Summary
- City-building fans revel in challenging games that test their strategic prowess and mastery over inhospitable conditions.
- Anno 1800's Industrial Revolution setting demands players to balance productivity with citizen happiness using the new Blueprint system.
- Frostpunk stands out as the most unforgiving city-builder, forcing players to make tough moral decisions in a post-apocalyptic ice world.
At its core, the appeal of the city-building genre is the joy of creation. Fans of city-builders enjoy building a thriving community out of nothing, overcoming impossible odds to craft an enduring settlement that they can be proud of. This feeling of pride is all the sweeter the more challenges there are placed before the burgeoning new community.
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To that end, many city-builder fans seek out the hardest possible games, building settlements under the most inhospitable conditions that developers can offer. These titles are not for the faint of heart, as the challenges they present are massively difficult, but strategic and clever fans can find a lot of success taming these harsh elements and building something truly magnificent. Here are some of the hardest city-building games on the market.
10 Against The Storm
A Challenging Roguelike City-Builder
Against the Storm
You are the Viceroy – a leader charged by the Scorched Queen to reclaim the wilderness and discover lost riches for the Smoldering City, civilization's last bastion against the Blightstorm that destroyed the old world. Unlike most survival city builders where your focus is on a single city, in Against the Storm you must build a vast, prosperous network of settlements populated by diverse fantasy races, each with their own specializations and needs.
The wilderness holds many hidden dangers, and never-ending storms will batter your population into submission. If your settlements should fall, then the expedition may end – but not the game. Against the Storm is a roguelite city builder, meaning you will carry forward the resources, upgrades, and experience of your past expeditions each time you set off for a new journey into the wild.
Foxes, beavers, and lizards stand alongside humans and harpies in the struggle to survive. Utilize each group's strengths as you balance their varying needs, from housing and culinary preferences to taste in luxuries and recreation. Will you manufacture raincoats, brew ale, and bake pies to boost morale in the face of the oppressive hostility of the forest, or will you prioritize the needs of one species over another to operate more swiftly for the Scorched Queen?
- Released
- December 8, 2023
- Developer(s)
- Eremite Games
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X
- Genre(s)
- Strategy, City Builder, Simulation
Against the Storm is a particularly unique approach to the city-building genre because it also implements roguelike elements. The idea of permanent loss and temporary success might seem counter-intuitive to the goal of building a city, but Against the Storm makes it work with an intricate system of permanent upgrades and progression mechanics.
The challenge of Against the Storm comes from maximizing the success and productivity of these temporary settlements before the titular Blightstorm comes through and destroys everything. Luckily, the game makes it relatively easy to get started, with adaptive difficulty levels that get progressively harder over time. This makes Against the Storm pretty easy to pick up, but very difficult to master.
9 Anno 1800
Mastering The Industrial Revolution
Anno 1800
- Released
- April 20, 2019
- Platform(s)
- PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Microsoft Windows
- Developer
- Blue Byte
- Genre(s)
- Real-Time Strategy, Simulation
The Anno franchise is a venerable name in the city-builder genre, and Anno 1800 is a standout title. As the title suggests, this game takes players to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Fans must put together a booming industrial metropolis with the help of factory labor and colonial trade. Managing resources, factory output, and working conditions is key to success.
Balancing productivity with citizen happiness is crucial in Anno 1800. Aiding players in managing this difficult ordeal is the new Blueprint system, which can be used to plan the layout of a city before it is built. This helps fans experiment with different set-ups before they commit to building, which is a major boon to productivity and helps avoid disastrous miscalculations.
8 Cities: Skylines
Managing A Metropolis
Cities: Skylines
- Released
- March 10, 2015
- Developer(s)
- Colossal Order
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Seires X, Xbox Series S
- Genre(s)
- City Builder
The iconic Cities: Skylines is a truly robust city simulator, and one of the most well-known city-building games out there. That said, its intricacy can make it quite daunting for newcomers. Cities: Skylines does not shy away from the complexities of managing a whole city. Players will have to keep an eye on resources, citizen happiness, economic growth, and even traffic flow.
Players who want even more challenge can turn to the game's extensive modding community. Cities: Skylines is rich with user-generated content, and it comes packed with a map editor for creative fans to construct brand-new challenges. For players who can master the intricacies of constructing a bustling city, Cities: Skylines offers a treasure trove of gameplay options.
7 Tropico 6
A Difficult Dictatorship
Tropico 6
El Presidente is back!
In times of political turmoil and social unrest, the people are calling for visionary leaders, who will steer the fate of their country with foresight and ingenuity. Prove yourself once again as a feared dictator or peace-loving statesman on the island state of Tropico and shape the fate of your very own banana republic through four distinctive eras. Face new challenges on the international stage and always keep the needs of your people in mind.
For the first time in the series, manage extensive archipelagos, build bridges to connect your islands and use new means of transportation and infrastructure. Send your Tropicans on raids to steal the wonders of the world and monuments, including the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower to add them to your collection. Customize your palace at will and give election speeches from your balcony, to win the favor of your subjects.
- Released
- March 29, 2019
- Developer(s)
- Limbic Entertainment
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
- Genre(s)
- Simulation
Fans who want a more irreverent take on the city-builder should turn to Tropico 6. This game casts the player as a megalomaniacal dictator in a fictional Caribbean island nation. Despite the game's wacky tone, it's a deeply challenging experience. Tropico 6 is notorious for boasting fully-simulated citizens, meaning each NPC in the nation has individual desires and motivations. Managing this fickle populace is key to success.
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Tropico 6 features a number of improvements from prior games in the franchise. Most notable, perhaps, is the fact that this game takes place on an archipelago of connected islands, rather than a single landmass. Players also have a degree of customizability, not only over their dictator, but over the palace they live in as well.
