Who doesn’t like to have some control in video games? Instead of having a linear storyline and set-up, how about we get to build cool stuff in an open world and dictate the terms of our own! That’s the sort of game list we’ll be looking forward to and what better way to start than taking a look at Frostpunk first.
Frostpunk is a survival city-building strategy video game. It is a survival game that tests how meticulously you can plan your surroundings. It is a very attention-grabbing game and requires every bit of nous of yours. The game features several challenging scenarios and different challenges throughout.
The game is set in the year 1886, in the game you get to live and build a city that is affected by global volcanic winter. You are the leader or the “captain” of a city and you have to build the city around the generators pre-installed in several cities and fill it with food, coal, wood, steel, and all of the resources required to run the city.
10 Best Games like Frostpunk
- Surviving Mars
- Cities: Skylines
- Aven Colony
- Anno 1800
- They are billions
- RimWorld
- The Long Dark
- Tropico 6
- This war of mine
- Simcity 4
Surviving Mars
Developers: Haemimont Games
Release Year: 2018
Key features:
- City-building
- In-game aesthetic
- Challenging gameplay
Surviving Mars, like Frostpunk, is a survival city-building game. As a player in the game, you have to build a colony on Mars and you have to oversee the construction of the colony. It is a multi-platform game available on every gaming console as well as on PC.
In the game, you have to choose a sponsoring nation and then you land up on Mars with all the types of equipment and resources to build or colonize a certain part of it. As a player, you can bring food, concrete, technology, metal, and drones from the Earth. You have a limited supply of everything so you have to use the resources carefully. Manage your water, oxygen, and food properly and build a sustainable living dome on Mars.
Cities: Skylines
Developers: Colossal Order
Release Year: 2015
Key features:
- Excellent graphics
- Urban planning
Cities: Skylines is a city-building game and like Frostpunk you have to build the city from the ground up. Your sole aim of the game is to develop the city and make it into a mega city filled with premium features. Cities: Skylines is also a multi-platform game
You start the game with a plot of land and some in-game money then slowly you build the city around it with meticulous planning. As a player, you start adding roads, sewage systems, buildings, banks, transport systems, police force, healthcare facilities, and much more. You have to build a proper city and attract people to live in your built city. As you go further into the simulation you get to add or reduce taxes, maintain traffic, and all the other hectic features come into play.
Aven Colony
Developers: Mothership Entertainment
Release Year: 2017
Key features:
- Outer world experience
- Great map design overall
- Day/Night cycle
Aven Colony is a city-building strategic game. Aven Colony like Frostpunk is a strategic game based on building a sustainable living. In Aven Colony, everything has to be rationed to perfection as the game is based on an Alien planet.
In this game, as you start making buildings from scratch from tent buildings to skyscrapers to space elevators colonists will start to arrive in numbers. It is up to you to create and maintain oxygen production as well as other critical resources for the colonists. There is also an additional challenge of the day cycle and night cycle where in the night cycle everything freezes so there won’t be any food production at night. It is a challenging game but very intriguing as well.
Anno 1800
Developers: Blue Byte
Release Year: 2019
Key features:
- Ancient-world graphics that look cool
- Two game modes – Multiplayer and Sandbox
We’ve gone a couple of centuries back for this game but the theme remains the same. Anno 1800 is a city-building game just like Frostpunk but it takes place in the 19th Century during the Industrial revolution.
In Anno 1800, you have to build a city with architecture from the Victorian Era, you can build houses, factories, and even merchant ships for trading, and combat ships. The game has it all from the bygone era and it is fantastic to revisit that era in which you can create your world. The game also features multiplayer mode and sandbox and is available only on Microsoft Windows.
They Are Billions
Developers: Numantian Games
Release Year: 2017
Key features:
- Superb graphics
- Eery and quite apt music on the map
We’ve moved onto a post-apocalyptic survival game but it still is similar to Frostpunk as you will have to build a base from the ground up to survive from the Zombies. They Are Billions is a strategic game meant to test your mettle and how you survive in a post-apocalyptic Zombie infested world.
