Summary
Simulation games about managing numbers and surviving disasters can be a lot of fun. However, a big part of the appeal to this genre is its ability to provide a reasonably realistic playground built on physics, economics, or ecology, in which players can find ways to express themselves artistically, whether that’s through terrain sculpting, base building, or urban planning.
While not as ubiquitous or popular as open world or horror games, highly detailed simulations are much-beloved by a cliche of the gaming community, but those that render a whole world of possibility and hand the tools of creation over to the player should be prized above all. From colony builders to theme parks, these simulation games, ranked by their ability to render a detailed and by the creative tools they offer, don’t just simulate, but invite players to shape the world itself.
The Sims 4might not offer vast open-world landscapes or terrain-heavy customization like some other entries here, but when it comes to shaping lives and living spaces, few games can compete. The game’s robust Build Mode allows players to create houses, apartments, and community lots with impressive freedom, including shaping roofs, raising platforms, designing stylish interiors, and placing an extensive selection of household objects (in any size).
Players can elevate or sink the land to sculpt custom yards and build on uneven surfaces. What goes on top within the boundaries of the yard is entirely up to the player’s imagination. Add in a powerful gallery system and a rich library of expansion content, and even withthe commonSims 4criticisms(like the lack of an open world, heavy reliance on DLC, and occasional missing features),The Sims 4remains a top-tier simulation sandbox for creative architects of domestic drama and interior design.
Frontier’sPlanet Coasteris a spiritual successor to theRollerCoaster Tycoonseries, but with far more power in its creative toolbox. Players are encouraged to design their dream theme park from scratch, with complete control over layout, terrain, ride placement, and guest experiences.
The real creative magic lies in the building tools, which allow for the crafting of incredibly detailed structures and scenery using modular pieces. From realistic recreations of real-world parks to entirely fantastical lands, players can manipulate terrain, design complex rides, and sculpt immersive environments for visitors (and even enjoy a park andcheck out the rides from their perspective) with surprising freedom.
Planet Zooputs players in charge of designing and managing expansive wildlife parks, where every animal’s needs and every inch of terrain matter. Using detailed terrain tools, players can sculpt land, build habitats, carve rivers, raise mountains, shape entire ecosystems from the ground up, and ultimately mold environments that match each species’ natural biome. From desert enclosures to lush jungle zones and snowy fields.
Everything within these environments, such a temperature regulation, nutrition, and enrichment items, requires careful planning. A robust modular building system allows for the creation of custom viewing platforms, shelters, and park infrastructure, meaning that players can craft more than austere bars and pens, but a breathtaking realm forbeautiful animals to live their virtual livesin peace (or suffering, depending on the player’s competence).
3Dwarf Fortress
A Deep World Ready For Sculpting
In Dwarf Fortress, players guide a group of dwarves as they dig down into the earth (as deep as they dare) and attempt to build a thriving fortress, contending with everything from cave-ins to forgotten beasts to madness and magma. From the top to the bottom of every randomly generated world, every system is simulated in detail, from history and fluid physics and weather to individual limb injuries and social grudges. The only ostensible downside toDFis its graphical presentation.
While the Steam edition certainly makes thisamazing game readable, it is visually off-puttingto players who like their simulations realistic, or at least flashy. The game’s true beauty lies in its emergent storytelling, but players also have an incredible amount of control over how they shape the world underground and above. No two fortresses are the same, and most players eventually learn that losing is fun.
Eco is a unique multiplayer simulation game that challenges players to build a functioning society while preserving the environment. The twist is that a looming meteor threatens the world, and players must work together against the clock to develop the technology to stop it, but without completely wrecking the planet to do so. Players can get into just about anything imaginable, from living as a homesteader to running for public office.
However, everything players do, from cutting trees to mining coal, affects theshared balance of the world, which must also be protected. Terrain can be shaped, ecosystems can collapse, and the economy and government are entirely player-run. With fully customizable servers and a focus on cooperation and consequence, Eco turns world-shaping into a social, creative, and scientific experiment all at once.
Booting up a game ofCities: Skylinescan be dangerous in a couple of ways. It has the “just one more addition” appeal that can enchant players into an eleven-hour game, but for players with sufficient creativity, it can make walking around the stroad-plagued eyesore that are modern Global North cities a nightmare, knowing they could be so much more with a little more vision and planning. That’s because winning inCities: Skylinesis as much a personal objective of creative expression as it is an economic one.
A player’s main aim might be tobuild an urban environmentto make the most amount of people happy and wealthy, but being able to shape a landscape to perfection is also a deeply satisfying creative exercise. Players can terraform terrain, carve riverbeds, build up hills, and flatten land to make room for towering skyline clusters or charming suburban sprawls. Roads can be meticulously curved to maximize aesthetic appeal or utility, while zoning, traffic flow, and public transportation systems become brushstrokes in a broader civic canvas.
