The best building games involve building cities, cars, and infrastructure. But all come with that sense of achievement gained from making something by your own hand.
The first building games can be traced as far back as 1989, with the arrival of the one and only SimCity by Maxis Studio. With novice ideas and innovative gameplay, the game instantly gained popularity worldwide, becoming one of the most iconic games in gaming history.
Unfortunately, the brand that pioneered the genre didn’t manage to withstand the test of time.
Building games are a great way to indulge some architectural creativity, but there are so many great building games on PC to choose from. From fully-fledged triple-A titles to compulsive free PC games, the best PC games incorporate free-range building and allow us to stake our claim on another world and bend it to our will.
Best building games on PC in 2023
Minecraft
I mean, duh! But in case you have been living under a rock, Minecraft is a sandbox game with blocky graphics and an emphasis on creativity. In an almost endless world, you can build impenetrable fortresses and cool Minecraft houses to fend off hostile Minecraft mobs in survival mode or ramp up the danger in hardcore mode.
The possibilities are limitless, and that is before you expand the game with Minecraft mods and Minecraft maps, just in case your creative juices are not quite flowing.
Minecraft is the building game that has captured the imaginations of millions of gamers worldwide and established itself as the first game that comes to mind when we think of the best building games. You can even get the game to construct amazing worlds for you with the best Minecraft seeds.
Creative mode is where Minecraft shines as one of the best building games on PC, though. Free from the constraints that face builders of the poxy real world, you have access to an unlimited number of blocks and items in creative mode. Here, there are no limits to your creativity.
And if you have Game Pass, it’s free too.
Fortnite
Fortnite is also one of the best building games for you if you are a fan of Minecraft. It is also a favorite co-op game if you’re looking to build with friends. In fact, Epic Games’ founder, Tim Sweeney described it as “Minecraft meets Left 4 Dead”, and it is every bit as enticing as that sounds.
And that is without mentioning its other form as one of the best battle royale games on PC.
In vanilla Fortnite, your homeland has been ravaged by the mysterious darkness known as ‘The Storm’, and you and your three companions must fight to reclaim it. This is where the building game element comes in: you will need to construct forts and traps to ward off the remaining monsters.
Building is also essential in Battle Royale. However, this time, it is for your survival against 99 other players. As you scavenge for gear and attempt to stay within the shrinking safe place known as the ‘Eye of the Storm’, hastily constructing fortresses can be the difference between life and death.
Anno 1800
Anno 1800 is the latest installment in this iconic strategy series, which was developed by one of Ubisoft’s studios. Like the previous games in the franchise, your role is to build a prospering city. It is essential to plan the infrastructure in detail so that you will have sufficient materials.
It is also crucial to care about the happiness of your citizens. Aside from the game mechanics normally available in city builders, the title also offers diplomacy and combat modes. Yet, they are substantially less intriguing than expanding your town.
Valheim
Valheim might be a survival game at heart, but you still need a sturdy base to call home and keep you safe from troll attacks and hordes of greylings. You will spend most of your time crafting, fighting, and exploring Valheim’s many biomes, but players with an eye for building can appreciate the unique materials and limitations the Viking game has to offer.
Surviving in the cold Norse world is already a pain, and Valheim takes things up a notch by forcing you to build with structural integrity and air ventilation in mind.
While it’s nice to exercise your creativity, even the material-gathering process can be therapeutic. And though building constraints may be off-putting, experienced players do not let these issues get in the way of creating homes fit for hundreds of Vikings, from a Viking Longhouse to a pleasant meadow dwelling. Some even go as far as recreating Skyrim’s High Hrothgar, or building Sauron’s tower from Lord of the Rings.
Dawn of Man
Dawn of Man blends the mechanics of building games with survival elements. Players start with a prehistoric settlement, which they must expand, lead different ages, and prepare for any circumstances.
Hunting and manual gathering are not as important as growing it yourself. The seasons play a critical role in the gameplay, too. As soon as winter comes, finding enough food becomes more challenging, meaning one has to stock on food to survive. Wild animals and hostile people from other settlements also don’t make things any easier.
Trove
Trove is a free-building game and sandbox MMORPG (Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) featuring countless realms and biomes. It is an open-ended adventure from Trion Worlds that lets you build to your heart’s content.
First, you need to get your cornerstone – your home base that you take from world to world – up to scratch. You can craft new weapons, creatures, and environments when you are not tricking out your home with the help of the many Trove mods and Trove console commands.
You need resources and loot if you are going to make your cornerstone the envy of all other Trove players. Thankfully, procedurally-generated dungeons keep looting a fun experience as you scamper through unique worlds and complete quests with your pals.
Trove is one of the best building games on PC to play with friends.
Frostpunk
Even though Frostpunk’s city-building element is not overly complex, it’s still one of the essential components of this game. It’s set in an alternative reality, where Earth is devastated by a second ice age. There are only a couple of survivors, some of whom found shelter by a steam-powered heat system source.
