, I’ll play a game where that happens. Let Them Trade, as you can probably guess from the title, is all about that […]
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Take on the Frostpunk 2 Modding Contest and Win $10 000! – YouTube Watch On To celebrate Frostpunk 2’s budding modding scene, 11 Bit Studios is hosting a contest to find the best mod around, alongside mod.io. There are a bunch of prizes and a ton of time for contestants to make something really special, […]
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I want to introduce y’all to an excellent low-pressure city builder that I’ve become smitten with, Dystopika, but first I need to get some stuff off my chest. Sorry (I am not sorry). Among my many questionable opinions, one in particular tends to elicit the most ire from my colleagues: that cosy games are bollocks. […]
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Cities: Skylines 2’s latest patch includes a bunch of new fixes, and introduces actual quays and piers, which means players no longer need to play Frankenstein with their shoreline. “We’ve seen how you have used the cut-and-fill roads to create makeshift quays in your cities, but we also know how challenging they can be to […]
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How do you like building your cities? There’s real appeal in a godlike, top-down view as you become a sort of all-seeing invisible mayor in a city builder. But there’s definitely something engaging about having your boots on the muddy ground as you carve a town out of the wilderness and fill it with citizens […]
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As revealed in the PC Gaming Show 2025, Stario: Haven Tower is launching a new demo on June 9 as part of Steam Next Fest, before it’s set to arrive in early access later this year. And, as I’m frequently reminded by our resident Chris Livingston’s yearly roundup posts, there are so many different types […]
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The city-building genre has gone from strength to strength the last few years (admittedly with the unfortunate exception of Cities Skylines 2) Developers far and wide have spun out virtual urban planning from its modern metropolitan origins in dozens of weird and wonderful ways. We’ve built cities in frozen wastelands, in the skies, and in […]
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Gourdlets Together Reveal Trailer | Wholesome Direct 2025 – YouTube Watch On Ever since the sandbox city builder Gourdlets was released last August, the most requested feature players have been asking for is co-op. After almost a year, Gourdlets Together has now been announced with a new trailer as part of Wholesome Direct. It’s a […]
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