Best City Builders With Dynamic Weather Systems

City builders have become an incredibly broad genre of games as of late. There's something inherently appealing about forging a settlement, a fortress, or even an entire society to maintain and shape both physically and ideologically, and so many titles have tapped into this idea recently. For beginners, there are plenty of games that provide the basics of city building without overwhelming players with a variety of stats to manage and metrics to track.

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More experienced players can find themselves taking on harder city builder games, where the world often becomes more perilous. Settlements of all varieties - from desolate wasteland bastions to sprawling merchant cities - have all stemmed from a single place of providing for that essential human need for shelter. These games in particular showcase just how important shelter can be, with weather systems that change over time or change dependent on the geography of the player's particular city.

8 Dystopika

A Cozy City Builder With Atmospheric Weather Effects

• Platform: PC
• Released: June 21, 2024
• Developer: Voids Within

Dystopika is a small but sublime title that focuses on cities in the purest and most aesthetic sense. Players are left to click and place buildings, sizing them up or down to their liking at will. Smaller buildings will organically grow around these placed ones, and it becomes very easy to make a sprawling, wistful, cyberpunk city.

The default weather setting cycles between clear, rainy, and foggy. Organically shifting between these three settings, it's a marvel to watch what might be a reasonably idyllic city in clear conditions turn into a dystopic hive city when it's foggy or become a neo-noir labyrinth in the rain.

7 Clanfolk

Seasons Alter The Settlement's Production

• Platform: PC
• Released: July 14, 2022
• Developer: MinMax Games Limited

While there are some clear similarities to Rimworld to be seen with this title, Clanfolk has made a name for itself as a more intimately focused city builder and colony sim that looks at the legacy of a single bloodline trying to survive in the Scottish Highlands.

Players can turn their settlement into any number of locations, enticing wanderers or traders as the colony becomes home to inns and markets. But no matter the settlement's purpose, winter brings a bitter chill with it that players will need to prepare for. That is unless they want to see their homestead fall to ruin.

6 Frostpunk 2

Cold Weather Is The Main Enemy

Frostpunk 2 is an incredibly compelling city builder that greatly alters the gameplay that made the first title so iconic, but it does so in such a way that it still remains satisfying and distinctively Frostpunk. While the first title focused more on meeting the necessities and keeping individual workers safe, the second entry has broadened itself into a game about managing the politics and society of a frozen city.

One thing that has remained from the first title, however, is the relentless frost. The temperatures are ever shifting and dynamic in this title, and players will need to manage their warmth capacity accordingly, especially when a dreaded blizzard draws near.

5 Terraria

Weather Alters The Threats To Villages

Terraria is a game with a truly massive list of NPCs, and most of them provide essential or incredibly useful services to the player as they continue their journey throughout their pixel world - if there's room for them to move in, of course.

Especially on higher difficulties, players will need to watch out for changing weather, as windstorms and rain bring with them new enemy types, such as flying fish, raincoat zombies, and umbrella slimes. Some weather conditions even carry across multiple biomes, while other biomes have weather entirely unique to them, further diversifying the average Terraria experience.

4 Rimworld

Surviving Means Adapting To Various Seasons

Rimworld does not, by any stretch of the imagination, hold the player's hands. While the game does a fine job explaining the barest essentials, it then leaves the player to their own devices, an integral part of the storytelling that the game prides itself on.

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Weather effects such as intense cold, heat, or rain can strike at any time, depending on where the player has set up their colony. These effects greatly shift how the pawns act, and players will need to make sure they're well equipped and sheltered from the elements.

3 Rise To Ruins

Keeping An Eye On Weather Is Vital

Rise to Ruins is an intriguing mix of a city builder and tower defense title, having players manage their society like they would in other strategy games but then become fiercely defensive as hordes of enemies attack at night.

The fluctuating seasons bring with them temperatures that can greatly change the productivity and conditions of the player's citizens. If the land becomes dangerously cold or hot, there can be dire consequences for the city.

2 Kenshi

There Is A Myriad Of Different Weather Conditions Across The Zones

Settlement management and construction is an essential part of Kenshi and the overall experience it provides. Players will be using a variety of characters to defend and produce in their settlement if they wish to survive in this hostile land.

Every zone across the continent comes with its own set of weathers - or a single perpetual weather. Players will have to watch out for dust storms, acidic rain, or fire beams from the sky depending on where they have wisely or unwisely chosen to build their base.

1 Against The Storm

The Storm's Rage Brings Many Challenges

Against the Storm is an incredible mix of a roguelike and a city builder that has players struggling against a perpetual tempest in order to forge civilizations and reclaim lost artifacts for their (not so) benevolent queen.

The storm's varying intensities and how it brings in new monsters and creatures to defend individual settlements against is an incredibly enticing part of the challenging gameplay that has come to define this title.

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