In this game, you are required to create a base to protect yourself and others from hordes of zombies. You have to plan the layout and defense of your base, you can pillage nearby villages for resources. The resources include gold, wood, workers, stone, oil, and much more, to create different structures on your base you need different resources so you have to collect them accordingly.
RimWorld
Developers: Ludeon Studios
Release Year: 2017
Key features:
- Strong and efficient AI presence
- A very gripping storyline
A game that is similar to Frostpunk but is still different from Frostpunk. We bring you RimWorld which is a city-building strategic game with AI-powered scenarios within the game. There is random story generation, characters, combat, colonization, and more features like that included in the game.
In RimWorld, you are stranded on a planet far away from Earth and you will be given random story generation to progress but the core story of the game will remain the same. You build colonization where other colonists will also stay, collect resources, and rescue or capture other colonists who have crash-landed on your planet. Your ultimate goal in this one is to build a spaceship or find a broken-down spaceship, repair it and use it to escape from the stranded planet.
The Long Dark
Developers: Hinterland Studios
Release Year: 2017
Key features:
- A proper tactical and strategy-based game
- Excellent graphics
A bit different take on the survival mode, The Long Dark is a first-person survival game. Like Frostpunk you have to survive grueling challenges within the game to win. As a player, you have to survive different terrains with challenges of their own within the game. It tests your strategic side and survival instinct.
Instead of building a colony or a civilization, in The Long Dark, you have to survive the taxing environment of Canadian wilderness which is affected by a geomagnetic storm. You have to gather or hunt for food, avoid the wildlife hunting for you, gather weapons, and upgrade them as time passes. It is a complete survival game with brilliant graphics and is available on every platform.
Tropico 6
Developers: Limbic Entertainment
Release Year: 2019
Key features:
- Like its predecessors, excellent graphics and storyline and even more city-building options
- Watertight map and storyline
Our first official Political simulation game on the list. Tropico 6 is a construction, political, and management game. Like the Frostpunk game, you have to build your little world albeit on islands.
You start as “El Presidente” in Tropico 6, you are the head honcho of a Caribbean island nation. You have to build buildings, roads, and bridges that can join two islands in your territory, roads, hospitals, and industries. It is a strategic game designed to let your creative juices flow and you can do that on an island country!
This War of Mine
Developers: 11 Bit Studios
Release Year: 2014
Notable Features:
- A very well spread out map
- Good tactical set-up and gameplay
As close to a Frostpunk game as you can get. It is a survival game based on where you can take advantage of the environment surrounding you. There are a total of 12 playing characters in the game, each with different qualities.
This War of Mine takes place during World War and you are stuck with a few other civilians in a besieged fictional city. You must gather tools and food for your character and other civilians as they are not war-trained people. Throughout the game, you have to keep tabs on your mood, health, and hunger levels. As the main character, it is up to you to take care of the civilians hiding with you until a ceasefire occurs after a random duration.
SimCity 4
Developers: Maxis
Release Year: 2003
Key features:
- Whacky
- The ultimate city-building game with great features and cool graphics
We’ve probably saved the best for last. SimCity 4 is a city-building simulation game. Like Frostpunk SimCity 4 it is a city-building game from the scratch with unlimited potential. The possibilities are endless in this one.
In SimCity 4, you get to create your land by terraforming. After that, you can design a whole city on it. A whole settlement. You can create skyscrapers, hospitals, police stations, transport facilities for civilians, and much more.
You can also designate different zones for different projects such as residential, industrial, or commercial. To oversee a successful city you have to manage your finances, quality of life, and environment pretty well or else everything goes Kaput!
Final Thoughts
City-building games are always fun. You can make your dream projects here, or just build cities and civilizations to your own taste.
If you do like to build a city or a civilization from scratch then we have the perfect list of games to get you started!
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