The best city building games 2025

What are the best city building games? There’s nothing more relaxing than sitting down for an afternoon of city building games. We’ve lost countless hours lining up buildings just how we like them or scrambling to save a population on the brink of collapse (okay, that bit's not so relaxing), and occasionally, we’ve purposefully brought about that collapse to see how our citizens would cope. Not very well, as it happens.

Whether you're after a peaceful experience or want to wreak havoc as a god-like figure, our list of the best city building games offers something for every management game fan. Some of them are even on our best PC games list, so you know you're in for a treat, from hardcore colony builders with strict guidelines to welcoming games with stripped-back interfaces and fewer apocalyptic threats for genre newcomers.