As you follow the plot, you need to erect more and more buildings around the source. Remember that the farther it gets from the “furnace,” the colder the area and the greater the adverse impact on your citizens’ health. The game makes you make difficult decisions, which are often not moral, but they still have a significant influence on the life in your settlement.
Roblox
Roblox is still one of the most played games worldwide, and that’s largely because of its mix of potential and accessibility. Rather than building objects within a pre-made game world, Roblox instead lets you build the objects, the game world, and even the game.
Satisfactory
Three words to describe Satisfactory? Conveyor belt porn.
Sorry, that’s a pun, same as the game’s title, because it is all about colonizing a planet by constructing elaborate automated factories. The game encourages you to create increasingly beautiful assembly lines that hug the abstract landscape of the alien world you now call home.
While Satisfactory is a building game at its core, you can also indulge in light combat and explore the terrain with a range of vehicles. And – thanks to four-player multiplayer – you can also tour the genius creations of your best pals. But the best thing about Satisfactory is that you can tour your creations in first-person, marveling at every automated vehicle, production line, and monolithic processing facility in more detail than is ever afforded by the traditional top-down view.
Cities: Skylines
This is certainly one of the best building games out there. Whether you create a city replete with natural disasters or piles of corpses lining the street, or create a vegan utopia with the Green Cities expansion, you are bound to have fun in this city-building game.
Cities: Skylines has all the tools to give building game experts everything they need to create wonderfully intricate cityscapes.
Surviving Mars
Pack your things. We are going into space.
Published by Paradox Interactive, Surviving Mars combines city building with economic strategy. Haemimont Games studio, which also worked on Tropico 4 and Tropico 5, presents you with the challenge of building the first Earth colony on Mars.
Firstly, you must manage the movements of rovers and robots that prepare the basic structures to secure the accommodation for astronauts. And as people start arriving, the fun part begins.
Each person has individual characteristics and indicators that change depending on the conditions he is provided with. You think you can please everybody? Take up this challenge.
No Man’s Sky
Hold up! We are not going back to Earth just yet. No Man’s Sky is a fully-fledged house-building game in space that allows us to let loose your inner space architect.
Offered in all four game modes, you can have unlimited bases across the stars, which you can use for farming, storage, healing, and shield recharge. You can also use them as homes for the NPCs you recruit across the galaxy. No Man’s Sky also received a free graphics update on PC to go along with the next-gen console upgrades.
Space is a dangerous place, so you need to ensure your home can support life. Do this by flying over the planet’s surface, using your ship’s scanner from space, or by building a signal booster. Once you have found a planet that can support your task force, you can start using your resources to build a home in a galaxy far, far away.
You don’t have to be lonely in your space pad, though – get some help creating space castles from a friend in multiplayer. Just make sure you put the Hoover round first.
Fallout 4
In previous Fallout games, you had to make do with just collecting loot, assembling a cast of colorful companions, and blowing raiders’ brains out with a massive laser. But, with Fallout 4, you have a house-building game, too.
Once Preston Garvey has, once again, asked you to liberate an area on behalf of the Home Guard-esque Minutemen, you can start to use the junk burning a hole in your carry weight to give post-apocalyptic Boston a new lick of paint. You can pick prefabricated structures to get your base going tout suite.
As the population of your burgeoning town grows, it is easy to ignore the main quest and treat Fallout 4 as a de facto house-building game. Inviting wandering entrepreneurs to set up shop and trade in your settlement is one of many perks you have access to as you attract more bodies. You can even set up supply lines between multiple settlements and establish yourself as a post-apocalypse property magnate.
The Sims 4
The Sims 4 can be one of the most satisfying building games on PC. Enter build mode to create anything from a trendy city pad to a resplendent mansion.
Building in The Sims 4 takes some getting used to, so it might be worth having a pen and paper to hand to properly realize your dream abode. Start simple by keeping your exterior to a square shape before you try something more complex. Once you have chosen a roof you can experiment with room layouts, decor, and furnishings. Then, once you have added a pool and a tricked-out sound system, even the cool kids might stop by.
Planet Zoo
Planet Zoo is for you if you love builder games but feel like your creations are wasted on ungrateful humans. Here, you can enjoy watching creatures great and small clambering around your thoughtfully built enclosures, even though it is still for the enjoyment of ungrateful guests.
As long as you satisfy your animals’ habitat needs, avoid confronting them with plants from the wrong biome, and ensure they have a space to shelter from the weather and the public’s curious gaze, you’re free to create all sorts of magnificent palaces and immersive viewing stations to showcase your critters. You even get to release the animals you’ve nurtured into the wild once they’ve grown big and strong, making this a truly satisfying building game.
The enclosures you create have a real impact on the behavior of their inhabitants. For example, building a pagoda too close to a fence can entice an animal to make a brave leap for freedom, sending zoo visitors into a frenzy as they scramble to get away from the menacing delinquent.
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