6 Age Of Empires IV
A Struggle For Conquest
Age of Empires 4
- Released
- October 28, 2021
- Developer(s)
- Relic Entertainment, World's Edge
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- Genre(s)
- Real-Time Strategy
Age of Empires IV combines the real-time strategy genre with city-building elements in a truly brutal collision. The game tasks players with guiding a civilization from the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance, and this is no mean feat. In addition to successfully battling rival nations and conquering territory, players must manage every aspect of their society.
One of the most difficult things about Age of Empires IV is the player base. The game has picked up some very dedicated fans since its release in 2021, and this makes multiplayer a truly punishing experience for all but the most seasoned players.
5 Farthest Frontier
Taming The Wilderness
- Platform(s): PC
- Released: 2022 (Early Access)
- Developer(s): Crate Entertainment
Farthest Frontier is a relatively obscure entry in the city-builder genre and is still in early access at the time of this writing. However, it already offers a substantial challenge for any fan who's interested. As the title suggests, Farthest Frontier sends players to the edge of the explored world, and tasks them with surviving and flourishing in the wilderness.
Surviving in Farthest Frontier is far from a simple task. The game has a complex farming system and a vast library of buildings to manage as players build their frontier outposts. Villagers have dynamic behaviors and desires to be fulfilled, and they are subject to disease and violence, which the player must strive to protect them from.
4 Surviving Mars
This City-Building Challenge Goes Out Of This World
Surviving Mars
- Released
- March 15, 2018
- Developer(s)
- Haemimont Games, Abstraction Games
- Platform(s)
- Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 4
- Genre(s)
- Simulation
The title alone should give some indication of why Surviving Mars is so difficult. True to form, this 2018 city-builder tasks players with creating and sustaining a habitable colony on the Red Planet itself. Thanks to the planet's naturally inhospitable terrain, players must import most of their resources from Earth, creating a very demanding economy to balance.
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Obtaining basic resources is a struggle enough, but once that's been managed, Surviving Mars has much more to offer. The player's Martian colony can progress down a number of paths, and like many other city-builders, there are a variety of wonders to work toward. Surviving Mars also has story quests that require the player to contend with a variety of additional dynamic obstacles to the successful maintenance of their Martian colony.
3 They Are Billions
Holding Back The Tide
They Are Billions
They Are Billions is a steampunk strategy game with base building and colony simulation in a distant future about building and managing human colonies after a zombie apocalypse destroyed almost all of human kind. Now there are only a few thousand humans left alive that must struggle to survive under the threat of the infection. Billions of infected roam around the world in massive swarms seeking the last living human colonies.
Lead the campaign under the orders of Quintus Crane, ruler of the New Empire, and reconquer the lands devastated by the infected. Explore 48 missions with more than 60 hours of gameplay as you build fortified colonies to survive in infected territories. Destroy the swarms of infected with the Imperial Army. Make your colonies evolve with more than 90 available technologies and explore the ancient human fortresses with your Hero.
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While the goal of most city-builders is to flourish and thrive, They Are Billions is much more focused on simply surviving. This steampunk strategy game is set in a post-apocalyptic world which has been all but totally conquered by legions of zombies. Players must build and maintain a safe haven to protect against the hordes, all the while managing population levels and resources.
While the basic city-building mechanics can be tricky to manage, the biggest threat in They Are Billions is the unending tide of the undead. A poorly protected base can be overrun swiftly. Maintaining strong defenses and keeping a good troop of defenders is essential to survival in this brutal zombie-infested world.
2 Banished
Building Up From Nothing
Banished
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. They are born, grow older, work, have children of their own, and eventually die. Keeping them healthy, happy, and well-fed are essential to making your town grow. Building new homes is not enough—there must be enough people to move in and have families of their own.
Banished has no skill trees. Any structure can be built at any time, provided that your people have collected the resources to do so. There is no money. Instead, your hard-earned resources can be bartered away with the arrival of trade vessels. These merchants are the key to adding livestock and annual crops to the townspeople’s diet; however, their lengthy trade route comes with the risk of bringing illnesses from abroad.
There are twenty different occupations that the people in the city can perform from farming, hunting, and blacksmithing, to mining, teaching, and healing. No single strategy will succeed for every town. Some resources may be more scarce from one map to the next. The player can choose to replant forests, mine for iron, and quarry for rock, but all these choices require setting aside space into which you cannot expand.
The success or failure of a town depends on the appropriate management of risks and resources.
- Released
- February 18, 2014
- Developer(s)
- Shining Rock Software
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Genre(s)
- Strategy, City Builder
In Banished, players look after an isolated community of outcasts who must create a thriving settlement deep in the wilderness. Survival is a major focus of the game, and much of the burgeoning town's economy is focused on providing citizens with the basic resources they need to stay alive.
In addition to keeping people well-supplied, the player must protect them from hazards like natural disasters, starvation, aging, and even depression. With no outside aide available, Banished accurately simulates the experience of surviving in the middle of nowhere, with no one but the rest of the community to rely on.
1 Frostpunk
Fear Of Freezing
Frostpunk
- Released
- April 24, 2018
- Developer(s)
- 11 Bit Studios
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
- Genre(s)
- City Builder, Survival
Frostpunk is likely the most unforgiving city-builder on the market. This game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that has been consumed by a worldwide volcanic winter, blanketing everything in ice and snow. Resources in this frozen world are scarce, and every decision can and likely will result in citizens dying.
The primary difficulty of Frostpunk comes from the decisions it forces the player to make. Oftentimes, the more moral choice will actively make things harder for the player and their community. When playing Frostpunk, fans must constantly question how far they're willing to go to make sure their society clings to life.
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