Games like Cities: Skylines
The three best games after Cities: Skylines are Timberborn (the freshest building since the genre began — vertical, wooden, beaver-run), Against the Storm (city-building with the boredom surgically removed) and Anno 1800 (the beauty and the logistics, industrial-revolution edition). Ten entries ranked below — including Cities: Skylines II, still the deliberate skip: years after launch it trails the original in both performance and simulation depth.
Cities: Skylines earned its decade at the top — 93% positive across 291,000 Steam reviews — by being the sandbox where traffic flow became a hobby. If you are here, you have probably watched one intersection for twenty minutes. The good news: the genre around it got interesting while you were rerouting buses.
The ten entries below are ranked by what they actually ask you to manage — water physics, supply chains, survival, or feelings. One is a deliberate skip, and yes, it is the sequel; the note explains where that stands in 2026.
Playing Cities: Skylines for the first time instead? Check its key price on ulov.gg · Our verdict: Is Cities: Skylines worth buying in 2026?
How we picked these
- Building as the core pleasure — watching a place grow because of your decisions.
- Systems that push back: traffic, logistics, weather or scarcity.
- Readable simulation — when something breaks, you can find out why.
- Runs well on the hardware people actually have.
- Steam ratings quoted per entry, unflattering ones included.
The list
Best buy in this guide today: Foundation at 16,32 € — the lowest we have recorded since July 2026.
01 Timberborn
Timberborn is the most original city-builder in years: beavers rebuilding a dried-out world, with real water physics — dams, floods, droughts — and verticality no competitor attempts. 96% positive across 41,000 Steam reviews. The 'one more district' pull of Skylines, plus an actual reason districts matter.
Well above its September 2026 low, the cheapest we have recorded since June 2026 — this one goes on sale, so it is worth waiting.
02 Against the Storm
Against the Storm fixes the city-builder's oldest flaw — the aimless late game — by ending the city on purpose: 90-minute settlements, an impatient queen, permanent progress between runs. 94% across 37,000 reviews. The most respectful of your evenings on this list.
Well above its September 2026 low, the cheapest we have recorded since June 2026 — this one goes on sale, so it is worth waiting.
03 Anno 1800
Anno 1800 is the beauty-and-logistics pick: island supply chains feeding a metropolis you will screenshot unprompted. Its 81% Steam rating carries launch-era DRM anger; the game underneath is the best Anno ever made, and the one Skylines players bounce into most happily.
Well above its July 2026 low, the cheapest we have recorded since June 2026 — this one goes on sale, so it is worth waiting.
04 Frostpunk
Frostpunk is the city-builder as moral pressure: one generator, minus seventy degrees, and laws you sign with your conscience. 93% across 136,000 reviews. Shorter and more authored than Skylines — you finish it changed rather than retired.
05 Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic
Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic is the deep end: a planned economy where every brick arrives by truck you routed, at 91% across 27,000 reviews. Skylines' traffic hobby expanded into an entire ideology. Demands spreadsheet patience; repays it like nothing else in the genre.
06 Transport Fever 2
Transport Fever 2 isolates the part of Skylines you secretly loved most — the networks. Trains, trams, ships and 150 years of routes to perfect, at 90% across 32,000 reviews. Cities grow because your logistics let them, which is the correct power fantasy for a traffic person.
07 Tropico 6
Tropico 6 runs the city with a personality disorder: you are El Presidente, elections are negotiable, and the economy includes bribes. 88% across 29,000 reviews. Lighter simulation than Skylines, far better jokes — the genre's best palate cleanser.
08 Manor Lords
Manor Lords is the prettiest medieval village-builder ever shipped and honest about its state: still in early access, 84% positive across 90,000 reviews, with the organic plot-based building already fully magical. Buy it for what it is today — a gorgeous, calm 20 hours — not the finished epic it may become.
09 Foundation
Foundation commits to the gridless idea completely: no zones, no straight lines, villagers wearing paths into the hillside. 87% positive. Smaller in systems than Skylines and deliberately so — this is the organic-growth pleasure with the stress removed.
SKIP10 Cities: Skylines II
Skip the sequel, still — Cities: Skylines II sits at 56% on Steam years after launch, with performance and simulation depth both short of the original. The first game plus a couple of expansions remains the better city-builder per euro, and everything else on this list is healthier than waiting. If a true turnaround lands, this note goes first.
Similar but different
Mini Motorways
Mini Motorways is the Skylines traffic hobby reduced to its essence: draw roads, watch flow, fail beautifully in twenty minutes. 96% across 24,000 reviews. Dangerous at bedtime.
Dorfromantik
Dorfromantik is building with the simulation removed entirely — hexes, hills and a quiet score counter. 96% positive. For the evening you want to make a place, not manage one.
Factorio
Factorio is where logistics people eventually end up: the city is a machine and you are its nervous system. 98% across 233,000 reviews. See our games-like-Factorio page before entering; time behaves differently in there.
FAQ
Is Cities: Skylines II fixed yet?
Improved, not redeemed — 56% on Steam in 2026 tells you the crowd's verdict after years of patches. Performance is better than launch; the simulation still underdelivers. The original remains the safer purchase.
What is the best modern alternative for pure city-building?
Timberborn, and it is not close — real water physics and vertical building make it the first builder in years that does not feel like a Skylines mod. Foundation if you want calmer; Anno 1800 if you want grander.
I want something I can finish. City builders never end.
That is Against the Storm's entire design: cities that conclude in an evening with progress that persists. Frostpunk also ends — memorably. Both cure the 'abandoned save at 40k population' guilt.
Do any of these run on a weak laptop?
Mini Motorways and Dorfromantik run on nearly anything, and Foundation is modest. Timberborn is reasonable at small scale. Workers & Resources and Anno 1800 want real hardware once cities grow — check our low-end PC list for the wider answer.
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